SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting release 2202 is generally available
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We in SAP Product Engineering team are happy and proud to announce the general availability of SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting release 2202 on January 26, 2022. In the latest version of our next-generation consolidation software, you can benefit from the following new and enhanced features to help you run your group financial close better:

• Tighter accounting-integration via group reporting preparation ledgers
• App for review of group financial statement
• Enhanced reclassification for equity method
• Time and Version dependent financial statement item attributes in substitutions and validations
• Data Mapping: “copy” function with data transformation capabilities for reported data
• Forms: use of existing forms as shortcuts in different folders and packages
• New pre-delivered totals validation / control rules

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Tighter accounting-integration via group reporting preparation ledgers
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With release 2202, you can now benefit from a tighter integration of accounting with group reporting, via the introduction of new group reporting preparation ledgers at accounting level.

As depicted in the screenshot below, in release 2202 you can turn an existing accounting ledger into a group reporting preparation ledger. Group reporting fields such as consolidation unit, financial statement item, partner unit or subitem are added to the accounting universal journal. The field values are being derived in real-time during accounting posting and can be displayed in the group reporting preparation ledger view of the journal.

The group reporting preparation ledger helps you integrate accounting with group reporting / consolidation more tightly, and:

• Get real-time aggregated group view into accounting: as group reporting fields are available in accounting, you can have early access to preliminary financial information in a “group reporting” view
• Benefit from an increased flexibility: early derivation without changing source data; SAP default or customer-defined substitution rules for consolidation units, financial statement items, subitems and partner units; cross-dimensional field derivations
• Improved response time and performance: the overall release tasks is faster, as group reporting fields in the preparation ledger are derived into GL journal entry real-time

The group reporting preparation ledger delivers the following features:

• Realignment function in accounting which allows to apply latest substitution logic to existing posting material in accounting creating reclassification documents in accounting
• Group reporting substitution logic applied to accounting balance carry-forward
• Support of release of special periods accounting data into group reporting special periods 1:1
• Incremental release of latest data since last release creating delta documents in group reporting
• New universal journal validation task log including breakdown checks and line-item validations of group reporting (see the screenshot below)

As we move forward, the introduction of group reporting preparation ledgers also sets the foundation for future innovation, such as:

• Increased transparency into corporate value chains with group valuation (see our roadmap item)
• Segment reporting through flexible derivation of the consolidation unit in group reporting preparation ledgers (see our roadmap item)
• Analytical group view on unreleased accounting data (see our roadmap item)
• Process control integration of accounting and group reporting with real-time validation situation and alerts

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App for review of group financial statement
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In release 2202, you can use our new Group Financial Statement Review Booklet app, designed to help you validate and monitor group reporting data during the closing process. The Review Booklet is first of all a new application for consolidation end-users to achieve more transparency Into the group financial statement. But it is also a new type of application and approach, which combines application guidance with integrated insights leveraging SAP Analytics Cloud (see our video below).

The Group Financial Statement Review Booklet app is specifically designed for consolidation business end-users. It’s a new generation of analytical app which provides out-of-the-box meaningful business pages and guidance to help you streamline your group close:

• Leverage predefined page layouts help you answer typical business questions on elements such as balance sheet, profit and loss, cash flow statement or statement of changes in equity
• Benefit from a guided navigation to analyze predefined variances and validate the underlying group data
• Achieve full transparency into your data with an intuitive UX including multi-dimensional analysis, and drill-through the more granular accounting line item

In the Review Booklet app, each business page is designed to answer specific business questions. To answer such business questions, our guided mode provides the most relevant columns, rows, and filters for you to choose from. This simplifies the page to provide the most relevant data at a glance (see the Consolidated Balance Sheet screenshot below).

Would you need to get full flexibility and additional dimensions to structure the business page as you want, you can switch to the flexible mode. With flexible mode, you can drill down into additional dimensions and add them to rows and columns for a more detailed, multi-dimensional analysis of your data. To display these additional dimensions, select a dimension in the report to display a list of available dimensions to choose from (see the Profit & Loss by Function screenshot below).

Wherever you are in the app, whether in guided or flexible mode, you can export the report to Excel at any time. Just click on the Report Menu / Export to Microsoft Excel (see the screenshot below).

From a technology perspective the Group Financial Statement Review Booklet is a SAP Fiori / UI5 app based on new analytics UI5 components. This is a lot simpler compared to embedding a separate cloud product. We reuse the same pivot Grid control across SAP Fiori and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) as well as the typical dialogs you need for analytics. We share the same data access layer with SAC using the same protocol, firefly libraries and query models. Our new approach brings analytical features and application guidance closer together (see the screenshot below, with the integrated integrated visual analytic component powered by SAC).

Please note that the approach to embed stories and create dashboards and visualizations using SAC continues to stay a strategic use case, as SAC combines BI, augmented and predictive analytics, and planning capabilities into one cloud environment. You can find more information on SAC capabilities here.

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Enhanced reclassification for equity method
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With release 2202, you can now use a new option called “Remove Predefined Filters” to automate the consolidation adjustments for a unit consolidated with equity method. When you select this option (see the screenshot below), all data from your consolidation units are selected, including data from the consolidation units at equity method.

In release 2202, we deliver new reclassification methods that include consolidation rules for the following equity method scenarios:

• First consolidation
• Subsequent consolidation
• Goodwill
• Change in ownership
• Capital increase
• Total divestiture

Below is an automated posting example on consolidation unit FG101 at equity method (20%) in a first consolidation scenario. Equity financial statement items are read, and trigger the adjustment of the investments accounted for using equity method against the retained earnings for both the controlling and non controlling interest. Note: in the example below there is no indirect NCI, hence entries on NCI FS items sum up to zero.

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Time and Version dependent financial statement item attributes in substitutions and validations
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With release 2202, our Manage Substitution/Validation Rules – Group Journal Entries app is enhanced, and you can now use Time and Version-dependent financial statement item attributes as a pre-condition value for your substitution and validation rules (see the screenshot below). Along with the release of this feature, we have also enhanced the UI of our “Post Group Journal Entry” app to provide better user experience in terms of visualization of what attributes are related to a selected financial statement item.

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Data Mapping: “copy” function with data transformation capabilities for reported data
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With release 2202, we improve the use of SAP Group Reporting Data Collection (GRDC) data mapping capability to transform SAP S/4HANA for group reporting data (ACDOCU table) within the SAP S/4HANA system. This innovation provides enhanced copy scenarios for reported data that relies on transformation capabilities such as:

• Step-consolidation: copy subgroup consolidated data as reported data to a consolidation unit of the upper group (in the same or different SAP S/4HANA Cloud tenants)
• Enrich trial balance data by leveraging GR mapping transformations (for instance, add consolidation of investments C/I control fields)
• Use budget (or previous period actual) numbers with some transformations as actuals for nonmaterial consolidation units in periods that are not subject to audit

From a feature perspective, GRDC data mapping supports group reporting as a data source allowing reported data copy with transformations: (1) Read data from Group Reporting’s ACDOCU table, (2) Transform using mapping capabilities in GRDC data mapping, and (3) Write data back to Group Reporting ACDOCU table reported data layer.

As depicted in the  GIF below, a new data source is available in GRDC mapping, which reads from Group Reporting (“ACDOCU Table”) leveraging the standard read API.

You can now use a new template mapping file, enhanced with ACDOCU fields:

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Forms: use of existing forms as shortcuts in different folders and packages
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With GRDC Forms, you can organize your manual data entry by attaching a set of forms into “packages”. For example, you can create a monthly package with P&L forms only, and quarterly package with all forms including Balance Sheet and Consolidation of Investment (see the screenshot below).

With release 2202, you now benefit from a new shortcut feature. With the shortcut, the same form(s) – for example P&L –  can be attached to multiple packages (e.g. monthly and quarterly packages). The new GRDC form shortcut feature reduces your maintenance effort and makes the GRDC forms management more flexible.

Here’s an example on how you can use the shortcut feature. The form S0I1400 “Non-Current Assets” is attached to the package “Actual Reported Data” but you also want the same form used in another package. As illustrated in the screenshot below, to create a shortcut of this form, go to the “Manage Forms” app, and:

• Select the form (here, S0I1400 “Non-Current Assets”)
• Use the menu Create / Shortcut
• Select the package folder where you want to place the shortcut

Your form shortcut appears in the new package folder, and you don’t have to maintain it twice. In summary, a shortcut is created to the form in the selected location, with the same name as the initial form. You can access and make changes to the form from any of the shortcuts. Changes made to the form from any of the shortcuts are applied to the form and all the shortcuts to that form.

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New pre-delivered totals validation / control rules
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New business content on totals validation rules are delivered for scope item “1SG” as additional aide to help you analyze errors taking place in tasks such as “calculate net income”: missing financial statement item derivation for B/S and P&L, balancing BS, balancing P&L and net income B/S = net income P&L.

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More information
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• Join SAP S/4HANA for group reporting community
• Co-innovate online with SAP Product Engineering team
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting 2202 feature deck
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting 2202 documentation
• Recap of SAP S/4HANA for group reporting releases
• SAP S/4HANA for group reporting Road Map Explorer
• Finance for SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2202