Finext has always been committed to providing finance professionals with the tools they need to optimize their work. We focus on technologies that enable us to empower finance departments and provide our clients with technologies, implementation and ongoing consultancy and advice. We spoke with Benno van Ingen, Lead Consultant for CFO Technologies at Finext, about SAP Cloud Finance to discuss our new direction and the technology we are using to get there.
We are broadening our portfolio so that we can address more issues facing the CFO's office," says Benno. "So in addition to planning, budgeting, forecasting and financial reporting, within our portfolio we also offer solutions for primary financial processes and, in time, risk management, sustainability, tax and cash management.
All of your financial processes, from transactions to reporting to tax returns, must be supported by the right technology for your organization. That technology must be implemented by consultants who understand both your business and the technology. That's what Finext does with SAP Cloud Finance."
S/4HANA Cloud for Finance by Finext
S/4HANA Cloud Finance includes SAP S/4HANA Cloud with Group Reporting for financial processes and consolidation, and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) for financial and business planning, addressing a wide range of tools and topics. This toolbox allows us to leverage technology to address a significant number of financial needs.
"SAP Cloud for Finance is unique in that it is a toolbox and not a solution to just one problem. Finext does not focus specifically on selling SAP modules, but solves problems in the CFO's office. SAP is modular and we focus on providing a toolbox that customers can use to address a wide range of problems.
There are other advantages as well. For example, SAP S/4HANA is distinguished by its integrated approach. This gives you seamless integration within EPM, SAC, Group Reporting and the other BTP products. There is no more financial silo, everyone works together within one platform."
A long history with SAP
Finext has a long relationship with SAP, which came naturally. Finext was the first and largest OutlookSoft Partner in the Benelux. When SAP purchased OutlookSoft and Business Objects in 2007, it was a logical choice for us to continue with these implementations. When SAP relaunched OutlookSoft as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) we were suddenly a part of SAP's portfolio.
"Part of my role was to build a relationship with SAP so that we could work together to introduce OutlookSoft within the SAP community. That went well for us because we knew the product very well and it was part of the Business User Portfolio - which was very important at the time."
"Part of my role was to build a relationship with SAP so we could work together to introduce OutlookSoft within the SAP community."
Finext has been working with SAP BPC since it emerged from OutlookSoft. We have also been working with Group Reporting since it was launched, however this only recently reached mature status and Finext completed the first implementation in 2022. With SAP in the process of merging all its products onto one integrated platform, this shift is also a logical step for Finext.
"BPC is still an important product in SAP's portfolio. However, in the long term we are focusing on HANA SAP BPC, a standalone product, but the forward-looking strategy is to move everything to HANA and S/4HANA, as an integrated platform (and therefore integrated data) is of great value."
Finext's roadmap and taking cloud finance to the next level
Originally, Finext does Enterprise Performance Management, focused on meeting the needs of financial professionals. That is also our market position; we are widely recognized as a company that helps financial professionals. However, until recently, we only fulfilled the EPM part of that ambition. Including Finance-led SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud in our portfolio is going to help us do that, so it's a logical next step.
"Finext's goal is to help finance professionals. That's what we do and it's also in our name, 'taking finance to the next level.' We have to evolve with the financial community, and it's changing rapidly."
"For example, the finance department has evolved from providing accounting to a role as a partner for reporting, compliance and steering within the organization.
Finance and IT are becoming increasingly intertwined. We're doing more in analytics, predictive forecasting, data validation and security to simplify processes, which creates a lot of room for tools, experts and processes around data quality management, data reliability and data integration. That's all in the SAP portfolio, but human expertise and data experts are still needed to drive results in the right direction.
We strive to keep up with all the changes, which means staying flexible and focused, wherever that leads."
Better and real-time financial insights thanks to expertise with tooling
Finext has extensive experience in FP&A and consolidation. Originally, those projects depended on the party providing the data. Today, that data is stored in S/4HANA. When you use Group Reporting for financial consolidation and external reporting, you can click through from the consolidated data to the live transactions all the way to the original documents from which the numbers come, because everything is integrated. The same goes for SAC for financial and business planning and the more niche solutions within S/4HANA for profitability and performance management.
"SAP is known as highly technical, but with the new generation of cloud solutions such as S/4HANA Public Cloud and SAP Cloud Analytics, that has changed."
"SAP is known as highly technical, but with the new generation of cloud solutions such as S/4HANA Public Cloud and SAP Cloud Analytics, that has changed. Modern finance professionals need access to flexible but transparent and reliable solutions with a less technical approach to both implementation and use. Implementation requires in-depth knowledge of the financial domain. How financial processes work and what is important in the processes within your organization. This is fast becoming more important than the technical side, which ultimately needs to be standardized more and more for security and efficiency reasons."
"Finext delivers deep knowledge of finance and business processes, with the technical expertise to best shape those processes in SAP S/4HANA Cloud finance. S/4HANA Public Cloud is business-driven, which gives us room to deliver significant value. At Finext, we bring together our deep knowledge of finance and technology. So we can help finance experts address and solve problems and reduce uncertainty."
Want to read more about the possibilities of SAP Cloud Finance? Check out the page here or contact our SAP specialist below.
