Day: December 25, 2017

Some of you might think this is the battle cry for @darrenroos (President of SAP S/4HANA Cloud) / @SDenecken (Senior Vice President of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Product Management & Co-Innovation)…..and it probably is…..however I also think it is true, and when it becomes true for you is just a matter of time (so time is the question).

To prove this, let’s try a little mind game – Cast yourself into future and imagine having an On Premise SAP ERP or S/4HANA system in 2025 (even if it is on HEC), you meet up with friends from other companies that have S/4HANA Public Cloud – how does your TCO compare ? how many more skills does your IT department need than theirs ? how much more will they focus on innovation ?

What were your answers ? more, more and more ? If so keep reading as you need to start planning your journey to S/4HANA (Public) Cloud now.

“The journey, Not the destination matters…” – T.S Eliot

Your first task is to make sure you really understand what you get with S/4HANA (Public) Cloud.

I hear a lot of people saying that they can’t use S/4HANA (Public) Cloud because of scope issues – but this is often based on older versions of S/4HANA (Public) Cloud or a lack of knowledge of the actual scope.

One thing to get used to is how quickly things do move with S/4HANA (Public) Cloud – every 3 months we get a whole load of new stuff to digest (1711, 1802, 1805 …..). Below is the summary of the new things from 1711.

This is the link to the “summary” 77 page PPT – “SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1711 – Product Scope”

And for those with a need for more information you can get right into the details via the Best Practice Explorer.

Finally, you need to keep an eye on the S/4HANA (Public) Cloud Roadmap which you can access here, which will show you plans for the next 4 quarters (only 32 pages) – if stuff you need isn’t in this roadmap, engage with SAP and let them know what you need.

So hopefully now you have the tools to start to judge when S/4HANA (Public) Cloud will be ready for you, and you are engaged with SAP on the things that you need to be there to make the move.

You also need to map your existing On Premise scope for SAP ERP to the newer portfolio of SAP Cloud Apps (including S/4HANA (Public) Cloud). For this you can use the SAP Transformation Navigator to start to plan that journey.

So what can you do ? I see 5 typical approaches

Do nothing – This is the path to choose if you believe your current SAP ERP solutions meets your businesses demands now, for the foreseeable future and doesn’t need any hardware / software upgrading for 8 years.

Start tidying up – This is the path to choose if you have analysed the scope provided by S/4HANA (Public) Cloud, have decided it doesn’t currently support your scope (and SAP have confirmed this) and don’t want to learn any new skills to prepare you for S/4HANA (Public) Cloud. In this option, you would work through your existing on premise scope removing / cleaning data and reviewing / removing custom code. The more of this you can do the easier the final move will be

Get some HANA / SCP Expertise – This is the path to choose if you want to tidy your system and get used to what SAP HANA can provide to you. This will smooth the eventual journey to S/4HANA (Public) Cloud and if you get some of your HANA experience in SCP you can start to understand the difference between running ERP on HANA (Suite on HANA) and using the power of  all the engines that are available in native/full-use HANA plus the SCP capabilities aka Leonardo.

Get to S/4HANA Enterprise Management On Premise – This is the path to choose if you see features in the on premise S/4HANA system that are not yet available via S/4HANA (Public) Cloud. To best prepare for the eventual move to S/4HANA (Public) Cloud you might want to consider starting on premise with a new S/4HANA system and trying to stay within the Best Practice Scope Items where you can. Make sure SAP know where you can’t fit into the S/4HANA (Public) Cloud Scope so they can feed this into their planning.

Get to S/4HANA Cloud – This is the path to choose if your research shows you that S/4HANA (Public) Cloud has the scope you need now. For this you will need to migrate the data from your on premise system(s), so the cleaner/smaller this is before you start the better.

I hope you enjoy your journey – which paths are you choosing ? http://bit.ly/2C1gXmr #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

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With SAP Vora and Hadoop connected to my SAP Data Hub, I am ready to build and execute my first Task Workflow:

For this, I leverage the HDFS test.cvs file from Validate the SAP Vora Installation and copy it to simulate a backup scenario:

To start with, I grant my user the authorization to execute my Task Workflow:

Next, I create a Project including my HDSF Connection:

Within my Project I then create a Source:

And Target Data Set:

As the Task, I chose the File Operation Copy Data from Source to Target in Overwrite Mode:

And put this into my Backup Task Workflow:

An overview of my Modeling is also shown in the SAP Data Hub Cockpit:

Finally, I execute my Task Workflow and see it Running both in the SAP Data Hub Modeling tool:

As well as in the SAP Data Hub Cockpit:

Since the file is small, my Task Workflow processes through its Tasks quickly:

And finishes successfully:

Which is also reflected in the SAP Data Hub Cockpit:

Of course, this is only a tiny sort of Hello World example, but I hope it gives you a glimpse of the potential for big data processing that resides within the SAP Data Hub. http://bit.ly/2C3YR38 #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

Taxes are not on the top of people’s minds when thinking about digital transformation. While new data-driven business models are emerging in all lines of business, tax compliance typically comes as an afterthought, if at all. But that can be a costly mistake.

Tax authorities around the globe have realized that new business models, especially those related to digital assets, can lead to loss of tax collection. For example, the European Community estimates an annual gap in VAT collection at above 150 billion euros. Therefore, tax authorities worldwide are embracing the latest technologies to crack down on tax evasion.

Frontrunners in the technology race are the Brazilian tax authorities. They were the first to introduce electronic invoicing more than a decade ago, a trend that has spread across Latin America and Europe. Having accurate, real-time information from taxpayers allows authorities to match with the periodic tax declarations and detect inconsistencies with ease.

In addition, authorities are requesting more detailed information from the companies in form of audit files, like SAF-T (Standard Audit File for Tax as established by OECD), to further validate the correctness of companies’ tax assessments.

This evolution has led to two key challenges for companies. First, they must be prepared to fulfill the new digital obligations like electronic invoicing and audit filing. Second, they must also ensure that the data they submit is correct, because authorities will detect non-compliance more easily than in the past.

Responding to the growing compliance demands is not only a question of having the proper tools. It also requires a systemic approach to help ensure tax compliance throughout the whole value chain.

Three Steps to Digital Transformation in the Tax Function

The road map for digital transformation in the tax function can be thought of as a value staircase.

Step 1: Ensure the Company is Tax Compliant

This means fulfilling all legal obligations — digital or not — in time and with accurate data. This can prove a challenge from a purely technical perspective, especially when new requirements are introduced in a short time, for example, the introduction of “SII” electronic invoicing in Spain in July 2017.

SAP eDocuments or the Brazilian SAP Nota Fiscal Eletrônica are robust and well-integrated solutions that enable customers to fulfill the corresponding legal requirements by transmitting transactional documents in real time and in the required format to the authorities

A key concern, however, is the accuracy of the tax data. Many companies have poor visibility into their data quality, because tax-relevant data is often spread over multiple systems and even kept outside the system — for example, in spreadsheets. Consolidating this data in the short timeframe during period close is typically a stressful task for the tax departments. Aside from the time pressure, they must also implement late corrections or adjustments — for example, when invoices have been posted with incorrect tax during the period. This situation leads to a challenge that often cannot be solved in a satisfactory way and leaves the company exposed to the risk of incorrect tax filing.

SAP Tax Compliance is a solution that helps companies gain visibility into their tax data quality by establishing an SAP HANA-based central tax repository on which checking rules — such as, those provided by tax advisory firms — are applied to identify compliance issues. Furthermore, it provides tools to establish a governance for rectifying identified issues with powerful workflow and monitoring tools.

Step 2: Ensure Compliance at Minimum Cost

Once companies have the tools and processes in place to manage the accuracy of their tax data, it is still a challenge to deliver the periodic obligations efficiently. This is especially true for complex obligations like SAF-T audit files, which many companies struggle to generate in time and quality. Often companies use a multitude of tools, including spreadsheets and manual workarounds, which makes the whole fiscal closing process cumbersome and non-uniform.

SAP Advanced Compliance Reporting and the Brazilian Tax Declaration Framework are modern, SAP HANA-based reporting platforms that centralize the generation of periodic legal reports like tax returns and audit files in a user-friendly application with a standardized user experience. They work on a single source of truth from an SAP S/4HANA system, and include features like embedded analytics and audit-proof adjustment capability. This helps to accelerate the fiscal closing process. According to customer testimonials, efforts spent to generate monthly tax declarations have been reduced by approximately 50 percent.

Step 3: Maximize Tax Automation

SAP Tax Compliance and advanced compliance reporting help companies to efficiently rectify compliance issues before they are reported and speed up the fiscal closing process. The ideal situation, however, is to always have accurate automatic tax determination for all transactions in the first place, so that subsequent corrections are not needed at all.

The challenge here is that setting up tax calculation in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA requires expert knowledge and keeping this information constantly up to date with legal changes is cumbersome. This leads to a high risk of human error, especially when non-tax-professionals need to make tax decisions — for example, a purchaser having to choose a tax code in a purchase requisition. These errors usually propagate until the tax declaration and hence create risk of incorrect tax filing, or require additional cost and effort to make the needed rectifications.

SAP Tax Service is a cloud-based tax determination and calculation engine that provides constantly updated tax rules and rates for more than 90 countries in a full SaaS model. The solution removes the burden of the companies having to set up and maintain tax rules. Moreover, it supports accurate tax determination by helping eliminate human error. It is currently available in combination with cloud solutions SAP Ariba Spot Buy, SAP Hybris, and SAP Anywhere. Integration into SAP S/4HANA Cloud is being studied.

Proactively Identify Tax Risks and Opportunities

These three steps can help companies to improve their tax compliance gradually and to respond adequately to the growing demand from the tax authorities around the globe.

Engaging in a digital transformation of this kind can bring further benefits beyond “mere compliance.” Having a single source of truth with accurate tax data allows companies to use advanced analytics — for example from SAP Leonardo — to identify opportunities for tax savings or risks of tax underpayments. Key performance indicators, such as tax-related compliance or financial risks and tax payments including forecasts, can be visualized in SAP Digital Boardroom and serve as a basis for strategic decisions that take fiscal considerations into account.

The SAP solutions presented in this blog can be found in the SAP Solution Explorer as SAP solutions for global tax management.

Top image via Shutterstock. http://bit.ly/2DawuPZ #SAP #SAPCloud #AI