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SAP Analytics
Thought Leadership

Introduction to SAP Disclosure Management

Posted by David Den Boer on Thu, Feb 25, 2021 @ 11:02 AM

Overview

SAP Disclosure Management is an application within the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) suite.  It is used to improve organisations’ reporting where multiple users need to contribute to reports, and accuracy and consistency is critical. Key examples are the Annual Report and Accounts, returns to financial markets and regulators, and internal reports such as board report “books”.

Disclosure Management, as a process, is also known as the “last mile of finance”, where the culmination of all previous steps – financial close, variance analysis, and re-forecasting – are all key ingredients in what is reported to external stakeholders at the culmination of all subordinate tasks. In today’s world of increased expectations of closing faster, integrating financial and operational processes via advanced versions of EPM  – like xP&A – the appetite for more integration, automation, and on demand timing is at the highest point ever.

The business case for Disclosure Management is that it manages and streamlines the process of bringing together multiple data sources and text required in external reporting all of which are owned and authored by multiple teams and which require approval by multiple approvers.  Some clients choose to outsource performance of this function to a third-party service provider, while others purchase tools for in house use from vendors like Workiva and SAP. We won’t weigh the value of internal or external functionality in this space, but if a decision is taken to perform this function internally, this article provides an overview of the business case for and operational structure of SAP’s Disclosure Management product.

Business Case

The below diagram created by SAP demonstrates the issues faced in reporting that Disclosure Management is designed to streamline.

A typical process leading to a major reporting output such as an annual report or regulatory filing will often have a wide range of data sources.  For example, General Ledger systems, Enterprise Performance Management applications such as SAP BPC, SAC, Group Reporting and BFC as well as manually created inputs such as written text.  These data sources often feed into numerous Excel and Word documents that form part of the reporting output.  The report sections require approvals and collaboration within the organisation that can be difficult to monitor and coordinate.  The sections of the report that have been created separately need to be put together into the final output.  In the past, the output may have only been a printable format such as a Word document or PDF file, but a number of legal and regulatory filings require electronic submission, notably via XBRL.


Topics: Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Business Intelligence (BI), Analytics, Financial Information Management, Data

The Impact of Covid-19 on the role of the Group Financial Controller

Posted by David Jones on Wed, Oct 28, 2020 @ 08:10 AM

On September 29th Column5 hosted a quarterly meeting of the UK100 Group Financial Controllers (GFC) forum on the web. This is a quarterly meeting that Column5 hosts to give GFC’s from the UK’s largest listed Companies opportunity to hear from experts about topics of mutual interest, network and share experiences. This meeting was to understand how Covid-19 was impacting their role as GFC’s, how well prepared they felt when the lock-down arrived in late March 2020 and what they plan to change going forward, particularly given the likelihood of more home working over the next 6 months due to Covid-19, and whether there will be permanent changes to their role as GFC going forward. 

Key Take-Aways: 

Key elements of the discussions are set out below and make an interesting read, but everyone agreed that the key points to take away were: 

Topics: Financial Close, Financial Information Management, User Experience

Reporting Bank Balances and Overdrafts in BPC

Posted by Martin Lloyd on Wed, Oct 19, 2016 @ 12:10 PM

I was recently asked about reporting Bank Balances and Overdrafts in BPC, particularly when the status can vary from month to month. The initial discussion concerned reporting a Bank Account balance as a Short Term Asset - Cash balance or a Short Term Liability - Overdraft but it led on to some more complex scenarios.

If you are using BPC for financial reporting and consolidation this is an issue almost every client has so its worthy of considering the options.

Topics: Financial Information Management, BPC logic

The Changing Role of Finance: Results Reporting to Business Partner

Posted by Connie Folk on Tue, Jun 28, 2016 @ 10:06 AM
Maximizing the value of your EPM BPC Implementation

The Need for Change

The Finance function is central to the successful operation of any organization.   Finance organizations are not immune to today’s pressure faced by businesses to reduce costs of business transactions while improving processes in alignment with the overall strategy and direction for the organization.  Faced with the demand to increase their role in the EPM lifecycle, Finance functions are moving away from a transactional data management focus to becoming deliberate business partners by providing assistance to the CEO and the organization in the development of strategic direction and key business decisions.

Topics: Financial Information Management, Investment Comparisons

Integrated Planning with SAP BPC 10.1 Standard

Posted by Richard Hynes on Tue, Apr 19, 2016 @ 08:04 AM


SAP BPC is a tool that can be customised to facilitate planning, budgeting and forecasting processes for different
 functional areas such as Revenue, Human Capital Management, Operating Expenses, and Capital Expenditure. In this blog we will talk about how to integrate these functional areas into one unified BPC reporting model, for fully integrated planning.

The different functional areas require different data structures and consequently we  will need to use a separate BPC model for each area. To give some common examples:

The Revenue model may, depending on the modelling requirements, need to have Product dimensionality in order to plan the sales volumes and calculate planned revenue according to the price by product, and a Customer dimension to plan sales and analyse the outstanding payments by customer or channel.

The Labour planning, or HCM model may need to include a role dimension, in order to plan the salary by role or grade, or an Employee dimension to enable planning by employee or job grade.

The Operating Expenses or OPEX model should enable the user to plan the expense related General Ledger accounts at the required level of detail, for example, by collecting the number of flights and hotel nights and using forecast unit costs to calculate travel expenses.

The Capital Expenditure or CAPEX model should include an asset dimension which will include the company’s asset list and allow the user to plan new asset purchases and the corresponding depreciation for the planning period.

Topics: Thought Leadership, Financial Information Management, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting, sap

Mind the Gap!

Posted by David Den Boer on Tue, Jun 09, 2015 @ 08:06 AM

The traditional IT vs. Finance gap and why it is essential to overcome that for EPM success.

Everyone loves a rivalry, at least when it comes to sports teams. It seems that the bitterer and longer running the rivalry, the better. When it comes to corporate politics, there can be few rivalries as legendary or potent as that between IT and Finance.

No one knows when it all started, but make no mistake, this can be trench warfare that started long before computers were even used in business. I can imagine the conflict raging so long, that there may have been a dialog like this in ancient times, “I simply can’t let you operate the wheel on your own, you don’t have the technical skills. Why don’t you tell me what you need the wheel to do, and I will operate it for you…just so there aren’t any mistakes?” “What? It’s just a stupid wheel; surely I am qualified to figure this out. Let me try it and we’ll see how it goes.”

Topics: Best Practices, Process Improvement, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Financial Information Management

Rolling Forecasts – Effecting EPM Techniques

Posted by Martin Lloyd on Wed, Jul 17, 2013 @ 11:07 AM

In a previous blog I examined the trend away from the traditional annual budget and periodic reforecasting regime and towards the rolling forecast. I’d now like to examine the particular factors which are driving companies towards rolling forecasts and the implications that this has on the required tools and methodologies.

Topics: Best Practices, Process Improvement, Excel, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Financial Information Management, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting

Is Your Biggest Customer Your Best Customer?

Posted by Martin Lloyd on Tue, Jun 11, 2013 @ 12:06 PM

It’s natural to assume that your large customers, who unquestionably are the source of most of your revenue, also deliver the major part of your profit. The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers and assumes that the 20% are represented by the largest customers.

Topics: Process Improvement, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Financial Information Management, Performance, Value

EPM Integration:Financial Information Management -Pt. 2 Configuration

Posted by John Kam on Thu, Apr 18, 2013 @ 11:04 AM

This is Part 2 of 2 dealing with EPM Integration and Financial Information Management. If you have not read Part 1 discussing Installation, please read it first. For me, there are two components to configuration.  First there are systematic configurations to bring the environment up and running.  And then there is usability configuration to setup user & groups (although it’s part of environment configuration...), but most importantly creating and configuring data store connections.

Topics: Process Improvement, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Cloud, Financial Information Management, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

EPM Integration: Financial Information Management -Pt. 1 Installation

Posted by John Kam on Sat, Apr 13, 2013 @ 06:04 AM

SAP Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solutions span across various technology stacks.  Some are on NetWeaver, some are on Microsoft, some are leveraged utilizing the Business Intelligence platform, and some are standalone.

Topics: Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Financial Information Management, Roadmap, Data

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