SAP S/4HANA Finance is a powerful solution for businesses to use in their financial operations. This post will take a look at 24 benefits it brings for business growth, profitability, and agility.
Growth
Below are eight benefits SAP S/4HANA Finance brings for business growth.
Customer Lead Time
When it comes to customer lead time, SAP S/4HANA Finance provides faster payment runs, accruals posting, and loan valuations. In addition, a faster engagement period with customers helps improve customer relations. Lastly, SAP S/4HANA Finance provides a scalable platform for massive data (e.g., processing 50 million daily orders).
Data Volume
SAP S/4HANA enables a high-volume billing process to meet promotional and peak season requirements.
Days Sales Outstanding
With SAP S/4HANA Finance, companies can realize a reduction in days sales outstanding (DSO).
Invoice Processing Time
SAP S/4HANA’s architecture means that time spent on invoice processing can be substantially decreased.
New Revenue
The speed and ease of use of SAP S/4HANA means companies can reduce the time it takes to bring new products and services to the market.
Revenue Growth
Since SAP S/4HANA integrates processes directly from the sales plan to subcontracting execution through material requirements planning, it is easier to create a rolling forecast that leads to production meeting sales demand.
Revenue Leakage Reduction
SAP S/4HANA reduces revenue leakage by over 50% compared to the industry standard.
Transaction Processing
As mentioned above, SAP S/4HANA can be scaled to process millions of orders. It can do so with a very high accuracy, reducing costs incurred by mistakes.
Profitability
Below are seven benefits SAP S/4HANA Finance has to facilitate profitability and create value for an organization.
Bad Debts Written Off
SAP S/4HANA brings about a substantial reduction in uncollectable accounts receivable.
Days to Close Monthly Books Reduced
The number of steps required to achieve a monthly financial close is reduced with SAP S/4HANA Finance, meaning reports can be generated quicker.
Direct Material Spend
SAP S/4HANA provides an enhanced visibility to procurement activities that will enable reduced rates and optimized spend.
Employee Productivity
SAP S/4HANA gives easy and mobile access to sales and master data, i.e. contact details leading to easy access to information and improved usage of sales resources globally. Additionally, the integrated nature of the suite provides a streamlined and standardized corporate business process and buildup. And finally, automation such as predictive accounting creates a reduction in man-hours spent on manual processes, freeing employees up to do other tasks.
Inventory
As part of SAP S/4HANA logistics’ capabilities, optimized inventory management establishes real-time visibility into stock and spare part levels.
Profitability
Product costing across the supply chain that gives users visibility of viable products is important. SAP S/4HANA provides that visibility.
Reduced Total Cost of Ownership
SAP S/4HANA reduces the complexity of the technology landscape with hardware reduction, maintenance, and software license elimination.
Agility
Below are nine benefits SAP S/4HANA Finance has to increase agility for an organization.
Business User Satisfaction
Happy employees are productive employees. Simplified processes and an improved user experience with SAP Fiori in all functional areas are a key selling point for SAP S/4HANA.
Data Processing Performance
SAP S/4HANA reduces the backup time from hours to minutes.
Data Volume
SAP S/4HANA is run on SAP HANA, and reduces data size by 90% for faster reporting and improved process efficiency.
Days to Close Books
When it comes time for financial close, SAP S/4HANA Finance accelerates this process by a factor of three to four times.
Employee Productivity
Rationalized accounting, budget planning, reporting, and execution procedures are in line with best practices. With automation of tasks, employees don’t need to spend as much time on manual efforts across accounting, finance, and indirect procurement. This mitigates risk.
Order Processing Efficiency
Compared to legacy systems, SAP S/4HANA is 75% faster when completing key business processes.
Reduction of Cost
With the reduction of repetitive, manual work, waste can be reduced.
Reduction of Risk
Live reporting with improved audit and controls means a substantial reduction in the business-risk profile and fraud-prone areas. Additionally, consistency of business processes and financial practices for all locations worldwide reduces risk and operational complexity.
Reporting Efficiency
SAP S/4HANA is a single landscape, so no matter where subsidiaries are located, leadership can get accurate information and consolidated reports in real time.
Conclusion
This post shared some of the many benefits that SAP S/4HANA brings to a business, focusing on the area of finance. Which benefit is the most exciting to you? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Editor’s note: This post has been adapted from a section of the book Implementing SAP S/4HANA Finance System Conversion Guide by Anup Maheshwari.
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