SAP Business Planning and Consolidations
Don’t Paint Yourself in a Corner!
By Ashwin Gadi & John Louw
S/4HANA and other changes that SAP is now presenting dramatically simplifies the architecture for actual data, making things more flexible. SAP BPC for S/4HANA is positioned to overcome the problems associated with planned data silos, proposed advantages being:
- Elimination of standalone planning system
- No need to replicate data between the ERP system and SAP BPC.
- Real-time analysis on plan data and actual data.
- Planning based on real-time ERP master data.
- The simplified system landscape reduces hardware and administration costs.
Sounds like the silver bullet everybody has been waiting for, but is it a fit for your organization and what does it mean for your current implementation? Does it mean that you have a path to this new functionality or does it mean you’ll have to rebuild everything and start form scratch.
Comparison of BPC Imbedded Options
| BPC Optimized
(S4/HANA) |
Stand Alone | Stand Alone | |
| Analytics Engine | BW 7.5x | BW/4HANA | BW 7.5 |
| BPC Version | BPC 10.1 Embedded | BPC 11.0 (Customer Release 07/27/2017) | BPC 10.1 Imbedded |
| Financial Transaction Data | Real Time | Extraction – Actuals
Retraction – Plan |
Extraction – Actuals
Retraction – Plan |
| Cross Functional Transaction Data | Separate Data Warehouse is recommended for storage of other Source Data | Extraction from Source (External or SAP) | Extraction from Source (External or SAP) |
| Standard Fields (InfoObjects) Required | Yes
(increased dependency on IT and compliance burden) |
No
(Offers flexibility and empowers Finance) |
No
(Offers flexibility and empowers Finance) |
| Leverage Advanced Analytics/Cloud | Partial | Yes | Partial |
Choosing an Option that right for you
Moving between Options
Unfortunately, there is no transport or auto conversion of BPC Standard Model Objects BPC for S/4HANA. However if you choose BPC Imbedded, the good news is that development objects in the User Interaction Layer Objects (AO Input schedules and Reports) as well as BW-Objects (Models, FOX etc.) can be transported and reused.
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