MIGRATION TO SIMPLE FINANCE

In this blog I will try to summarize all the main concepts that need to be known and considered before migrating to Simple Finance, more specifically to its main module SAP Accounting, powered by SAP HANA.

Migration prerequisites:

Any customer running today ECC6, with whichever Enhancement Package, can consider migrating to Simple Finance. It is a migration in 2 steps:  ECC6 EhPx on any DB => Suite on HANA EHp7 => sFIN

As of today, there is not a direct migration path from ECC6 EhP7 to sFIN. You have to perform the intermediary step to Suite on HANA. This should change in the future. The actual migration to the GL in SAP Accounting is actually easy. For the most part, this is a technical migration. Some functional aspects, which I will cover below, must be kept in mind, but it is above all a technical migration, not a functional project.

Functional aspects of the migration:

Another important point is that the new GL is not a pre-requisite for an implementation of the GL 

in SAP Accounting. You can perform the migration straight from the classic GL to the GL in Simple Finance.

The GL in SAP Accounting is very similar to the New GL in SAP ECC: it provides the same capabilities as new GL and leverages its data structures, but it is further optimized for HANA, for example no totals tables, convergence with CO, better reporting, etc. Existing PCA (profit center) and SL (special ledger) functions and features from classic GL can remain in place.

However, be aware of one limitation when migrating from classic GL: document splitting and parallel ledger cannot be implemented yet (this restriction is planned to be lifted with a SP in Q4 2015). So, if for example you wanted documents split now in sFIN, you would have to migrate first in new GL, activate the document split, and then migrate to sFIN. That’s why customers already running a migration project to new GL in SAP ERP with a planned go live in 2015 should continue before moving to sFIN. Finally, the migration also moves you to New Asset Accounting (NAA).

Migration project steps:

The migration project steps can be described as follow. I’m giving a rough estimate of the time repartition spent on each task, from a project (i.e. parameterization) and an elapsed time point of view:

Project steps:

                                                             Project time      Elapsed time

0- technical install                                              20%       10%

1- GL => new GL                                               10%       30%

2- Simple Finance data migration                       20%       50%

3- Activate NAA                                                 50%       10%

For example, for an actual migration we did, we experienced the following figures for step 2:

Data transfer (93 million rows): 50 mns

Data migration: 11h elapsed time

You can expect a minimum of 24 hours of production system downtime.

SAP is providing a migration guide. There is no required SAP migration service.

Modifications to the ERP data model:

Here is the list of FI/CO tables removed in sFIN v1.0:

Index tables removed:

BSIS	Index for G/L Accounts
BSAS	Index for G/L Accounts (Cleared Items)
BSID	Index for Customers
BSAD	Index for Customers (Cleared Items)
BSIK	Index for Vendors
BSAK	Index for Vendors (Cleared Items)
BSIM	Index, Documents for Material
FAGLBSIS	Index for G/L Accounts – New G/L
FAGLBSAS	Index for G/L Accounts – New G/L (Cleared Items)

Aggregate tables removed:

GLT0	General Ledger: Totals
GLT3	Summary Data Preparations for Consolidation
FAGLFLEXT	New General Ledger: Totals
KNC1	Customer master (transaction figures)
LFC1	Vendor master (transaction figures)
KNC3	Customer master (special G/L transaction figures)
LFC3	Vendor master (special G/L transaction figures)
COSS	Cost Totals for Internal Postings
COSP	Cost Totals for External Postings

The remaining physical tables are fully Line Items based. All dimensions are available for fast analysis with SAP HANA. There are no more limitations by pre-defined totals or aggregates as before. Data structures can be easily enhanced with custom dimensions (just update the line item table).

Please note that all those deleted tables are replaced by HANA CDS views. So those suppressions will not affect existing custom ABAP code as long as such code is not writing in one of those tables: custom programs and reports with read access to old tables will continue to work.

Also, new tables will be created in the data model to manage historical data.

Finally, this list above is for sFIN v1.0. The new v2.0 will introduce some new changes on this list as well.

Optimized transactions:

Many period close transactions have been optimized for HANA in SFIN:

Settlement (plant selection)                               CO88 -> CO88H

Settlement (make-to-order sales orders)           VA88-> VA88H

Settlement (internal orders)                               KO8G-> KO8GH

Settlement (projects)                                         CJ8G -> CJ8GH

Results Analysis                                                KKAK -> KKAKH
(POC method or revenue-based)                     

WIP Calculation at Actual Costs                       KKAO -> KKAOH

Variance Calculation w. Full Settlement           KKS1-> KKS1H

Variance Calculation for Cost Centers             KSS1-> KSS1H

Harmonized External and Internal Reporting in SAP ERP:

• Link on line item level (1:1) between Financial Accounting (FI) and Management Accounting (CO)
• Link from CO line items to dimension table in profitability analysis (CO-PA)
• Enhancements of account-based CO-PA (detailed postings for cost-of-goods-sold and variances)
• Logical document (HANA view) for analyzing the converged data
• New detailed analysis of Work in Process
• Real-Time Operational Reporting in SAP ERP
• No need for time-consuming extraction into and separate (delayed) reporting via SAP BW
• Reporting across multiple SAP or non-SAP ERP systems with deployment option “central journal”

New Fiori User Interface: SAP Gateway prerequisite:

Last but not least, SFIN introduces a brand new user experience, simplified and ergonomic, to Finance with Fiori. You must know however that Fiori has technical requirements of its own. The prerequisite of Fiori for an ABAP based application is the middleware SAP Gateway. SAP Gateway is part of Netweaver 7.4, so it is automatically installed with ECC. But for a production system, SAP recommends that you use a Central Hub Deployment of SAP Gateway. This means you install SAP Gateway independent of ERP on a standalone system, either behind or in front of the firewall. You therefore separate back-end components from front-end components. For production systems, SAP does not recommend the Embedded Deployment option. So you will need to plan for installing Gateway if it is not already in place in your SAP landscape.

Finally, be aware that the old retired transactions replaced by redeveloped Fiori applications will not be accessible anymore through the SAP GUI. If you attempt to start them, you will get a pop-up redirecting you toward the Fiori Launchpad of Simple Finance.

Conclusion:

Hopefully this contribution will help demystify the path to SAP Simple Finance, and let you assess the effort that would be necessary to make the upgrade in your own situation.

Source: SCN - Migration to Simple Finance