Core Accounting is a Growing Priority for SAPinsiders

In our SAP S/4HANA Finance and Central Finance: State of the Market 2022 benchmark report, we saw the share of SAPinsider organizations planning to invest resources into core accounting processes increase to 28% (from 18% in 2021). These organizations view this finance and accounting strategy as an opportunity to address growing organizational complexity, the top driver of survey respondents planning investments into the core accounting and general ledger finance areas.

It makes sense, as managing and producing timely, accurate financial reports is crucial for companies. To ensure they can do so, finance and accounting teams rely on the information in their general ledger journals, which expand as it records each transaction made during business operations. The sheer breadth of transactions and financial data can make it difficult to produce timely and accurate reports without efficient core accounting processes and workflows in place.

As any long-time SAP customer knows, the classic General ledger (classic GL) has been the core accounting application used to manage transactions. However, with the rapidly changing needs of businesses and a growing focus on financial data transparency and compliance, the new SAP General Ledger (new GL) provides updated functionality and architecture for organizations to help modernize and simplify core accounting processes. In addition, the advanced features of the new SAP General Ledger allow for a more detailed accounting of business units, legal entities, and financial compliance. 

Benefits of the New SAP General Ledger Module

The updates to SAP General Ledger help address gaps in the classic General Ledger module, starting with real-time integration between SAP Finance (FI) and SAP Controlling (CO) and advanced document splitting. With the improvements in the new GL, SAPinsider organizations can translate detailed and accurate reporting into timely insights. Demand for improved reporting, planning, and insights from finance is the top overall driver of finance and accounting strategy, as business leaders require better tools for enhanced decision making and financial management.

The updates to SAP General Ledger help address gaps in the classic General Ledger module, starting with real-time integration between SAP Finance (FI) and SAP Controlling (CO) and advanced document splitting. As a result, whether finance and accounting teams are handling transactions or analyzing reports, business leaders can rely on accurate and timely financial data to make crucial decisions that impact the organization’s overall health.

What Does This Mean for SAPinsiders?

Streamline your financial reporting with the new SAP GL. As businesses grow, they often find themselves with a patchwork of different financial reporting systems. While this can provide some benefits in terms of flexibility, it can also create complications. For instance, when data from other systems require positing to a single general ledger, it can require manual effort to ensure that the data is accurate. However, the new SAP GL provides a way to filter and extract data from multiple ERP systems before posting it to the ledger. This increases accuracy and helps to reduce the amount of effort required. As a result, businesses running multiple financial reporting systems can benefit from using the new SAP GL.

Leverage document splitting and workflow automation to enhance core accounting processes. SAP GL provides workflows that allow for more efficient processing of input documents such as invoices, orders, vendors, customers across multiple segments, and sub-ledgers. Finally, it includes features that increase productivity by allowing you to set up automatic approvals for various tasks within the system to streamline your workflow and reduce errors. By enabling more streamlined workflows and better tracking of every file from start to finish, SAP GL helps organizations enhance core accounting processes.

Enable more efficient finance operations with real-time integrations between models. Managing detailed financial data can be challenging due to manual tracking processes, often slow and error-prone. Many organizations have begun implementing modern SAP solutions like new GL that automate critical finance operations such as tracking and posting financial files to address this issue. Finance and accounting teams can leverage real-time integration between financial information systems (FI) and cost accounting systems (CO), facilitating faster and more accurate period-end closing.