Computerized Accounting in an ERP Systems

This report discusses the benefits of SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance for businesses and its difference from current SAP ERP FICO. It also provides a brief historical overview of SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance and case studies of companies that faced issues while migrating to it. The report also covers the integration between FI and CO modules for consistency in management accounting reporting.

Running head: COMPUTERIZED ACCOUNTING IN AN ERP SYSTEMS
Computerized Accounting in an ERP Systems
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

COMPUTERIZED ACCOUNTING IN AN ERP SYSTEMS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
A brief historical overview of SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance..........................................2
The difference between SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance and current SAP ERP FICO......6
Benefits of SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance for businesses................................................8
Case Studies of companies and the issues they faced migrating to SAP S/4HANA suite for
Finance...................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
The internal reporting in the decision making for management system support is
identified by the management accounting procedures. It has its distinct characteristics from
the traditional financial accounting and is hence, logically referred to as external accounting
procedures. The process of Management Accounting is thus represented as the Controlling or
the CO Module in SAP that mostly covers the requirements for the accounting related to the
cost elements, the over controlling of cost, the controlling of the product cost and the
investigation of the profitability. The introduction of SAP S/4HANA simplifies a lot of
features that have been enhanced to support the features that have been enhanced regarding
the enhancement of the management accounting. Therefore, it has been found to be
improving the reporting capabilities of the management reporting abilities (Oqayyel 2017).
The most important amongst all these features are found to be the integration that occurs
between the FI and CO for establishing a sense of consistency amongst the reporting of
management accounting in both internal and external way. Thus, the following would be a
developed report establishing the detailed information about the SAP S/4HANA suite for
Finance for Management Accounting describing the transitory historic summary of the SAP
S/4HANA suite for Finance, the variances found amongst the SAP S/4HANA suite for
Finance and the latest SAP ERP FICO, the advantages that SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance
has over the occupational systems, the examples related to the case studies for the
organizations and the issues that they have confronted while they tried to transfer to the SAP
S/4HANA suite for Finance systems for Management Accounting.
A brief historical overview of SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance
SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance is represented as the financial applications which
have been industrialized for the SAP S/4HANA ERP Environment. These consist of the set
of financial management systems that are internally related to each other that provide the
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functions for achieving the real time data acquired from the applications like the Enterprise
Resource Planning or ERP. The ERP software system may already be implemented within
the organization previously and this is the source where SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance
collects all the data and operates the financial managements.
Right now, the utilization of the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance applications are
found to be implemented by different business organizations on the basis of the benefits that
it presents to the organization during the management accounting systems (Missbach et al.
2016). Ever since it has been launched in the year 2015 February, it has been found that the
general business suite is adopted by different business organizations irrespective of the
industry that the business belongs to or the region it is established in. The innovative business
operations that is established with the help of the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance systems
provides the set SAP in the business to provide the customers with the digital core that helps
the business executives in rethinking the digital economy set in the business.
Since the past 40 years, SAP has been keeping up with their work for thousands and
thousands of customers for providing them the best business solutions in the industry based
on the complex challenges of the business organizations and the Information Technology
zone of actions. The success that have been seen so far with the ERP solution provided by
SAP has been established to be one of the best business systems run over the course of time
in the past four decades. However, it has been found that the rise in the business structure has
so far found to be evolving and the top trends in the business environment has also been
found to be reshaping the economical connections in the market. These trends include the
possibilities of hyper connectivity, cyber security, supercomputing, sensor enabled smarted
world, cloud computing, robotics, artificial intelligence and even 3D Printing (Costin and
Cojocaru 2017). The combination of all these trends have been found to be formulating the
driving forces of the companies ever since and this has been formulating how the companies
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can easily simplify their operations even in complex situations. The reasons why these would
be regarded as impactful was found to be the underlying growth in the world of digital
economy and the ways by which these have been delivering the utility and solutions as per
the occurrences of the complex events within the organization. SAP essentially and
effectively recognized the trends and the ideals that would be brought about in the economic
world with the utility of the emerging trends. This is why, the developed business trends
started to be affecting the digital framework in a much better and elaborate support to the
customers based on the establishment of the way to the digital transformation of the business.
When in 2011, SAP first launched SAP S/4HANA, it was introduced to business
world as the platform within the memory for the next generation established for the
simplification of the problems that customers usually face in the business with the inventions
and reinventions in the businesses where they could have a generated real-time insight. It was
in 2013 that SAP again introduced SAP used for the suitability of Business Systems used for
the real time support provided or powered by SAP HANA (Suite on HANA) (Suryaman,
Kusumasari and Hediyanto 2018). This discovery was made for the service to be provided to
the companies with the drive they would be having on the real-time businesses and the
simplification of the SAP used for the suitability of Business Systems. The idea behind the
invention was entirely based upon the amalgamation of the transactions of the business and
the analytics put together within a single platform in memory. At the time of its launch, it was
a notable fact that SAP was the only supplier of such services to the business organizations
irrespective of the industry that they would belong in. It has become the singular software
vendor in the market for helping the organizations by allowing them the SAP used for the
suitability of Business Systems with the help of the single platform within the memory
(Nieuwenhuis, Ehrenhard and Prause 2018). There had been a tremendous response from the
market, with over 20,000 business organizations turning to the SAP for their business
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solutions. This made the SAP one of the fastest growing product in the business scenario at
that point of time. These allowed the business to move ahead and plan for providing the
customers with better performances and implement even better standards or solutions with
innovative provisions.
Later, in 2014, SAP shifted the business focus to the precise segmentation of
businesses and customers for moving their focus to the real time insights in the finance
departments and abridge the finance systems of the business organizations. This made the
business organizations go through the solution in the face of SAP Simple Finance provided
by the SAP HANA. The new solutions helped the business organizations to remove the
redundancies in data (Linke and Strahringer 2018). Even after all these, SAP did not stop
innovating and thus they started to make sure that the new business processes and business
suites need to be developed. They had the idea in mind that these would not just provide the
business organizations with the most innovative solutions to their problems but they would
also leverage value to the business addressing the special and intricate needs of the business.
This is what compelled the business to make sure that they develop SAP S/4HANA or the
SAP used for the suitability of Business Systems 4 HANA, had been thought out as a nascent
product and the best product by SAP till date and largest innovation developed and presented
to the market by February 2015. SAP S/4HANA had been the total and complete SAP used
for the suitability of Business Systems built for the most unconventional platform within the
memory of SAP HANA. The solution was so appreciated in the industry and the market that
the innovation was also been presented with the award with the Red Dot Award for Design
Concept (Riesner and Sauer 2017). The innovation and standing of SAP S/4HANA provide
the business organizations with the utmost simplifications of business models like customer
adaptation, user experience, data model, decision making in business, delivery of models, and
business process. It also helps the business organizations to innovate the products like
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Internet of Things, Mobile first business networks, Big Data and various others. This started
helping the business organizations in the best way possible by enabling them run their
business moves to be developed by simple procedures with the help of better digital
economy.
The difference between SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance and current SAP ERP
FICO
There have been various cases where the business organizations were found to be
implementing the utility and advantages of the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance systems for
enabling the business organization with the simplest solutions to their complex problems
(Plattner and Leukert 2016). It has been found that the simplifications have been enhancing
the feature of the business and helping the businesses with their problems regarding
management accounting. This is why, the improvement has also been led on to the business
organization with their management business reporting capabilities (Singh 2017). The
integration has been also enhanced in the business with the utility of the SAP ERP functions
of FI and CO that integrates the business operations setting up the consistency regarding the
details in the sub modules that handle SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance.
Mostly, the SAP FICO stand for the Financial Accounting and control over the
business that have been playing a very important functions for the business organizations by
providing them with the utility of ERP solutions for both the modules of FI and CO
(Missbach et al. 2016). These modules have the capability of the Financial and Transactional
data. This forms an important component for all of the SAP employments where the SAP FI
are used for Balance Sheets and others. The implementation of the SAP FICO modules is
integrated with the other SAP modules like the Materials Management functions and the
Sales Distribution Modules (Salmon and Wild 2016). The amalgamations are found to be
occurring with the Production Planning, Maintenance of the Plant and Systems required for a
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Project. The SAP FI module are often found to be receiving several postings from different
modules like that of the other modules that it is amalgamated with, like the module for
Materials Management, the Sales and Distribution Model, and even the Human Resource
Model through distribution (Burns 2018).
The transactions related to accounting systems, that are specially made in the
Logistics module, are especially developed through the help of Financial Accounting in the
real-time, set by the involuntary account determining. This is another way by which the data
generated within the organization can be passed on to the Controlling Module. Although,
there are the presence of a number of different sub modules. These can be listed as the
Accounting for General Ledger, Receivables of Accounts, Consolidation, Asset Accounting,
Accounts Payables, Special Purpose Ledger, Bank Accounting and Travel Management
(Densborn et al. 2017).
Where, the SAP CO module or the SAP Controlling Module performs an extremely
significant part in the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance application where decision making
performed by the management body is supported through the integrated functions (Bardhan
et al. 2017). This is where the organizations utilize the module for the reporting purpose that
are required for the internal financial reporting. The organizational units that are used to
represent the activities for controlling in this case belongs to the CO module and it represents
all the controlling activities for the Cost Centre Accounting. These also includes the activities
like Product Costing, Profit Centre Accounting, Profitability and others. The SAP CO
Module is also dependent upon the various sub-modules consisting of Cost Controlling
related to the product, Accounting centred to the Cost, Accounting related to the Profit
estimations, Cost Element Accounting for the Internal Orders, Internal Orders, and Analysis
for Profitability (Maheshwari 2017).
Therefore, with all these problems mentioned above, it can surely be established that
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the application of the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance is for the benefits provided to the
establishments of the administration for Accounting Systems and at the same time, the SAP
ERP FICO is based upon the implementation plan for only the Financial and Control modules
for the handling of the specific operations of the entire organization, which enables the utility
of the external and internal reporting (Walz, Tritschler and Rupp 2017).
Benefits of SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance for businesses
There are several influences that an organization exerts upon the utility of the
management accounting systems and has been based upon the following systems:
 The master data for the FI and CO, which is the external and internal reporting
of the management accounting systems is integrated with the cost elements of
the business and the general ledger accounts as well.
 The Control Allocations can be concluded with the influence of the single
allocation basis for FI and CO (Hilker, Awan and Delvat 2018). This would
include the modules like cost centre, profit centre, postings across the
companies and even the customer fields.
 The utility enables the organizations to go through the hierarchies that are
enabled to be flexible enough for the hierarchies related to the profit centres
and the customer fields (Baumgartl et al. 2016).
 The utility helps the organizations to keep all the information regarding the
cost of all the goods that the company has sold so far and all the works that are
still in progress and at the same time it enables the utility of the enhanced
variance of the analysis reporting in the commercial officialdoms.
 The SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance systems permits the organization to
enhance their inventory reporting with the help and the influence of the
material ledger.
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 The market segmentation and its reporting are provided by the application of
SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance with the analysis of the profitability (Eilers
2016).
 The SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance is established as a revolutionary finance
industry solution that has the capability of enhancing the operations of the
organization with the utility of the wide sharing of the data, accelerations of
the reporting for the closing and reporting functions and even the decisions
made with the help of the analytics of the business critical and financial data.
 SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance application enhances the utility of the
association by accelerating the transactional activities in a much faster way for
helping the business gain utmost success (Tonks 2016).
Case Studies of companies and the issues they faced migrating to SAP S/4HANA
suite for Finance
As much as the application of SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance has been enabling
numerous benefits to the organizations regarding its financial and control systems, the
implementation plan also has be enabled by the utilities and the exact requirements. There
have been previous incidences where it has been found that the companies have faced several
issues while they have been trying for migration of the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance
environment for the support of the company (Nica et al. 2017). There have been incidences
where the migration process has met with several issues. Data is regarded as the currency
during the time of digital transformations. The data driven applications and their future is
dependent upon the applications and their developments. It is crucial for every organization
that the real-time data is treated as the most important component during this transformation
process.
Since, it has been found that the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance system has been
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running natively on the SAP HANA, it readily involves the provisions of the rapid inclusions
of the platform within the memory for making all of the transfer possible with the help of the
simplification of the IT landscape (Eifler and Theis 2017).
However, there still has been problems or issues in the organizations while the
migration process has been going on due to the data management challenges. There have
been incidences in organizations where data from the different sources of the information
system has proven to be extreme challenges for the organizations. This has been due to the
unstructured and complicated databases that restricts an organization from the ability to share
the data in the most free and easy way possible. These kinds of databases often are found to
be causing challenges to the organizations for extracting out complete values of the business
for the migration process (Hoang and Ruckes 2018). The data accessions are also found to be
omnipresent, that makes and organization want or require the protection of the data with the
help of privacy, security and the maintenance of the integrity of data. This is the only case
where the database can be trusted.
Again, the companies are found to be looking for a much more situational overlook
on the performances of their business for the leveraging of the data. However, this has often
proven to be a much difficult process to achieve as the process looks forward to the
combination of a huge amount of diverse data and it required the entire data to be made into a
single unit of data for having a comprehensive overview on the business (Krueger and Center
2015).
Other problems that have been found to be forming a particular problem during these
migration process if the flexibility that the organizations have during the choice to be made
for storing the business data. The data has to be maintained and processed to the cloud model
or hybrid delivery model as per the provisions by SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance system
(Plattner and Leukert 2015). Other than these challenges, that need to be handled, the
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employment of the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance system for the Financial and Control
Process for the business organizations can be thought out to be one of the most beneficial
inclusions.
Conclusion
Therefore, in conclusion, it can be said that the above report presents the clear
knowledge or awareness about the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance system and how its
utility has proven to be one of the best business solutions that organizations can have
regarding the ideation and control of the business operations. One of the most important
reasons why the organizations have been implementing the systems in the organizations have
been explained in the above report with the proper explanation of the historical overview and
the gradual assessment of the SAP S/4HANA collection for Finance system right from its
time of inception. This is another reason it has been easier to understand the involvement of
the SAP HANA and its gradual evaluations. This has been again explained with the set
difference explained with the dissimilarities as established by the SAP S/4HANA suite for
Finance and the recent employment of the SAP ERP FICO. The report also explains how
there has been numerous reimbursements added to the specific business organizations with
the inclusions of the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance for the business organizations. In
addition to that, there has also been representations of the case studies regarding different
organizations about the issues that they have faced while the organization has been going
through a migration process to be moving into the SAP S/4HANA suite for Finance
environment for the better administration of the economic and control systems in the business
operations.
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