We recommend following leading practices for a successful Central Finance implementation. In this blog post, we’ll go over each of the best practices.
Below are the best practices for master data within Central Finance.
Open items transferred during the initial load may cause performance bottlenecks and delays in completing the initial load validation. SAP strongly recommends converting unwanted general ledger open items to normal general ledger accounts. In addition, you must clear open items from both current and prior years to the extent possible as it directly impacts performance of the initial load.
Review important master data elements such as general ledger accounts, profit centers, cost centers, customers, and vendors in the source system. Lock inactive, redundant, and duplicate objects.
SAP recommends the MCDelta tool for master data profiling. The tool offers customers accelerate the implementation with Central Finance adoption content.
Ensure you’ve followed data harmonization rules for all master data, especially the general ledger harmonization guide to avoid mistakes during the mapping exercise. General ledger attributes must be aligned with corresponding general ledger master in the source system. Master data is the most time-consuming activity in Central Finance projects.
Be sure to run configuration and master data consistency reports to avoid data inconsistencies.
SAP provided the permanent constancy check to alert stakeholders to check configuration consistency and resolve errors quickly.
Perform data profiling prior to the initial load and real-time replication to avoid master data errors.
Both financial and nonfinancial master data should be loaded prior to beginning the initial load and online replication activity.
Both SAP Master Data Governance key mapping and value mapping must be completed.
Enforce the right level of data governance on creation and change of master data to prevent duplicate records.
Be sure adequate scope is considered for third-party system master data harmonization as different ERP systems store data differently and often terminology is different. This makes more time to achieve data harmonization.
Below are best practices related to SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server.
Have a separate SAP Landscape Transformation box to connect the source system and Central Finance system as it brings multiple benefits, especially during monthly maintenance and upgrades.
Determine the Data Migration Server (DMIS) version of SAP Landscape Transformation ahead of time based on the source system and Central Finance service pack versions.
Data volume must be assessed prior to configuring SAP Landscape Transformation. The landscape sizing and memory should support a high volume of background processing.
Configure SAP Landscape Transformation in an optimum way, so the parallelization of the calculation jobs transfers data without any performance bottlenecks.
Maintain SAP Landscape Transformation data transfer jobs by considering data volume.
Here are the best practices for SAP AIF.
Before you begin replication, define SAP Application Interface Framework runtime configuration groups (Transaction /AIF/PERS_CGR) under the /FINCF namespace for each replication object. This will help on serialization of data being posted.
Assign the runtime configuration to the appropriate replication objects.
For companies with large volumes of transaction data, SAP Application Interface Framework messages fills up quickly and thereby impact performance. Archive SAP Application Interface Framework messages on a periodic basis to improve performance of the interface. SAP recommends the following:
Assign SAP Application Interface Framework security roles as necessary to prevent last-minute errors.
Below are the best practices for the initial FI-CO load.
Have a separate initial load group for company codes with intercompany transaction postings.
Configure the initial load groups for the source company codes with a smaller data set to avoid performance issues.
Work with Basis to ensure you have enough dialog work processes in the source system and background processes in the target Central Finance system to extract the FI documents, open items, and balances.
Ensure you have enough memory to process the initial load extraction. Otherwise, you’ll see cancelled jobs that require further efforts to delete and restart.
During cutover, extract data during minimal postings or off business hours to save time on the delta run.
Run both mapping and posting simulations to identify and resolve potential errors.
Increase memory parameters to allow the job to run in multiple parallel processes.
If errors exceed greater than two million, you won’t be able to download error message to a Microsoft Excel worksheet. In such cases, you’ll fix the errors and rerun the simulation jobs.
You must post all documents in the initial load to avoid any manual journal entry adjustments. This will also help in reconciliation of balances, open items, and documents. Furthermore, a full posting of the initial load also helps in posting subsequent follow-on documents through SAP Application Interface Framework. For example, you’ll avoid Reference document isn’t posted errors.
Immediately after the initial load extraction is triggered in the source system, any new postings start being captured into source staging tables (table CFIN_ACC*). For example, there will be invoices, payments, and reset and reversals postings in the source system captured under the source staging tables. These documents will be transferred to the Central Finance system through SAP Landscape Transformation once SAP Landscape Transformation initial load/replication is triggered for SAP Landscape Transformation table CFIN_ACCHD.
When all captured data transfers to the Central Finance system and once SAP Landscape Transformation triggers the SAP Landscape Transformation initial load, it doesn’t load in the sequence into the Central Finance system. There could be chances of clearing documents transferring before the invoice or reset/reversal, which will lead to serialization errors such as Reference document isn’t posted or Reference open item is already cleared in SAP Application Interface Framework. Take care of SAP Application Interface Framework serialization before transferring the FI accounting documents through the SAP Landscape Transformation initial load. Consult SAP Note 2679070 on addressing serialization and steps to be followed.
In the source system, Central Finance staging tables (table CFIN_AC*) filled up after the initial load extraction is triggered. Similar staging tables exist for controlling secondary postings (tables CFIN_CO_ADD and CFIN_COPA). As the table data grows, this may have performance problems. SAP delivered two reports to clean up the staging tables: RFIN_CFIN_CLEANUP for FI-CO staging tables and FIN_CFIN_CO_CLEANUP for CO staging tables.
Determine the appropriate strategy and timing to clean up these tables to avoid performance bottlenecks.
Understanding the vision of reporting and the right level of data with appropriate granularity is replicated from the source systems, especially for consolidated central reporting.
Assess which reports needs to be carried out in the source system versus the Central Finance system.
Execute Central Finance comparison reports and other reconciliation reports regularly to ensure data replicated is accurate and consistent.
Enable SAP Fiori apps, CDS views, SAP Analytics Cloud, and other reporting tools to ensure they fit into your solution. Tools such as SAP Analytics Cloud or SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office requires additional licenses.
Ensure roles and authorization objects are aligned with stakeholders.
Group reporting and document and reporting compliance (DRC) teams are aligned on the solution.
You must have a maintenance plan for the target SAP S/4HANA Central Finance, source SAP ERP, SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server. This isn’t new as planned technical maintenance of the SAP system is common in any project. As part of planned maintenance, suspend the replication.
If the Central Finance system or SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server technical maintenance is planned and SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server is suspended, postings in the source system can keep accumulating in the source staging table along with the SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server logging table. As we know, accumulated postings in the SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server logging table could be invoice, clearing, or reset/reversal documents. SAP recommends following the best practices in SAP Note 2679070.
Editor’s note: This post has been adapted from a section of the book Implementing Central Finance with SAP S/4HANA by Anand Seetharaju. Anand is a certified SAP S/4HANA financial and management accounting consultant. He holds active CPA and CMA licenses and has more than 25 years of experience in business process design, consulting, and accounting system implementation. He has led several SAP S/4HANA Finance and Central Finance transformation projects and has presented on those topics at SAP conferences. Additionally, he has extensive implementation experience with the SAP classic general ledger, new general ledger, and SAP S/4HANA general ledger, including conversion from the classic general ledger. Anand’s experience includes global SAP finance and controlling implementations and rollouts with an emphasis on receivables management, revenue accounting and reporting, cash and liquidity management, profitability analysis, project systems, product costing, material ledger, capital asset management, leasing, global tax, and legal reporting.
This post was originally published 6/2025.