SEM BCS Road Map EhP Overview

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Hi Team

Please find below list of features available in each SEM BCS EhP which helpful to all of us.

If any body already using these below features or funtionlity, share information which helps a lot.

SEM BCS Road Map EhP Overview:

Enhancements for SEM-BCS - Enhancement Package 2 -(SEM-BCS 6.02)

General / Infrastructure:
-  Time depend attributes for cons unit combinations
-  Open Periods explicitly
-  Run cons method in update run
-  Parallel task execution for task post on cons unit level

Multi-period Consolidation:
-  You can use multi-period consolidation to execute tasks and task groups for timeframes that span multiple periods without needing to change the parameters.

Workflow for Approving Status Changes in Tasks:
-  SAP Business Workflow is now integrated in the consolidation monitor. If you set up a workflow for a task, you are able to block (or block by user intervention) only if the status change has been approved in the workflow approval process.

Enhancements in automatic data collection:
-  Now you also can have the consolidation system collect documents with the posting levels 02, 12, 20, 22, and 30. This enables you to execute the data collection and copy tasks for consolidation groups, in addition to consolidation units.
-  automatic data collection of additional financial data.

Deferred taxes:
-  Posting of deferred taxes in the balance sheet has been extended: The system can post deferred taxes in the balance sheet on financial statement items and subassignments that are specifically intended for the balance sheet line items shown in the original document.

Enhancements in elimination of interunit profit/loss in inventory:
-  The system can read inventory data not only from the additional financial data, but also from the totals database.

Proportionate Consolidation:
-  This component enables you to include consolidation units proportionately in your consolidated financial statements according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or other corporate accounting policies. In contrast to the purchase method, the proportionate method of consolidation collects the items of a unit’s financial statements corresponding to the investor unit’s percentage of ownership in the investee unit, rather than at their full amounts.

Restatement:
-  he system now supports two kinds of restatement processes: (a) one for retroactive adjustments arising from a (voluntary) change in financial reporting, and (b) one for corrections of errors in financial reports already published.

Held Documents and Sample Documents:
-  In manual posting, you can use held documents and sample documents.

Status reporting:
-  You can create reports in a BI query on the progress of tasks in the consolidation monitor. This lets you do statistical evaluations on the progress of the consolidation process. For example, a query can reveal percentages of consolidation units according to their progress in the Data Collection task (or task group), broken down as follows: completed; in progress; not yet begun.

Direct access to list of total records from validation log

Enhancements in datadase list reports

Web-Dynpro Consolidation Monitor for Local and Corporate Accountants:
-  The Web Dynpro consolidation monitor is designed specifically for the tasks and needs of local accountants, who transfer individual financial statement data to corporate headquarters.
-  A SAP GUI installation is not required because the Web Dynpro consolidation monitor runs within a Web browser

Enhancements for SEM-BCS - Enhancement Package 3 -(SEM-BCS 6.03)

Approval Workflow for Documents from the Flexible Upload Function for Documents:
-  You can initiate the document approval process from the function for the flexible upload of documents. A
document is posted only after all responsible users approve it..

Web-Based SEM-BCS Workflow Inbox:
-  You use this function to access document approvals, monitor status change approvals, and sign-off task approvals in a Web browser. It is an alternative to using the Business Workplace inbox and the universal worklist (UWL) in the Enterprise Portal..

Enhancements for Creating and Updating Comments:
-  Two enhancements have been implemented for comments for approval processes:
–  You cannot change saved comments. You can only add new comments.
–  You can now author comments for the status change workflow

Sign-Off of Financial Statements in the Consolidation Monitor:
-  The sign-off task initiates the approval workflow for reported financial results. The persons responsible review and approve the documents. The sign-off is the final step in the group close process.

Enhancements for SEM-BCS - Enhancement Package 4 -(SEM-BCS 6.04)

Adjustment of Deferred Taxes
- Activation for Individual Consolidation Areas
-  Suppression of Tax Adjustment for Specific Items
-  Automatic Posting of Tax Adjustments During Period Initialization

Integrated loading from data stream for main asset number and asset subnumber:
-  As of SEM-BCS 6.0, you can specify that the system is also to upload independent fields of a compound of characteristics during the flexible upload of assets/liabilities.

Balance carryforward of equity data in accordance with totals data for equity method:
-  If the equity is read partly from the totals database and partly from additional financial data, a special logic is used in the balance carryforward for fully consolidated units (purchase methods). This special logic ensures consistency between the totals data and the additional financial data in the following year even if the location of the values changes.

Reference Reporting mode:
-  You can use this reporting mode to expand the enterprise hierarchy for the reference period. The system only displays the data records that were posted in a period when a company belonged to the group according to the hierarchy of the reference period.
Elimination of IU profit and loss in transferred inventory without inventory data stream:
-  the system can read the inventory data not only from the additional financial data, but alternatively also from the totals database.

Validation of investment data from the totals database:
-  Until now, only additional financial data was checked during the validation of investment data. The totals data for investment was not checked until runtime during the consolidation of investments.
-  If you activate the new business function, you can also have the system check investment data from the totals database during this validation.

Interpretation of divestitures during the posting of group shares:
-  When executing a task of category Posting of Group Shares and when analyzing the group shares, you can specify that the system is to interpret total divestitures and investor-induced partial divestitures in the same way as it does during the consolidation of investments..

Execution of task groups without automatic blocking:
-  You can update task groups in the consolidation monitor with or without blocking. Until now, you could only update task groups in the consolidation workbench and in batch processing with automatic blocking.

Enhancements for SEM-BCS - Enhancement Package 5 -(SEM-BCS 6.05)

Assets Held for Sale and Discontinued Operations:
-  These functions allow you to automate consolidation entries to handle subsidiaries in accordance with the new accounting principles (International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS 5) and Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS 144)) in cases of intention for sale or discontinued operations. Extensive automation of these postings enables you to reduce the effort required to create the consolidation balance sheet and eliminate potential sources of error that can occur when you use manual postings to handle these aspects.

Business Combinations:
-  You can use these functions to adjust the consolidation of investments to reflect changed accounting principles that result from the Business Combinations project.
-  You can configure the following functions:
–  Separation of Goodwill from Investment
–  calculate, post, and update full goodwill and its minority interest
–  ubsequent consolidation, partial divestiture, and transfer as equity transactions
–  Change of Control

Master data Governance for Financials:
-  With this business function you can import financial chart oi accounts master data direct from other external systems.

Handling of Key Figures with a Zero Value in Data Collection:
-  You can specify that when the data collection methods Load from Data Stream or Copy are used with the update mode Delete All, the system is to ignore any data records in which all key figures are zero in the source environment.

Historical Currency Translation Without Consolidation of Investments:
-  You can perform the historical currency translation based on additional financial data without having to activate the consolidation of investments.

Document Type Assignment in the Balance Carryforward:

-  In the Customizing settings for balance carryforwards, you can define a document type assignment. To do this, you assign an automatic target document type to a manual source document type. You can use this function to carry forward manual adjusting entries in the subsequent period to automatic document types with the same properties.

Compare Investment to Equity:
-  You can specify whether the function to compare investment to equity in the consolidation of investments is to display error messages or simply warning messages. If you reported the investment outside the particular consolidation group, it may be more beneficial to display a warning message rather than an error message.

Hiding Statistical Items in the Log of Consolidation of Investments:
-  You can dynamically show or hide statistical items in the log for consolidation of investments.

Goodwill in Local Currency for Equity Method:
-  When you use the equity method, you can carry goodwill in the local currency of the investee unit.

Equity Method with Group Shares:
-  You can perform the equity method with group shares.

Consistency Check for Manual Document Types:
-  You can use a report to check and correct the consistency in the control of document fields for manual document types with respect to the data model.

Enhancements for SEM-BCS - Enhancement Package 6 -(SEM-BCS 6.06)

New Restatement Monitor:
-  In addition to the functions of the Financials, Group Closing business function provided with enhancement package 2, this Financials, Group Close,

Restatement Monitor business function provide enhancements in the following areas:
–  Data stream fields in the data basis
–  Activation in the consolidation area
–  Master data for restatements
–  Assigning special versions of hierarchy structures to restatements
–  Methods for automatic data collection
–  Task hierarchy
–  Consolidation monitor: status management
–  Balance carryforward
–  Reclassification

Inactive Consolidation Units:
-  Within a consolidation group, a consolidation unit is considered inactive before the first consolidation and after final divestiture. If you activate this business function, you can also mark individual consolidation units as inactive within a consolidation group. In the consolidation unit hierarchy, the system displays inactive consolidation units in gray.

Copying Organizational Unit Hierarchies Between Hierarchy Versions:
-  You can copy organizational unit hierarchies between hierarchy versions. This function allows you to run planning and simulation scenarios quicker and easier.

Consolidation of Investments Activity for Adjustment Entries for Copying:
-  If, when documents are copied, the result in the target reveals differences between documents and totals records (due to effects of currency translation, for example), the system posts the difference values in correction documents. When you activate this business function, the system posts correction documents with consolidation of investments activity 84 (Correction During Copy) when consolidation of investment documents are copied. You can also copy documents for consolidation of investments in complex scenarios, making it easier for you to follow these postings.

Inverting the Debit/Credit Decision for Automatic Postings:

-  You can invert the debit/credit decision for specific automatic postings depending on the document type.

Notification of Missing Exchange Rate:
-  You can set up an existence check for exchange rates. When currency translation tasks are executed, the system then checks whether the exchange rate table contains an exchange rate for the period in which you are executing the currency translation task. If this is not the case, the system writes an information message to the task log for the currency translation.

Document Type Assignment in Consolidation Group Changes:

-  You can post documents for a consolidation group change (at posting levels 02, 12, and 22) for a specific activity (such as preparations for acquisition) with different document types depending on the document type of the input data (at posting level 01, 10, or 20).

Automatic Handling of Parent Unit Changes in Consolidation of Investments:
-  When the parent unit changes, you have to adjust the cumulative values of the balance sheet for all consolidation units of the consolidation group to reflect the changed parent/subsidiary relationships or group shares. This must be done without affecting earnings. This business function allows you to automate the postings required in the consolidation of investments.

Stepwise Equity Method:
-  In a multilevel group or consolidation group, you can use a special logic for the stepwise equity method.

Conditional Status Update:
-  You can suppress the status update when tasks that post automatically are repeated in the update run, if there have been no changes since the previous update run and the system therefore does not post documents in the repetition run. If the task is a preceding task of additional tasks, the system also suppresses the status information update for these succeeding tasks.

List of Proportion Percentage Rates:
-  You can generate a list of the percentage rates for the proportionate consolidation of the individual consolidation units within a consolidation group. This function allows you to verify whether you have recorded the proportion percentage rates correctly..

List for the Task Hierarchy:
-  You can display a list of the task hierarchy as well as the preceding relationships between the tasks in the task hierarchy. The system indicates whether the preceding task relationships are explicit or implicit.

Authorization Check for Permanent Parameters Changes:
-  You can activate an authorization check for permanent parameters for specific users or roles. If a user temporarily changes or saves the permanent parameters, the system checks whether this user is authorized to execute at least one task with the parameters set. This function enables you to prevent users from setting parameters (particularly in the consolidation monitor) with which they cannot execute any tasks.

Authorizations for Changing the Settings for Replication to the BW System:
-  You can restrict the authorizations for changing the settings for replication to the BW system.

Enhancements for SEM-BCS - Enhancement Package 7 -(SEM-BCS 6.07)

Allocation:
-  You can execute allocation tasks also for two-sided elimination and consolidation group-dependent entries. You can assign document types with the following

posting levels to these kinds of tasks:
–  20: Two-sided elimination entries
–  30: Consolidation-group-dependent entries

Breakdown Check for Customizing:
-  After changing the breakdown of items, you can execute a consistency check, and if necessary, implement breakdown corrections for those Customizing settings in which you use these items.
-  If you change the breakdown properties of an item (by changing the breakdown category assignment), this generally leads to inconsistencies in the Customizing settings in which this item is used. You can use the Breakdown Check for Customizing to check the consistency of the Customizing setting breakdowns. If this check reveals inconsistencies, the system can correct these inconsistencies in some cases.

Methods customizing:
-  You can copy individual steps in a method.

Assignment of Rounding Methods:
-  In a currency translation task, you can assign rounding methods depending on the consolidation unit.

Method Assignment of Reclassification Tasks:
-  In a reclassification or allocation task, you can assign methods depending on the consolidation unit.

Executability of Custom Tasks:
-  You can define the executability of a custom task depending on the consolidation unit..

Reconciliations:
-  When executing a reconciliation task, you can restrict the analysis of differences to one consolidation group.

Validation
-  You can save the results of executing a validation task and then display the results in a report.
-  You can define breakdown details for the validation log.

Negative Stockholders' Equity:
-  In the automatic consolidation of investments, the system processes negative stockholders' equity also in activities in which the percentages of ownership change.

Adjustment of Minority Interest for Equity:
-  You can adjust the cumulative values of minority interest for equity so that they correspond to the current group shares.

Transfer Activities for Investment from Totals Database:
-  For the same investee unit, you can execute multiple transfer activities even if the investment is read from the totals database.

Mass Reversal:
-  You can update the status of tasks when executing the mass reversal.

Archiving of Monitor Status:
-  you can archive the monitor status for closed periods

Reporting:
-  You can make a multiple selection of consolidation groups in the totals data list.

Authorization Check when Changing Comments in Documents:
-  You can activate an authorization check for changing comments in documents and additional financial data.

@All:  Please share you comments and suggestions...

Thanks and Regards

Rajesh SVN