Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Summary
This document provides an introductory and practical overview of FI / AR, as well as, HANA Reporting via
an illustrative End-to-end HANA Modelling: From SAP FI business process to SAP Report presentation
scenario.
Perquisites:
For easy reading, basic HANA terminology and Accounting double-entry concept are needed.
Please refer to my earlier document for a refresher on fundamental HANA
https://www.scribd.com/doc/248694989/Practitioner-Perspective-HANA-vs-BW7-Modelling
Author Bio
Benedict Yong is an SAP practitioner, experienced in Business Intelligence Consultation and ERP Support.
Due to his varied working exposure in the SAP space, he is able to integrate ERP business processes with
cutting-edge reporting technologies.
Table of Contents
Objective....................................................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 4
The HANA Advantage ............................................................................................................................... 6
HANA Reporting Options ........................................................................................................................... 7
SAP Finance Overview ................................................................................................................................. 8
Overview of SAP FI ................................................................................................................................... 8
Details of FI Business Process ................................................................................................................ 10
SAP Techno-functional Analysis .................................................................................................................. 12
The Payment Business Process .............................................................................................................. 12
The Payment SAP Transaction ................................................................................................................ 13
Technology Architecture.............................................................................................................................. 16
HANA Reporting Landscape .................................................................................................................... 16
Building a HANA Model ........................................................................................................................... 17
Interpreting the Report ............................................................................................................................. 23
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 27
Reference ................................................................................................................................................... 28
Objective
Introduction
SAP ERP is an OLTP system optimized for writing business transactions. It supports real-time operational
reporting albeit having little efficacy. While SAP BW is a reporting and analytics environment, it is
positioned to be at the strategic-level reporting. The operational level reporting gap is never properly
addressed. Hence, the natural evolution of HANA Live arises.
SAP AG defines HANA Live as Real-Time operational reporting directly on your Suite on HANA system [e.g.
ERP on HANA, CRM on HANA] without any redundancy or latency. Alternatively in a sidecar scenario next
to your existing SAP Business Suite deployment.
We also need to understand that HANA Live (on ERP) is not the same thing as SAP BW; both in term of
physical server, and the reporting space that they serve. They will each serve a different role depending on
the requirements of individual organizations. In fact, I manage and architect these two applications within the
same organization - ensuring consistent and well-rationalized solution distribution.
Here is a generic diagram to show the data flow in HANA Live vs BW:
Please refer to my earlier document https://www.scribd.com/doc/248694989/Practitioner-Perspective-HANA-vs-BW7Modelling which contains the earlier questions that I had when I first encountered HANA.
The objective of this paper will be to provide a hands-on illustration for End-to-end HANA Modelling: From
SAP FI business process to SAP Report presentation. We will utilized SAP HANA Modelling techniques and
present the data with SAP ALV Grid (ABAP) and SAP Lumira technologies.
Scalability Mapping can simply be done with HANA Studio Graphical Interface or HANA
ubiquitous SQL Scripting. This is actually one up from SAP BW standard contents which keeps its
business logic cryptically embedded into its transformation mapping (one after another).
The end result of financial processes are financial statements. These statements provide an overview of an
organizations profitability and financial position.
The SAP FI processes are broken down into:
General Ledger
Account Payable
Account Receivable
Asset Accounting
Business transactions can be updated directing into the FI modules or derived from the Logistics modules
(SD, MM).
The following diagram depicts a generic integration overview of finance with logistics, the finance submodules and the key logistics objects:
The relationship of General Ledger (GL) and sub-ledgers (AP, AR, AA) are based on accounting concept of
control account. The GL module provides the total amount owed to creditors, owed by debtors, dollar
value of fixed asset classes and the overall Balance Sheet statement. The sub-ledgers provide detail
information of which specific vendor we owe what amount, and how many actual machinery we have. If an
account is set as reconciliation level, no posting is possible at that account. We have to post it into the subledgers which will rollup back to the total reconciliation account.
Each customer (or vendor) has their reconciliation account setup in their Company Code MasterData view
this ensure all postings (except for special GL items) to the customers are reconcilable at the reconciliation
level.
Additionally, in bookkeeping, we use Debit to add and Credit to minus. SAP uses the debit/credit indicator for
this (Debit = S, Credit = H).
Here is an illustration of a Balance Sheet statement in the General Ledger and how the sub-modules (AP,
AR, AA) are related:
10
As mentioned earlier, AR entries can be posted directly from FI or it can be derived from SD. The below
diagram depicts the overall flow of AR in relation to SD.
Transaction Code (tcode) FD03 and FBL5N are very useful - to view the Customer Master setting and
Customer Balance amount, respectively.
AR transaction typically starts from a Sales Order in the Sales Cycle (if SAP SD is implemented). However,
we can also post direct customer invoice (and credit memo) with FB70 - this creates customer invoice while
crediting a revenue account.
F-28 is able to pay and clear invoices. Pay means customer outstanding amount is reduced; clear means the
paid amount will be matched back to specific invoices. For credit memo, it is an offset figure, there is no
money flow. Hence, we need to clear the credit amount to match a specific invoice with F-32.
11
SAP uses document type to control the nature of the document posted. For Customer invoice, by
default DR (other types include D1, D2, RM, etcs). When a customer is over-invoiced, we post a
reduction document known as a Credit Memo, which use DG as document type. Payment uses
DZ document type.
When invoice is posted against a customer, there will be a debit entry (SHKZG = S) in the BSID
table.
However, an invoice can be paid partially, in this case, a credit entry (SHKZG = H) will be inserted
into BSID to offset the original invoiced amount.
After an invoice is fully paid, the entries are removed from BSID and inserted into BSAD.
12
Entry of open items will be shown in the BSID table. All invoice items are debited.
13
F-28: Screen 1
F-28: Screen 2
14
Once F-28 is performed. The first invoice will be removed from BSID table (full payment) and an entry will be
inserted into BSAD table.
For the second partial payment line, an offset entry will be posted (credit) entry will still remain in BSID, till full
payment.
15
Technology Architecture
HANA Reporting Landscape
When architecturing HANA Modelling Landscape, there are multiple path of options to choose from. We can
segregate HANA into 3 sections: Data Model, Processing Logic, and Presentation Layer.
Data Model refers to the base tables of the business process and their functional relationships
Processing Logic refers to modelling technique applied. It can be done using HANA Modelling or
HANA Stored Procedures
SAP ABAP uses Dictionary View to connect to HANA Views. Dictionary Views are exported
meta-data of HANA models to ABAP AS. It can be generated using ABAP in Eclipse IDE
(AIE) or HANA Studio.
SAP ABAP uses either Core Data Services (CDS) Views or ABAP managed Database
procedures (AMDPs) for direct HANA connections. These two methods are known as topdown approach (as oppose the earlier HANA bottom-up approach). The approach allows
all ABAP changes to be done at the ABAP Application Server level; related HANAintermediate objects will be generated upon activation. Transport is done in CTS level only;
HANA objects will automatically be included.
Presentation Layer refers to tools that interface HANA as DataSource
SAP BOBJ (inc Lumira and Design Studio) can connect to HANA models directly.
SAP ALV Grid or SAP UI5/Fiori are used to present HANA data retrieved into ABAP AS.
16
The presentation layer will be in SAP ALV Grid and SAP Lumira.
Column
Description
Table/Field
Customer
Customer
BSID.KUNNR
Baseline Date
BSID.ZFBDT
Debit/Credit Indicator
Debit/Credit indicator
BSID.SHKZG
Amount
BSID.DMBTR
DUE_AMT
If Debit/Credit = H,
Calculated Keyfigure
DUE_DAY
Calculated Keyfigure
GRADE
Calculated Attribute
Grade = A
Elseif (Baseline Date Today) < 150
Grade = B
Else
Grade = C
17
In HANA Studio, we will do a left-inner join between BSID and BSAD. However for Customer Days
Outstanding Report, fields used will mainly come from BSID as it contain all the outstanding amount.
The result of the Analytical View can be seen in data preview tab. This figure should tally with the FBL5N
balance
18
19
With Dictionary View available in ABAP AS, we can easily display the values with standard ALV Grid.
20
The AIE also allows development of CDS View (aka DDL Source Object) and AMDP ABAP Class.
The below shows a simple CDS View scripting that reference our earlier Dictionary View. During the CDS
View creation, an SQLView will be automatically created to access HANA. Likewise for AMDP Class, a DB
Procedure object will be automatically created to access HANA.
Alternatively, we can just do SQL scripting onto the base tables in the CDS View and this view can be called
by ABAP subsequently.
21
22
Upon close analysis of the chart for 5 customers, we can see that the most recent posting (Grade A), are
negative in value. This is because those are partial payments it has not been fully knocked off.
It really depends on how the users wish to represent this data. It can be totally fine this way, or user may
request we adjust the modelling to do a net offset.
23
The more interesting question is what will the graph looks like if we have completely covered the partial
payment. Again, this requires techno-functional investigation.
We will use F-28 to post the remaining amount for the partial payment.
24
The transaction will move the two open postings into close item.
25
The closing the partial payment for Customer 20052 will result in a shorter due amount
The screen before closing the partial payment
26
Conclusion
The evolution of the HANA technology has improved our developmental productivity and business efficacy.
HANA offers greater flexibility with more refined and in-time development environment and approaches.
We are free to choose among different presentation tools and coding approaches.
The new breed of HANA developer will need strong foundation in data modelling concept (including the
ability to discern between operational and strategic reporting), in-depth techno-functional knowledge, specific
technological knowledge (SQL, ABAP, Client Scripting).
27
Reference
1. Practitioner Perspective, Modelling HANA vs BW7
https://www.scribd.com/doc/248694989/Practitioner-Perspective-HANA-vs-BW7-Modelling
6. SAP End-to-End Development (ABAP) Example in SAP NetWeaver 7.4 & SAP HANA
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b01089ed-dead-3110-f28ecaa12aeb5e27?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=true&59223304044850
28