17/11/2020 What Does SAP SD Look Like in SAP S/4 HANA?

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HANA? – Changes and simpli cations  

 March 8, 2017 

What does SAP SD look like in SAP S/4 HANA?

Introduction
In this blog, I shall begin exploring the SAP S/4HANA Line of Business
(LoB) that contains what was formerly “Sales & Distribution” and see
what this looks like in the new world of S/4HANA.

I will explore:
1) Master data changes
2) Functionality changes
3) Data model simpli cations

SAP S/4HANA is formed of 3 key areas:

a) SAP S/4HANA Finance
b) SAP S/4HANA HCM
c) SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management Logistics, which covers what
was ECC 6.x Logistics

1) Master Data Changes

The customer/vendor master will cease to exist in its current form and
will be replaced by Business Partner functionality (BuPa). SAP is also
planning to remove many of the standard transactions like XD01, XD02,

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XD03, VD01 etc…This raises a lot of questions:

• What happens to the existing data?
• How do we migrate to the new data structure?
• What other implications does this have?

It is essential to carefully plan your approach when moving to S/4HANA:

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The preparation phase is the all-important phase. This is where the 
organization needs to spend time & analyse what business value SAP
S/4HANA would bring, how the organization should move towards
S/4HANA and clearly de ne their strategy & planning.

The side car or a phased approach is suitable for those that are on ECC6
EHP1 and above. If a client is on version 4.7c or below, it makes more
sense to re-implement with S/4HANA. The side car approach is
implementing part by part, for example moving just the database to
S/4HANA or implementing S/4HANA Finance rst and then moving
other functional SAP areas to S/4HANA in phases.

While I focus speci cally on SD here, there are wider changes in the suite
that apply to all modules for example Master data.

Business Partner will be used for centrally managing Master data for
business partners, customers, and vendors. With current development,
BP is the single point of entry to create, edit, and display Master data for
business partners, customers, and vendors.

During the system conversion existing SAP customers have to migrate

Supplier and Customer data into the Business Partner using the
Customer Vendor Integration.

The SAP simpli cation list describes the steps to move onto the SAP
business partner objects in 4 steps:
• Preparation: Implement pre-checks as per conversion guide &
check/clean-up based on the errors this tool gives out
• Synchronization: data load is done via a cockpit and use the standard
report given by SAP to check and rectify errors
• Conversion Process must be triggered according to the S/4HANA
Conversion guide.
• Post-processing: After the conversion, activate the customer/vendor
post processing by referring to the guide

Business Rationale:

There are certain limitations with the current Customer Vendor Master
data, not all necessarily apply to all industries/ businesses: Only one
single address, No relation between a vendor and a customer for the

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same real world entity(no role concept), No persons( B2C), No time-

dependency.

With Business partner: general data shared across different roles, BP:
Roles:: 1: N ( Customer, Vendor, HR personnel etc.), one BP can have
multiple addresses, time-dependent object attributes & relationships.
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CVI Integration component ensures the sync between BP object and
customer/vendor objects.
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Impact:

• The existing data structures, tcodes will be phased out and all of the
Business Partner data can be found in tables: BUT000, BUT020, BUT*
etc.
• DEBMAS/CREMAS etc. Idocs are still supported
• Migration needs to be planned based on notes in the simpli cation list.
• User training is required on the new transactions and how to use them
for the business.
• New role based Fiori apps and required authorizations need to be
covered.

2) Functionality Changes
Broad level changes affecting SD are:

a. Foreign Trade:

Currently, there are 2 options to implement International trades: Foreign

trade and GTS (Global Trade Services). In the S/4HANA world, SD-FT will
be phased out and businesses must use the GTS functionality.

Business rationale: GTS, in general, has more features for Compliance,

Customs and Risk management and some of the limitations with SD-
FT/MM-FT are addressed in GTS.
Compliance Management: Sanctioned party list screening, Export &
Import legal control
Customs Management: Customs processing, Transit procedures, Trade

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document printing, Customs communications

Risk Management: Restitution handling & Preference processing

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Impact: There is an option to integrate GTS natively in SAP S/4HANA

Core or it can be as a separate application / instance. All existing foreign
trade business practice/processes/settings need to be analyzed and
mapped to GTS.

For Intrastat, businesses can leverage functionality within SAP

S/4HANA. For the
Letter of Credit–Legal Control and Preference Management the
functionalities based on SAP Global Trade Services (GTS) can be used.
SAP GTS can be natively integrated with S/4HANA. Additional
functionalities for Import- and Export Management are available with
SAP GTS.

b. Credit Management:

The traditional FI/SD Credit Management will be phased out in

S/4HANA, and we will need to use FSCM.

Business Rationale: The FSCM credit management provides enhanced

functionality to improve cash ow through the new FSCM
functionalities- Collections management, disputes management, Credit
Management. FSCM-CM brings in better control over customers credit
scoring with features like managing credit scoring internally, and/or
storing credit rating of External Rating companies, Interfacing with
Credit Rating Agencies etc. and works in unison with BuPa.

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Impact: The business processes have to be reconsidered, if the business

would like to have business rules + payment history of the customer to
de ne their own scores and credit risk categorization. However, if an
organization doesn’t want to re-structure or re-de ne their existing
Credit Management processes- the FSCM-CR can be mapped
accordingly.
You need to carry out a migration from FI-AR-CR to FIN-FSCM-CR.
This migration has several elements: con guration data, master data,
credit exposure data, credit decision data SAP provides tools for
support.

c. Rebate Management:

is replaced by Settlement management in S4H. Exception: CRM TPM.

CRM TPM customers can still use SD Rebate Processing for their
business process but have to adapt to a SAP S/4HANA optimized
solution.

Business Bene t:
• Transparency of all documents involved where a contract condition was
determined and where accruals were posted, which enables a detailed
view on complex settlement scenarios, and an overview of all settlement
documents and their nancial (FI) status
• Accruals will be cleared at settlement run, Changes of settlement-
related conditions will not in uence the accruals – Accrual conditions
and settlement conditions are different
• Sales related rebates(standard), scan back rebates, Customer funds &
some additional processes can be customized

Impact:
• Existing agreements have to be processed by the end of the validity of
the agreement & closed by a new settlement.
• Rebate Index Table VBOX will be phased out.
• Authorizations need to be re-done & training has to be provided on the
new transaction codes/process.

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d. Revenue Recognition: 

SD-Revenue recognition is not available within S/4HANA. The new

functionality SAP Revenue accounting and reporting functionality has to
be used instead.

Business Bene t: This functionality supports the new revenue

accounting standard as outlined in IFRS & adapted by local GAAPs.
Migration to the new solution is required irrespective of whether a
business moves to S/4HANA or not.

Implications: Prior to the Conversion to S/4HANA, you need to migrate

all sales order and contracts processed by “SD Revenue Recognition” to
“SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting” that are: not fully delivered
and invoiced, have deferred revenue still to be realized & for which you
expect follow-on activities like increase quantity, create credit memo or
cancel invoice. A thorough evaluation is needed to determine if the
current SD-revenue recognition can be managed by SAP Revenue
accounting and Reporting and that’s a pre-requisite for S/4HANA
migration.

e. ATP Check:

Database table simpli cations: VBBS containing aggregates has been

phased out & code optimized
Advanced ATP replaces ATP: new Back Order Processing functionality
and much interactive delivery scheduling.

Business Bene t:
• Production allocation: supports the business decision on which order
should be con rmed and decision is based on every attribute of
underlying sales order, SKU or customer
• New BOP functionality and new concept for “Winner-Gainer-Loser”
based on prioritization.
• New Release for Delivery app: to enable timely actions on short term
supply & demand changes

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Impact: 
• Minimal impact expected. Businesses have to understand the new
features and start using them
• Underlying code already adjusted

f. Computer Aided Sales Activities:

SD-CAS is not available within S/4HANA, SAP CRM has to be used for
any Sales Activities. SAP recommends using SAP CRM or C4C.

Business Bene t: CRM/C4C offers much more comprehensive

functionality for managing customer service activities.

Impact: Any SD-CAS con g/processes need re-mapping and re-

implementation in CRM/C4C.

g. Sales Analysis:

• Simpli cation in SD Analytics: Core Data Services (CDS) basic views

represent the core entities in SD: Sales Orders, contracts, quotations,
deliveries and Invoices.
• New persistent elds in the database to avoid complex calculations on
the y, for example, sales order open delivery quantity and amount : To
make effective use of the SAP S/4HANA capabilities for SD Analytics,
there are new persistent elds in the Database (which, in the past, were
only calculated on the y):
– Sales Order Open Delivery Quantity and Amount (on schedule line
level – VBEP)
– Sales Order Requested Quantity in Base Unit (on item level – VBAP)
• We will still be able to access LIS/SIS and extract data into BW systems
only until version 1511.
• Instead of prebuilt aggregates and/or redundant data for analytical
purposes, the SAP S/4HANA Analytics approach is based on ODATA and
Open CDS (aka ABAP managed CDS = Core Data Services) directly on
top of the original database. Corresponding analytics content will be
provided within SAP S/4HANA. This content will grow over time.

h. Output Management:

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Traditional approach is NACE and table: NAST, which is going to be

replaced by BRF+( Business Rules Framework Plus). In SAP S/4HANA,
the target architecture is based on Adobe Document Server and Adobe
Forms only.

Business Bene t: This new approach includes cloud qualities such as

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extensibility enablement ( = scalability), multi tenancy enablement(=
parallel processing of multiple apps), and modi cation free
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con guration(= rule based decision table maintenance, for ex.).
 
Impact: Only Old billing documents that will be migrated and have been
processed on NAST can use this technique. For all new billing documents,
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new output management has to be used. The BRF+ supports only: PRINT,
EMAIL, XML and IDOC, others not available by default.

3) Data Model
changes/Simpli cation
i. Status tables VBUK/UP moved to respective documents: VBAK/VBAP
for sales order, LIKP/LIPS for deliveries, VBRK/VBRP for billing
documents
ii. Document ow table VBFA simpli ed- new user interface combining
doc ow and status
iii. Document index tables: VAKPA, VAPMA, VLKPA, VLPMA, VRKPA,
VRPMA eliminated and replaced by equivalent compatibility CDS views
with same performance
iv. Rebate index table VBOX eliminated
v. VBTYP eld length extended to 4 characters
vi. NAST table phased out and a new Business Rules Framework based
output control. The old documents created in SAP ERP will continue to
have entries in NAST
vii. Change of Pricing result persistency enhancements: Some elds are
being extended- DZAEHK, KOLNR. KONV replaced by new table:
PRCD_ELEMENTS

Expected Bene t:

• Reduced memory footprint

• Insert/update operations on Index tables have been dropped
• Data access with CDS views on HANA show similar performance as are
shown by index tables

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 
SAP provides PPDS/aATP/GTS as part of the digital core & CDS views: SMBs 
who can’t afford separate APO or GTS or BI servers have full advantage of
these features with S/4HANA.

Please note that this blog is not an exhaustive list, I haven’t talked about
the functionalities like GTS, Settlement Management etc. in detail. We
will be taking a closer look at some of the other functionalities in this
Blog later this year, so please bookmark Eursap’s Blog page and check
back for more soon!. We will also take a look at some of the latest
changes in the SAP S/4HANA 1610 version.

Happy learning!

Author: Raghuram Saripalli – SAP Logistics Lead Consultant

Need to hire SAP S/4HANA resources?

Looking for SAP S/4HANA work?

Get in touch with Eursap today!

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