Group Reporting 2023 has been released this month! According to the annual release strategy, SAP has released a new version of SAP S/4HANA private cloud and on-premise. This new version includes the features introduced throughout the year during the quarterly release schedule for S/4HANA Public Cloud. As a result, updates can include a lot of functionality. Some of that is valuable but not all of it will be interesting.
If you don’t have time to read through the full release notes for Group Reporting 2023, we have you covered.
Enhancements in global hierarchies
Global Hierarchies are a key object in reporting. Group Reporting 2023 makes several adjustments to ensure global hierarchies are more flexible and maintenance friendly:
- Add a range of leaves - You can now add members to a hierarchy based on ID range (e.g. PC001-PC010). However, if a new member is created, the hierarchy must be re-saved and activated before the new member is added to the hierarchy.
- Refer to other hierarchies - If you’re working with multiple hierarchies on the same dimension, it’s possible there are content overlaps. For example, if Roll-up from profit centre to business unit is also used in a hierarchy to country and a hierarchy to division. You can now re-use parts of your hierarchy across others, saving time on maintenance and reducing potential change errors.
Offsetting (netting)
SAP has delivered some predefined content to automatically report negative debit accounts to a credit account or vice versa. The calculation is a reclassification. Therefore, you still keep data exactly as reported locally. However, you’re still able to report with positive figures on 1 account (debit or credit).
Then, per FS item, you can indicate an offset item to define where negative values should be posted. Here, Netting is usually re-calculated on a consolidated level as well. There should be enough functionality in Group Reporting 2023 to support this. However, we’re still evaluating and we’ll update this article as soon as the full functionality is clear.
ESG Starter Kit
Group Reporting 2023 offers new, predefined forms to enable ESG reporting. The scope includes the following forms:
- Greenhouse gas emissions
- Energy Consumption
- Water Consumption and Withdrawal
- Personnel, Diversity & Inclusion
- Personnel, Discrimination Cases
- Anti-Corruption Training
- R&D Projects Description
Workflows for Manual Journals
Making Group Journals was already possible in Group Reporting 2022. However, there wasn’t really a suitable solution for segregation of duties. In Version 2023, it’s possible to create a workflow for journals, enabling one person to create the journal and another to check/edit the journal and post it. This enforces a “4 Eye” principle, helping with your SOX compliance.
Define Document Type in Balance Carry Forward
Group Reporting uses an extensive number of document types during the consolidation process. That offers better insight during analysis, but over time, the number can grow so big that you lose oversight of what you have. In Group Reporting 2023, you can set a Document Type destination in the balance carry forward. Then, reported data from previous years is saved in a separate document type, keeping new document types cleaner and easier to maintain.
Reporting Booklet
This Fiori based reporting tool helps you quickly generate booklets using frequently used reports, such as balance sheet trend, P&L in, comparative and trend views, cashflow, functional P&L, equity changes, and more.
That’s it for our summary of new features in Group Reporting 2023. If you’d like to learn more, or would like to discuss Group Reporting with Finext, get in touch. We’d be happy to go over what’s new and how you can best leverage it for your finance team.
