SAP SIMPLE FINANCE

INTRODUCTION TO
UNIVERSAL JOURNAL

Venkat Subrahmanyam

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
AGENDA
EXPLAIN THE IDEA AND CONCEPT OF UNIVERSAL

JOURNAL
UNDERSTAND THE ACCOUNTING ARCHITECTURE
RATIONAL.

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
Universal Journal which reflects the concept that all of the data
is unified within a single source-of-truth.
It is the single source of truth for all accounting components.
Reconciliation is a topic of the past.
A simple but holistic model HANA can be leveraged in the

best possible manner bringing unprecedented insight in both the

speed and the content.
The universal journal combines and harmonizes the good

qualities of all the accounting components.

Non disruptive innovation and simplification.

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE MULTIPLE DATA SOURCES

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE MULTIPLE DATA SOURCES

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE- UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
The traditional architecture has a number of challenges
The combined content of several tables represents the
truth which is based on multiple sources.
Reconciliation was by design.
Need to duplicate data to the appropriate table for
reporting.
Components are structured differently in terms of the
fields and the entities.
Multiple BW extractors are needed to cover the complete
information in BW.
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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE- UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL JOURNAL-
Report preparation
Traditional non-SAP HANA reporting performed via

Business Warehouse tools involve the movement of

data from ERP system to BW. When creating detailed
management accounting reports within SAP BW,
there are various data sources and layers of data that
need to be transformed to provide the data the end
user requires.
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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE- UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL JOURNAL-
Report preparation
If a job or process within SAP BW failed, the figures

within the SAP BW reports would be wrong. This

would lead to additional support work to track the
offending item, and then the schedules would need to
be re-run to ensure the values were correct.

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE- UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
Report preparation
All of these tasks will be removed by the simplified

data model within the Universal Journal and it is worth

noting that within SAP S/4HANA you have the ability
to run most Financial Analysis reporting direct from
SAP S/4HANA.
The simplified data model within SAP Universal

Journal provides a single source of data that has all of

the required data in a single view which reduces the
complexity in the report design
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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE- UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL JOURNAL-
Month-end tasks
SAP Universal Journal allows the Finance team to re-
design the month-end process and break away from
performing all of the tasks within a short window.

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE- UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL JOURNAL-
Data reconciliations
Data reconciliations normally done during the month.

It is time consuming process and are normally

performed to mitigate risk rather than add insight or
challenge into the Financial performance of a Company.

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE- UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL JOURNAL-
Data reconciliations
By removing all of the tables and creating a single

table to hold all of the information, the requirement to

reconcile is no longer required as the source for
Statutory and Management reporting is the same.
Further to this the need to wait for Month End to

perform Inter-Company reconciliations is removed as

this can be run real-time any time during the accounting
period
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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE- UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL JOURNAL-
Data reconciliations
Reconciling financial data with Management
accounting data is a common task that verifies all of the
transactions have been recorded correctly. The reason
for this check is due to the way SAP recorded the
different types of data (various tables for Statutory and
Management Accounting).

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
One line item table with full detail for all components. Data
stored only once, so no reconciliation needed by architecture.
Fast multi-dimensional reporting on the Universal Journal
possible without replicating data to BW.
If BW is in place, one single BW extractor is needed.
Reduction of memory footprint through elimination of
redundancy.
Technical preparation done to enhance important structural
capabilities of the Financials solution (e.g. multi-GAAP,
additional currencies)

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE UNIVERSAL
JOURNAL
It is a single repository of journal entries across multiple
applications without redundancy which enables a deeper
instant insight across all dimensions, easier extensibility
and process optimizations for an accelerated financial
closing

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE
UNIVERSAL JOURNAL
LIMITATIONS OF CLASSIC LOGIC
Till now the line items between FI and CO have been
linked to each other only on the header level which has the
following adverse affects :
HIGH RECONCILIATION EFFORT
It is difficult to reconcile documents of different
granularity e.g payroll records with FI items.
Reporting and reconciliation across financial applications
was difficult especially between FI and CO-PA.
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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE
UNIVERSAL JOURNAL
NO OVERALL REPORTING
Bringing together the legal view with details of

responsibility and/or market segments at a glance

was not available.

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UNIVERSAL JOURNAL

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JOURNAL

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