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Stephane_Neufco
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert


 

ABOUT

We periodically release updates for SAP Financial Consolidation to include new features, the latest security protection, and the best integration with both ERP, enterprise performance management (EPM) and business intelligence (BI) software. Below are the major updates available in SAP Financial Consolidation release 10.1. For more information you can also download the "What's new in SAP Financial Consolidation 10.1" document on What's new in SAP Financial Consolidation 10.1. This interactive document provides a summary the major product updates from version 7.5 to version 10.1.


 




 

REJUVENATED WEB USER EXPERIENCE (RELEASE 10.1)

Using modern design principles based on SAP Fiori, the UX is simplified across tasks to reflect the way end-users actually work throughout their day. The new HTML5 web user interface (UI) supports multiple browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari. It has been fully reimagined the web UI through a co-innovation process with our business end-users. Available today, the rejuvenated data collection process, import and analysis reports are our first delivery. Other web features such as manual journal entries or consolidation processing will be made available through support packages. Would you want to see the new UX in action you can watch our sap.com video.




 

NEW WEB UX WELCOME PAGE (RELEASE 10.1)

The new web HTML5 welcome page is user-centric. My Recent Work enables you to directly access your recent packages or reports. The page displays “tiles” for a rapid access to Analysis Reports, Package List and Data Import. When you use our ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) tool, a tile also shows SAP Financial Information Management. To make the welcome page closer to your corporate brand you can define the background picture of your choice. More information is available on our SAP Help Portal on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.1 – SAP Help Portal Page.



 

NEW WEB UX “EXCEL-LIKE” GRID FOR DATA ENTRY (RELEASE 10.1)

The new Web “Excel-like” grid for data entry is multi-tab and multi-window ready, and you now have the ability to work on different packages at the same time including in side-by-side mode. In addition, a resizable and movable control widget has been developed to check consistency on data for one schedule. The user experience is simplified through retractable panels to see schedules in full screen, the ability to easily move from one package to the other and easy access to actions on packages including print, export and preloading. The "Excel-like" grid for data entry is strengthened in SP02 for better usability: the left pane (quick view of available package list) is now easier to read. In addition, a new Information on data widget has been developed. Last, the new Drill-to-origin feature displays the origin of data in the transactional system is now available when the software is used in combination with SAP Financial Information Management. More information is available on our SAP Help Portal on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.1 – SAP Help Portal Page.



 

NEW WEB UX PACKAGE LIST (RELEASE 10.1)

The package list UX is fully reimagined. To help you focus on your current tasks, you can define filters on category, reporting unit, status, data entry period, currency, validity, protection and locking. You can also sort on 26 different criteria such as deadline, data last changed by, last saved by, locking or control level. All choices remain persistent for a personalized and user-centric experience. From the top bar, 10 actions are possible on one or multiple packages including open, integrate, publish, protect, unprotect, unlock, reset to zero, submit, reject or export. Last, a new Google-like search capability is implemented to help you quickly find the packages you are looking for. More information is available on our SAP Help Portal on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.1 – SAP Help Portal Page.




 

NEW WEB UX ANALYSIS REPORTS (RELEASE 10.1)

From a functional standpoint SP02 delivers a new Analysis feature to analyze data and run consolidated financial reports. The Analysis HTML5 web page shows all folders, books and reports available for your company. You can filter the reports by category (e.g. Actual, Forecast, Plan) to focus on the reporting you are currently working on. Favorite reports can be tagged to further personalize the list and a new "Google-like" search capability helps you quickly find the report you want to run (this feature was previously unreleased in the product). In addition, the navigation between reports through linked schedules is simpler and you can run reports up to the lowest level of data granularity (journal entry number). A new Information on Data widget has been developed with dimension identification related to the amount in a cell. Last, you can print reports and report settings with the new free-of-charge SAP Printing client. More information is available on our SAP Help Portal on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.1 – SAP Help Portal Page.




 

NEW WEB UX DATA IMPORT (RELEASE 10.1)


Data import is redesigned. It is form-based screen (vs. wizard) to enable the end-user to see all import preferences at a glance. In addition, retractable panes enable you to only focus on what matters the most. You can also leverage a new capability to choose the packages to be imported when loading multiple reporting units, and show/hide data preview. To make data check easier, a new reject display shows “real” errors and simple warnings. Last, you have the possibility to download, correct package rejects in Microsoft Excel and import back in SAP Financial Consolidation. More information is available on our SAP Help Portal on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.1 – SAP Help Portal Page.



NEW SAP WEB PRINTING SOLUTION (RELEASE 10.1)

The new web printing solution has been developed by SAP. It is free of charge and alternative to ActivePDF (i.e. you can choose to use either the SAP printing or ActivePDF). The SAP web printing is embedded in the software and its installation is automated via setup. From a technical standpoint, the SAP web printing has been built upon open source. It first transforms Microsoft XPS Document printer input to HTML, then the HTML is transformed to PDF. More information is available on our SAP Help Portal on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.1 – SAP Help Portal Page and on SAP Idea Place, our online collaboration platform with customers.



 

TRIED AND TESTED 64-BIT WEB SERVER LAYER (RELEASE 10.1)

In release 10.1 a complete code line review was performed on the web server layer. Product code lines are updated according to the 64-bit performance standards and the software is no longer restricted to the 1.4GB Internet Information Server (IIS) limit. The 64-bit compliance results in almost no memory constraints anymore and increased web stability. More information on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.1 – SAP Help Portal Page.



 

REAL-TIME REPORTING WITH SAP HANA (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

The support of SAP HANA as an underlying database, in addition to Microsoft SQL and Oracle databases, had been released with Support Package 12 in Q4-2013. For more than a year our R&D team worked on a proof of concept with one of our most strategic customers to leverage the in-memory technology in SP15 from a reporting perspective. With SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 SP15 released in October 2014, we bring SAP HANA integration to the next level and help you unleash the power of real-time analytics on consolidated data. More information on  Real-time reporting through SAP HANA with SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 SP15

 

REINFORCED USER MANAGEMENT AND SOX COMPLIANCE (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

User management is a more and more important topic for large enterprises to be compliant with internal controls and external regulations such as the Section IV of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Today corporate responsibility has been enhanced to combat corporate and accounting fraud and internal control effectiveness is being severely assessed. With SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 SP15 we reinforce our specialty financial consolidation product with a set of new features which makes user management easier, more precise and significantly increases visibility of data access rights (who can do what for which data?).More information on Reinforced user management and SOX compliance with SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 SP15.
FASTER DATA EXTRACTION TO SAP BW OR ANY NON-SAP TARGET APPLICATION (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

SAP Financial Information Management offers SAP Financial Consolidation connectivity to both SAP and non-SAP applications, moving data from a source to a target system. Before SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 SP15, extracting data from SAP Financial Consolidation and loading it to target systems such as SAP Business Warehouse was slow. To speed up the transfer process, both SAP Financial Information Management 10.0 SP11 and SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 SP15 have been optimized. This improvement was notably requested by our customers using SAP Financial Consolidation in combination with SAP Business Warehouse but also applies for non-SAP target applications. More information on Faster data extraction process with SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 SP15.

 

NEW CUSTOMER-DRIVEN ENHANCEMENTS (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 SP15 includes new functions proposed by our customers through SAP Idea Place, our online service to enable SAP teams to facilitate co-innovation with our business end-users. Three new customer-driven features are delivered in SP15. First, Manual journal entries can now be exported to Microsoft Excel which is massively used by finance teams. Second, ergonomics and usability of the SAP Financial Consolidation end-user “desktop” have been improved through more precise entity selection and new filtering capabilities. Third, a new “save as” feature has been created for rate tables so consolidation end-users can fill in conversion or tax rates based on a previous period instead of creating a new table from scratch. You can find more information on Announcing the availability of SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 SP15.
NEW DATABASE SUPPORT FOR SAP HANA (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)
In addition to Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database Server, the SAP Financial Consolidation application now supports the SAP HANA database. SAP Financial Consolidation data can be stored in column mode, according to the SAP HANA database standards, enabling a dramatic simplification of the IT architecture and a full leverage of our in-memory capabilities for a real-time reporting. The database server contains all the data in SAP Financial Consolidation application and supports the standard database engines. The application server connects to the database server using OLE DB and the RDBMS client. More information on SAP HANA is available on Welcome | SAP HANA.
MICROSOFT OFFICE CLIENT (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

Finance teams can now analyze and report SAP Financial Consolidation data in Microsoft Excel through SAP enterprise performance management (EPM) add-in. The EPM add-in is an add-in to Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Office PowerPoint designed to give access to SAP EPM product data, including SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0, and to perform reporting and analysis against this data through Microsoft Office. The add-in allows analysis of data coming from several EPM products at the same time. You can find more information on SAP EPM add-in on SAP EPM solutions, add-in for Microsoft Office 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page.

 

INTEGRATION WITH SAP DISCLOSURE MANAGEMENT (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

SAP Disclosure Management helps manage the production, filing, and publication of financial and regulatory statements. In order to streamline and accelerate the financial close to disclose process, a new SAP Financial Consolidation feature is available in release 10.0 to automate the synchronization with SAP Disclosure Management. End-users can now create a dedicated report bundle in SAP Financial Consolidation which is automatically pushed into the SAP Disclosure Management application. From a technical standpoint, SAP Financial Consolidation generates a sending report bundle task which automatically refreshes the report bundle, extracts CSV from the reports and sends data to SAP Disclosure Management through a Web Service. More information on SAP Disclosure Management can be found on Disclosure Management Software | EPM | Analytics | SAP.

 

INTEGRATION WITH SAP FINANCIAL INFORMATION MANAGEMENT (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

SAP Financial Information Management is our ETL (extract transform and load) tool to move data from/to SAP Financial Consolidation. In release 10.0, SAP Financial Information Management can be launched directly from SAP Financial Consolidation to map and import data into packages and drill through to origin with a single sign-on (SSO) when launching or using drill through to origin functionality. Through SAP Financial Information Management data can also be exported from SAP Financial Consolidation SAP NetWeaver BW. The integration to source systems is now easier and data import from ERP even more secure. You can find more information on SAP Financial Information Management on SAP Financial Information Management 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page.

 

INTEGRATION WITH SAP INTERCOMPANY (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

Our intercompany reconciliation software empowers individual business units – rather than your corporate finance division – to reconcile intercompany balances in real time via the Web. To streamline the reconciliation activities, a new view has been developed in SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 for a direct access to the SAP Intercompany application. The link to access SAP Intercompany is keyed in the “general options” of SAP Financial Consolidation. The creation of related rights and functional profile security can be entered in SAP Financial Consolidation “security” view. You can find more information on SAP Intercompany on Intercompany Reconciliation Software | EPM | Analytics | SAP.

 

WEB ADMINISTRATION CONSOLE (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

The administration console is dedicated to system administrators to help them manage the SAP Financial Consolidation platform. With release 10.0 the administration console can now be accessed through the Web. In addition, the console includes a series of improvements to better monitor activities on the database such as connections or tasks in progress. You can find more information on the Web administration console on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page.

 

PREVENTING SECURITY BREACH DURING THE REPORTING UNIT PACKAGE PROCESS (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

To further increase security and integrity a new feature has been developed in SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 to prevent security breach in the process of generating reporting unit “packages”. Bypassing or contravening enterprise security policy for locked reporting units is now impossible. When a package is protected or fully locked, regeneration of its opening package is not authorized. You can find more information on this feature on Analytics Knowledge Center.

 

EMBEDDED ARCHIVING TOOL TO MONITOR, ARCHIVE, BACKUP AND RESTORE CONSOLIDATIONS (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 embedded archiving tool is dedicated to the database administrator to monitor database size and also archive as well as restore past consolidations. The archiving tool provides transparent access to all archived historical data and helps reduce database size. The tool integrates a monitoring and simulation of the sizing of production databases. It can also support multiple archives and handle scheduling of the archiving / restoring process. You can find more information on the archiving tool on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page.

 

MATRIX CONSOLIDATION (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

The matrix consolidation technique is used to present segment information in matrix-type reports. This feature has been requested by many of our customers to meet both statutory consolidation and management reporting requirements. SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 can manage matrix consolidation requirements by retrieving two different reporting unit rollups into one single consolidation. In order to enable matrix consolidations, two new system dimensions have been created in SAP Financial Consolidation: the management unit (MU) dimension and its counterpart called the partner management unit (PMU) dimension. SAP Financial Consolidation reports can now cross two hierarchies and retrieve properly positioned eliminations on both lines and columns. You can find more information on this feature on SAP Analytics Knowledge Center - Financial Consolidation release 10.0.

 

ATTACHING COMMENTS TO CONSOLIDATIONS (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

With its new "attachment" feature SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 enables the creation and management of attachment files into consolidation definitions. Once the consolidation has run, attachments can be added to the consolidation definition. With this feature, greater information detail can be made available for the office of finance, internal governance or external audit teams.  You can find more information on the archiving tool on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page.

 

ENHANCED EMAIL ALERTS AND NOTIFICATIONS FOR PACKAGE AND MANUAL JOURNAL ENTRIES (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

Real-time monitoring of data collection and central manual journal entries is critical to properly manage the financial consolidation process. SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 integrates email alerts for data entry package and on manual journal entries. In order to streamline the data entry process, SAP Financial Consolidation package workflow monitoring has been enriched with the business end-user responsible for gathering packages being emailed real-time when data is ready to be processed or when a package is rejected. For central manual journal entries, the consolidation end-user can subscribe to a journal entry and automatically receive alerts and notifications on any creation, validation, posting, protection or deletion of manual journal entries. You can find more information on this feature on SAP Analytics Knowledge Center - Financial Consolidation release 10.0.

 

PROPORTIONATE TO FULL CONSOLIDATION METHOD (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

SAP Financial Consolidation is designed to meet complex regulatory requirements. In release 10.0 a new “change in scope” status has been created in order to comply with the international financial reporting standards (IFRS) updates with regards to Business Combinations (specific goodwill calculation rule in this case). In the scope view of the product, the new “proportionate to full consolidation” / “full consolidation to proportionate” mode enables the selection of reporting units that are switching modes. Consolidation rules can then specifically trigger reporting units where consolidation method is changing from proportionate to full or vice-versa. You can find more information on this feature on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page.

 

DISCONTINUED OPERATIONS (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

In order to deal with discontinued operations according to IFRS regulation, SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 is now able to identify in a consolidation scope the reporting units planned to be divested. The target to be able to specifically select the planned divested reporting units applicable for a given consolidation rule. A new reference table called “scope custom properties” is now available to trigger the planned divested reporting units in consolidation rules. You can find more information on this feature on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page.

 

IFRS STARTER KIT AUTOMATED INSTALLATION (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

With version 10.0 the SAP Financial Consolidation installation set-up includes our starter kit for IFRS including one single step installation through the web administration console. The starter kit for IFRS version can be controlled directly from the product to ensure streamlined and continuous compliance with the latest IFRS evolutions. The installation includes all documents in the starter kit file including the Operating and Design guides. You can find more information on this feature on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page.

 

IMPROVED SEARCH CAPABILITIES FOR FINDING EXISTING OR PAST CONSOLIDATIONS (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

SAP Financial Consolidation search capabilities have been improved in order to streamline the process of finding existing or past consolidations. Searching historical consolidations is significantly easier and past consolidations can now be found much faster than before. When using the desktop user interface, a more flexible context menu has been made available in the combo box, displaying each reporting ID, category and data entry period in two separate columns. When using the Web user interface, stronger search and filtering capabilities have also been developed. You can find more information on the new search consolidation feature on SAP Analytics Knowledge Center - Financial Consolidation release 10.0.

 

CONSOLIDATION SNAPSHOT (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

In order to better deal with consolidation activities such as pro forma statements, changes in accounting standards and/or audit of consolidated data over time a new "consolidation snapshot” feature has been developed in SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 to freeze filters of dimension members. When a filter has been frozen, SAP Financial Consolidation changes the dynamic selection of the filter (for example based on account characteristics) into a fixed list of elementary values. When freezing the filter, the end-user is able to create a copy of the dynamic filter at the same time as the freeze. You can find more information on the new "snapshot" consolidation feature on SAP Analytics Knowledge Center - Financial Consolidation release 10.0.

 

LOCKING/UNLOCKING MULTIPLE CONSOLIDATIONS (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

Previously SAP Financial Consolidation was only able to lock or unlock consolidations on a one by one basis through a 1 by 1 selection mode. In order to simplify the business end-user job we were able to remove the need for repetitive tasks : in release 10.0 the product now also enables the consolidation locking and/or unlocking through multi-selection. This new SAP Financial Consolidation feature is intended to streamline the customer process of managing several statutory consolidations, management reporting consolidations as well as simulations. You can find more information on the new lock/unlock consolidation feature on SAP Analytics Knowledge Center - Financial Consolidation release 10.0.

 

IMPROVED CATEGORY BUILDER USABILITY (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 "category builder" module has been redesigned to provide more clarity and streamline the category scenario definition usability. As customers need to update their customization to their evolving and changing business needs, this improvement enables easier, faster and safer maintenance and implementation of changes. It is now possible to define indicators through export and import of flow behaviors to/from Microsoft Excel. The category builder maintenance has also been improved through new capabilities such as copy/paste of category scenarios, new list functions to display items, multi-selections, export formulas and controls either for back-up purposes or for communication to auditors. You can find more information on this feature on SAP Analytics Knowledge Center - Financial Consolidation release 10.0.

 

MASTER DATA IMPORT AND EXPORT TO/FROM NON-SAP SOURCES (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

In order to improve SAP Financial Consolidation integration to non-SAP systems, the master data import and export web services are now officially published and supported with release 10.0, enabling integration with systems other than SAP. A comprehensive documentation is provided in the SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 Administration Guide including the principles of importing / exporting dimension members through web services, examples of export or import web services as well as import web service error processing. For more information please check SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page (go to System Administration and Maintenance Information and select the Administrator’s Guide – Financial Consolidation).

 

NEW HIERARCHY METHODS IN THE REPORT DESIGNER (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

The software reporting capabilities have been enhanced through enriched selection possibilities based on hierarchy now available in SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0. In order to complement the selections based on hierarchies, two additional hierarchy link methods have been added to the hierarchy selection dialog box in the SAP Financial Consolidation report designer. The first is “children and grandchildren from starting point” and the second is “starting point and children and grandchildren". You can find more information on this feature on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page.

 

CUBE DESIGNER FULL SSO AND SUPPORT FOR SAP NETWEAVER (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

Included in SAP Financial Consolidation, SAP Cube Designer is an application which enables authorized users to map two types of structured data: firstly data stored in a SAP Financial Consolidation database, and secondly data to be stored in OLAP cubes and/or star schemas. To improve reporting capabilities on top of SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0, Cube Designer now supports SAP NetWeaver BW 7.30 and includes a full single sign-on (SSO) mode. You can find more information on SAP Financial Consolidation 10.0 – SAP Help Portal Page (go to Application Help and select the “Financial Consolidation: Cube Designer User Guide”).
ACCESSIBILITY FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED USERS (SINCE RELEASE 10.0)

Through a co-innovation performed with one of our key strategic customers, SAP Financial Consolidation has been improved so that visually impaired users can take full advantage of screen reader capabilities when using the product. This new capability is part of SAP overall accessibility commitment, which refers to the possibility for everyone, including and especially people with disabilities, to access and use technology and information products. SAP ensures the accessibility of the products via the “Product Standard Accessibility” using various process steps to plan, develop, test and report these quality features. More information on our commitments to accessibility can be found on SAP Design Guild -- Accessibility.

 

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