SAP SIMPLE FINANCE

INTRODUCTION TO
UNIVERSAL JOURNAL
Venkat Subrahmanyam

INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE

UNIVERSAL JOURNAL
AGENDA
EXPLAIN
THE IDEA AND CONCEPT OF
UNIVERSAL JOURNAL
UNDERSTAND
THE
ACCOUNTING
ARCHITECTURE RATIONAL.

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

INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE

UNIVERSAL JOURNAL
TRADITIONAL
ARCHITECTURE MULTIPLE
DATA SOURCES

INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCEUNIVERSAL 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 FINANCEUNIVERSAL JOURNAL

CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL JOURNALReport 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 FINANCEUNIVERSAL JOURNAL

CORE
BENEFITS
OF
UNIVERSAL
JOURNALReport 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 FINANCEUNIVERSAL 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

INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCEUNIVERSAL JOURNAL

CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL

JOURNALMonth-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 FINANCEUNIVERSAL JOURNAL

CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL

JOURNALData 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 FINANCEUNIVERSAL JOURNAL

CORE BENEFITS OF UNIVERSAL JOURNALData 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 FINANCEUNIVERSAL JOURNAL

CORE
BENEFITS
OF
UNIVERSAL
JOURNALData 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

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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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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE
FINANCE UNIVERSAL JOURNAL

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE UNIVERSAL JOURNAL

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INTRODUCTION TO SIMPLE FINANCE

UNIVERSAL JOURNAL

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