Outlining SAP S/4HANA Finance for Group Reporting Data Collection

ABC Corporation is transitioning from another consolidation solution and has companies in both S/4HANA and legacy systems. ABC Corporation has decided to implement SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting together with SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection. Robert is a consolidation consultant and is following instructions from a lead consolidation consultant. He must execute the SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection project.

In this context, SAP S/4HANA Finance is used to establish data transformations from legacy systems and create input forms for manual entry of financial data and ownership data.

As ABC Corporation also wants to allow end users manually add actual data in input forms as well as comments, Robert must create input forms using all functionality Manual Data Collection offers. He must also set up working with ad hoc items and question and answer forms.

Robert wants to:

• See how SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection is embedded in SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting.
• Understand and explain the key functions and benefits of SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection.
• Get into SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection from a technical point of view.
• Get an overview of the release strategy of SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection.
• Understand the exercise scenario.

SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting is a consolidation solution integrated with SAP S/4HANA. It is a global platform for data entry, preparation, consolidation, and reporting.

To ensure flexibility, SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting has been developed based on a building block methodology. SAP S/4HANA is the central block integrating local and group close. It is available both in the cloud and on-premise. Additional building blocks are available in the cloud, such as the data collection apps for gathering information from your decentralized subsidiaries but also from your SAP-integrated companies or SAP's planning and reporting apps in SAP Analytics Cloud. A further building block is SAP Disclosure Management.

SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection (GRDC) is a set of apps that helps you collect financial and non-financial data, comments, ad hoc items, and questions and answers into SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting, for example, in the ACDOCU consolidation table.

GRDC is a strategic tool in SAP's suite of consolidation solutions, providing businesses with an efficient, integrated, and user-friendly platform to trawl, consolidate, and interpret their financial data. Therefore, GRDC is part of SAP's product strategy for consolidation.

GRDC provides two main features:

• With GRDC Data Mapping, you can automate the mapping, transformation, and data load from SAP and non-SAP systems into ACDOCU.
• With GRDC Forms, you can manually enter data, comments, ad hoc items, and questions and answers in ACDOCU using pre-delivered forms or by creating your own.

SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection is designed to complement your data collection process either through manual data collection or automatically through data mapping / Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) capabilities.

If you run SAP S/4HANA for Group Reporting in a standalone mode, you can collect financial and non-financial data or comments from your subsidiaries with SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection.

If you run SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting in combination with SAP S/4HANA, SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection helps you complement released data from ACDOCA, for example, by collecting statistical information or splitting sub-items.

Also, SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection helps you quickly collect data from companies you recently acquired and that are not yet integrated into your SAP S/4HANA system.

From a functional perspective, you can take the following actions:

• Import data from remote CSV source files.
• Import data from ECC.
• Import data from remote systems with Import API.
• Import ACDOCA data from remote systems.
• Import additional ACDOCA data for statistical information (for example, aging information of AR/AP).
• Copy missing consolidation units' reported data for non-material consolidation units.
• Run step consolidation.
• Supplement C/I control data.
• Calculate annual net income for non-balancing books (for example, rounding differences from local ledger data transfers).
• Migrate Financial Consolidation data.

SAP Group Reporting Data Collection (GRDC) comes with several benefits that make it an essential tool for enterprises.

Here are the main advantages:

• Management of complex group structures: Some Enterprises have numerous subsidiaries or global operations across different geographies and use different ERP systems. They can use GRDC to effectively collect financial data from these varied entities for consolidation.
• Acceleration of corporate closing processes: If your goal is to accelerate corporate closing processes, GRDC provides tools that streamline and accelerate consolidation and closing procedures.
• Integration of diverse data sources: If your organization must integrate financial, managerial, and operational data from diverse sources into a single source, you can use GRDC.
• Assistance with statutory and management reporting requirements: GRDC assists your company in meeting financial regulations by providing a complete and accurate picture of the company's financial status.
• Fast onboarding of new companies: GRDC makes the onboarding process faster for newly acquired companies. It maps their existing financial data to S/4 HANA's structure, allowing seamless integration.
• Manual data collection: If you need to collect manual data, GRDC can facilitate this process, enabling users to input additional data directly into the consolidation table either using pre-delivered forms or by creating customized ones.
• Data transformation: GRDC also provides an automated data transformation and load process through its data mapping functionality. This is useful if you must harmonize your local accounting directly into your consolidation.
• Cloud-based solutions: If you want a scalable and efficient cloud-based solution for financial data collection and consolidation, GRDC can integrate with both SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA on-premise.

SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection is developed on the SAP Cloud Platform, SAP's platform as a service for creating new apps or extending existing apps in a secure SAP-managed cloud computing environment. The SAP Cloud Platform helps simplify enterprise integration across hybrid, heterogeneous, and large-scale landscapes.

From a technical perspective, SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection is a set of cloud-native apps deployed on the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). The apps connect to SAP S/4HANA and rely on a backend that handles business objects. The apps are not part of SAP S/4HANA. From a UX perspective, SAP Group Reporting Data Collection application is embedded in the SAP Fiori Launchpad of SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting. As a result, the connectivity to SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection is transparent for the business users.

You always use SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection in combination with SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting. This is mandatory because all master data and financial figures are stored in the ACDOCU table in SAP S/4HANA.

To store all your configured items, SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection uses services available on SAP BTP, such as the SAP HANA services as database.

Communication with the SAP S/4HANA backend relies on the connectivity and destination services. With these services, you can define the location of the SAP S/4HANA instance linked to your subscription and establish a tunnel to access it.

You access the apps in a provider-subscriber mode. SAP manages a sub-account in which apps deploy and where required services instantiate. From your own sub-account, you can subscribe to the apps and manage your dedicated configuration (for example, the forms you created or your data-mapping definitions).

Integration with SAP S/4HANA is achieved through Remote Function Call and public APIs.

Here are some examples:

• Reported Financial Data for Group Reporting - Bulk Import
• Master Data for Group Reporting - Read
• Transaction Data for Group Reporting - Read

SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting Data Collection employs a strategic approach to its release management, ensuring that the software continuously evolves to meet its users' growing needs.

• Frequent Updates

  GRDC is a cloud-native application and SAP has the goal of releasing updates on a bi-weekly basis. Each release aims to fix bugs, introduce new features, and improve overall system performance.

• Integration with SAP S/4HANA

  SAP ensures that it releases GRDC updates that align with the updates in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA on-premise. This strategy guarantees seamless integration of the application with the entire SAP S/4HANA suite.

• Customer-Managed

  GRDC follows the "provider/subscriber" concept. SAP deploys and maintains the app in a provider sub-account. Through your sub-account, you subscribe to the app deployed on SAP's provider account. The customer then manages the app, that is, you own your configuration and SAP owns and is responsible for the code line.

• Backward Compatibility

  Each new release of GRDC is designed to work with previous versions of the software. As SAP comes up with new releases, customers can continue to use older versions of GRDC without it affecting their data or processes.

• On-Premise and Cloud Release

  The GRDC release strategy is adapted for both on-premise and cloud applications. Depending on your business operations, you can choose the most suitable deployment alternative.

The figure, Release Strategy for Customers Using SAP S/4HANA Cloud, describes the GRDC release strategy for customers using a SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.

The figure, Release Strategy for Customers using SAP S/4HANA on-Premise, describes the GRDC release strategy for customers using SAP S/4HANA on-premise.

The figure, Group Structure, represents the group structure of the exercise scenario.

The group is founded on the 31st of March 2025. It contains two consolidation groups which must generate published financial statements:

• The European consolidation group GREU##.
• The Southern European consolidation group GRSE##.

The figure, Group Structure, also describes the direct shares between the investor and the company. For example:

• The corporate holding company in Germany (TA00) owns 70% of the legal subsidiary in Spain (ES##) and 100% of the legal subsidiary in Swiss (CH##).
• The Spanish company (ES##) owns 70% of a company in Portugal (PT##) and 90% of an Italian company (IT##).

These relationships form the corporate investment structure.

We assume that the investment of TA00 in CH## is a last-minute investment at the 31st of March in 2025. This is when loading reported financial data using GRDC has already finished. Therefore, the reported financial data of CH## must be entered manually into ACDOCU using a GRDC form.

Additionally, next to the data upload for TA00 from ACDOCA to ACDOCU, the ownership percentage of TA00 in CH## must be enriched using a form.

The scenario is set up in consolidation version M##.