Strategic Goal

To standardize finance and simplify multi-country expansion through a shared cloud finance model, while retaining established CRM, procurement, payroll, and travel systems

Challenges

  • Heavy legacy customization: Years of accumulated custom developments in an on-premise environment made the landscape hard to maintain and costly to expand.
  • Fragmented systems: Finance was spread across disconnected systems with no shared model across countries.
  • Separate payment platform: Payments ran on a standalone platform outside the core finance landscape.
  • Manual payments and reconciliation: Payment and reconciliation activities were handled manually, adding effort and handoffs between operations and accounting.
  • Expansion pressure: An ERP upgrade and expansion decision exposed the limits of the existing landscape and the need to standardize before adding countries. 

Solution

CLARITY designed a shared cloud finance model on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, connecting operational systems, billing, and banking into a single accounting model. The scope covered financial and management accounting, fixed assets, cash management, sales, and revenue recognition. 

  • Reusable global finance template: Mapped the group chart of accounts to the cloud model and built in local requirements, so new countries build on an established design instead of starting from scratch.
  • Connected banking and payments: Implemented In-House Banking, Multi-Bank Connectivity, bank statement processing, and payroll file routing, bringing payment flows into the SAP landscape.
  • Recurring and one-off billing: Combined sales scenarios through Solution Orders and Service Contracts with targeted revenue reclassification, covering subscription scenarios without a separate subscription product.
  • Integrated operational systems: Established a common approach to multiple CRM integrations and connected external procurement, payroll, travel, and accruals, so procurement could remain outside SAP without a full MM rollout.
  • Consistent group accounting: Enabled cost-based intercompany billing and profit-center balance sheet reporting through document splitting, with consolidation dimensions included from the outset. 

Results

  • Reusable multi-country foundation: New countries adopt the global template instead of rebuilding; during the latest rollout, the business adapted local sales processes to the template rather than expanding customization.
  • Fewer manual handoffs: Automated postings and integrated payment flows reduced manual entry and handoffs between payment operations and accounting.
  • Subscription billing without extra components: Agreed subscription scenarios were delivered through standard sales objects, avoiding a separate subscription product.
  • Consolidation-ready accounting: Consolidation dimensions and profit-center reporting were built in from the start, preparing data for future SAP Group Reporting.
  • Stable operations: Subsequent upgrades and regression testing have gone smoothly, with low post-go-live support demand so far.