SAP S/4HANA Cloud update August 2023: what you need to know!
Every six months, SAP releases a major new version of the S/4HANA Cloud Public solution, in February and August, to bring new features, improvements and above all innovations to its customers.
Since August 20, all SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public systems have been automatically updated to the latest version of the solution: 2308.
SAP CEO Christian Klein indicated in 2023 that from now on, SAP innovations will only be brought to the publisher’s SAAS solutions, and no longer to the so-called On Premise solutions.
The what’s new viewer, a tool made available by SAP to keep customers informed of updates, lists 1222 new features for this half-year, so it’s not possible here to list all the enhancements made to S/4HANA Cloud Public systems. In this article we’ll look at a few innovations that caught our eye.
Please note: these are ONLY new features! Corrective updates (hotfixes) are deployed by SAP on a more frequent basis, and exceptionally as a matter of urgency, according to a precise schedule provided by the publisher.
New releases put forward by SAP in the main functional and technical areas are also shared by SAP in the community.
HIGHLIGHTS OF SAP S/4HANA PUBLIC CLOUD 2308
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public 2408, towards ever smarter finance
With 2308, SAP offers a new function for automated supervision of closing tasks, called balance validation, to guarantee data quality using user-defined rules based on legislation or best practice.
For example, the rules can be used to check the following:
- G/L account balances do not differ by a certain amount or percentage from the comparison period.
- Depreciation is less than the original cost of a fixed asset.
- G/L accounts with open item management have a zero balance once all items have been cleared.
Rules can be grouped together in a rule group. At certain period-end closing milestones, data validation can be run according to the rule group. Recurring validation jobs can also be scheduled.
Finally, non-compliant data can be easily identified and analyzed in the validation results.
With this innovation, SAP continues to improve the operational performance of finance and accounting teams by reducing manual effort on closing tasks and making the closing process more reliable.
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Among the interesting new features, we can note in Finance the availability of new-generation apps (FIORI) that are more ergonomic and provide access to more information on a single screen, such as “Managing journal entries”, “Posting fixed asset disposals”, “Bank management-Cash flow management” and many others.
However, we don’t advise all our customers to switch immediately to the new version of the Journal Entry Management app. In fact, among the customization possibilities of an S/4HANA Cloud Public solution, custom fields are a basic one, enabling us to add specific fields required to meet our customers’ needs; however, these custom fields will only be viewable in the new version of the app from update 2402 onwards.
SAP is also continuing to modernize its fixed asset accounting processes, with the creation of a new app dedicated to fixed asset output, which will probably eventually replace the multiple old-generation “GUI” apps.
We must remain vigilant, however, for the disposal process: the new app does not yet allow you to scrap more than one fixed asset at a time, unlike the now obsolete app, which is still very useful!
User experience at the heart of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public systems with 2308
An example of SAP’s cooperation with the user community: the system information bar that has just been made available in Public Cloud systems.
It may seem like a small detail to you, but to us it means a lot, because it’s far from insignificant. Since August 2022, new customers subscribing to an SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution have 3 Systems: DEV / TEST / PROD. It is therefore essential to be able to identify at a glance which system is open in the browser.
This feature is the result of “customer influence”: SAP offers users the opportunity to make suggestions for improving the solution, which are then voted on by the community.
The integration between SAP and MS Teams enables users to collaborate with colleagues by directly sharing a link to a business application in the SAP system, simply by selecting Share: Microsoft Teams with the options As Live Chat and As Tab.
2308: Some innovations on sale:
New features in the invoicing process also include :
- Improvements in role-based access to pricing elements in invoicing documents, ensuring that only users with the appropriate authorizations can access sensitive sales price data.
- Harmonized management of attachments in billing process documents benefits business users with more automated and configurable attachment management, from the billing document request to the final invoice. This update offers greater flexibility in the management of attachments during the end-to-end billing process, saving time and manual effort.
Recommendation before SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public 2402
Finally, an important reminder for S/4HANA Cloud Public customers who have not yet set up pages and spaces: as announced in 2302, from version 2402 onwards the old home screen will disappear, so it’s imperative to anticipate! The next update will logically take place within 6 months.
Need to know more about SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public updates?
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