SAP FICO Learning Journey
When SAP first started out decades ago, its first product was an accounting solution for businesses to use. Over the years, SAP has increased its business capabilities to cover all aspects of the finance area, from financial and management accounting to profitability analysis to financial planning. These functionalities all fall under the acronym FICO, which stands for Finance and Controlling. Use these resources from SAP PRESS (books, blog posts, and videos) to develop your own career and take the next (or first!) steps into the world of SAP FICO.
Getting Started with SAP FICO
A Look at Financial Close with SAP
This blog post will teach you about financial close challenges that you'll need to overcome at some point, and provide ways with how you can cross them off your to-do list. Explore close type, regulatory drivers, and more.
Financial Consolidation History of SAP
SAP has been around for more than 50 years, and its first solution offering was accounting software. That's a lot of years of financial innovation! This post takes a look at the history of financial consolidation solutions from SAP.
Strategic Budgeting and Planning with SAP
Financial planning is a key activity for organizations to accurately manage profitability and establish a direction for the upcoming year and beyond. This blog post explores planning, budgeting, and forecasting with SAP.
SAP S/4HANA Finance: An Introduction
Beginning your finance transformation? Looking to learn what SAP S/4HANA has to offer? This book is your starting point for SAP S/4HANA Finance! Learn about the suite’s architecture and explore its capabilities for your core finance processes: financial accounting, management accounting, treasury and risk management, planning, consolidation, and close. Unlock enterprise-wide finance reporting, assess your deployment options, and design your finance project with this introductory guide!
SAP ERP FI-CO vs. SAP S/4HANA Finance
Currently, there are two maintained solutions that SAP customers can utilize for their financial processes. The first, SAP ERP FI-CO, is the legacy application that will see dwindling SAP support over the years. The current flagship solution, SAP S/4HANA Finance, boasts many improvements over the SAP ERP version of finance functionality.
SAP S/4HANA Benefits to Know
SAP S/4HANA is a huge redesign of existing FI-CO functionality in SAP ERP. In this blog post, we'll introduce you to two dozen of the biggest benefits you should be aware of if you're considering SAP S/4HANA Finance.
Period-End Close, Simplified with SAP
One of the ways that SAP S/4HANA Finance improves upon SAP ERP FI-CO is period-end close. This blog post lays out seven key items from the simplification lists that SAP has put out over the years.
Introducing the Universal Journal
SAP S/4HANA accounting views are basically a huge pivot table, all thanks to the Universal Journal. This post, one in a series on FICO innovations with SAP S/4HANA, overviews the Universal Journal and what it does.
SAP S/4HANA Finance: The Reference Guide to What’s New
With this guide to SAP S/4HANA Finance’s innovations, uncover the fundamental changes that can transform your finance organization. You’ve heard about Universal Journal, real-time processes, and UI improvements—now learn how these changes will actually impact your accounting practices. From the redesigned steering model and unified planning to consolidation and real-time close, see where new processes affect your business users and how system efficiencies benefit your bottom line.
Financial Accounting with SAP
Ledgers in SAP S/4HANA Finance
Ledgers in SAP S/4HANA are an area that stores accounting documents based on different accounting principles. This post will go into detail on how ledgers work, and provide configuration instructions.
Universal Parallel Accounting with SAP S/4HANA
The recent releases of SAP S/4HANA have brought about the functionality of universal parallel accounting, and it's a game changer! See what this means for companies accounting with SAP software, and see how to get started.
Defining a Company in SAP FICO
There is a certain terminology used in SAP FICO solutions to define inputs into the ledger. One such term is company, an enterprise structure that anyone accounting with SAP should know. Take a look at this structure in this post.
Financial Accounting with SAP S/4HANA: Business User Guide
Finance professionals, it’s time to simplify your day-to-day. This book walks through your financial accounting tasks in your SAP S/4HANA system. For each of your core FI business processes—general ledger accounting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and fixed asset accounting—learn how to complete key tasks, click by click. Whether you’re using SAP GUI transactions or SAP Fiori apps, complete your FI operations smoothly and efficiently!
Management Accounting (Controlling) with SAP
Accounting Views to Know in the Material Master
The SAP material master has two accounting views that provide insight into the financial health of your business. In this blog post, you'll explore both Accounting 1 and Accounting 2 and their individual subviews.
Breaking Down the Cost of Goods Sold
In SAP S/4HANA Finance, COGS can be split into the individual cost components according to the cost component structure. This is helpful when reporting on product costs. This blog post will teach you how to split the costs.
SAP ERP CO Compared to SAP S/4HANA
SAP S/4HANA has brought about a ton of simplifications for functionality once found in the SAP ERP solution. In this blog post, dive into the changes that SAP brought to controlling activities between the two suites.
Controlling with SAP S/4HANA: Business User Guide
SAP S/4HANA brings change to your routine controlling activities. Perform your key tasks in the new environment with this user guide! Get click-by-click instructions for your daily and monthly overhead controlling tasks, and then dive deeper into processes such as make-to-stock and make-to-order scenarios, margin analysis, and investment management. Finally, instructions for intercompany transactions and reporting make this your all-in-one resource!
Financial Planning with SAP
Investment Planning and Budgeting 101
Investment programs describe the organization’s targets in terms of capital investment projects to replace production equipment, prepare new products for launch, or undertake major repair work. In this blog post, learn how to plan and budget for these investments.
%20to%20SAP%20Analytics%20Cloud.png "Why Take Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) to SAP Analytics Cloud?")
SAP Analytics Cloud Overview for FICO
The SAP Analytics Cloud solution is the direction that SAP is taking its financial forecasting functionality. In this blog post, learn about SAP Analytics Cloud for finance and how a cloud-based solution provides benefits over the older, on-premise solutions you may be used to.
The Importance of Profitability Analysis
Profitability analysis is the detailed analysis of the profitability of a company, thus enabling accurate contribution margin calculation. SAP S/4HANA provides a powerful analytics base to use when identifying well-performing and underperforming accounts. In this blog post, see how to get started.
SAP Analytics Cloud: Financial Planning and Analysis
FP&A is now in the cloud! In this comprehensive guide, begin by provisioning your data for financial planning and analysis in SAP Analytics Cloud. Then follow step-by-step instructions to set up the planning process and use SAP Analytics Cloud’s automated planning logic to calculate key metrics. Learn how to perform simulations to model what-if scenarios, streamline your planning workflow, and share results with stakeholders. With details on implementation best practices, this is your all-in-one resource!
Financial Reporting with SAP
An Introduction to Margin Analysis with SAP
This blog post will explore the different ways you can perform margin analysis in SAP, whether you're working with SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA Finance. Once you've discovered the four main options, dive into individual reporting options such as SAP Fiori apps and traditional reports.
The SAP Definition of Drilldown Reporting
While drilldowns typically evoke the image of double-clicking a line item, in SAP S/4HANA, it's a little different. Drilling down in this suite involves looking at major characteristics and key figures. This blog post will introduce you in more detail to this concept.
Standard Reports for Profit Center Accounting
The information system for profit center accounting offers extensive standard reports that enable you to analyze actual and plan values by profit center. However, in SAP S/4HANA Finance, profit center accounting can cause some confusion. In this post, gain clarity into what it means.
Financial Reporting with SAP S/4HANA
Having access to clear, accurate financial reports is key for any organization! In this comprehensive guide, you’ll walk step by step through creating such high-quality reports in SAP S/4HANA. You’ll learn about key reporting requirements for finance and how to guide system design to produce the best reports for your company. Coverage includes core financial areas like general ledger, AP/AR, assets, cash management, overhead costing, margin analysis, and more. Make sense of your financial data with this expert guide!
Thinking About a Career in SAP FICO?
Let SAP controller Janet Salmon fill you in:
In this video interview, the chief product owner for management accounting at SAP Janet Salmon dives deep into the world of controlling. Learn the following when you watch:
- What the Universal Journal does for global corporations working with multiple currencies.
- Why universal parallel accounting is one of the skills you'll need in the future.
- How financial consulting could change in the coming years with the move to cloud solutions.
In this video, become familiar with how SAP PRESS books can help you on your FICO journey, in particular as it relates to SAP S/4HANA!
Whether you're in the information gathering stage of SAP S/4HANA Finance, want to see how it compares to the financial functionality of SAP ERP, or are ready to get started with your project, we have resources for you! And of course, we also have finance certification guides to help you make the grade on an SAP exam.
These books are the perfect resource to consult; they're all available as printed books as well as e-books for easier reading on the go!
Show Off Your Knowledge with SAP FICO Certifications
Janet Salmon Interview, Chief Product Owner for Management Accounting
See what SAP's Janet Salmon had to say about the future of controlling with SAP, universal parallel accounting, challenges to controlling, industries that could involve controlling more, how SAP assists customers with new concepts, and more.
What Does the Latest SAP S/4HANA Finance Exam Cover?
In this blog post, explore some of the key new content that the C_TS4FI has included over the past couple of years, focused on product innovations and changes to the training material scope. Written by the exam owner, you're sure to find helpful information in this guide to the exam delta.
Want to Go All In in FICO? Get a FICO E-Book Subscription!
SAP PRESS Topic Subscription for FICO
Get unlimited access to all SAP PRESS FICO books!
Whether you’re working with SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA Finance, these books will help you get your financial tasks done! Dive into daily financial accounting and controlling tasks in SAP ERP with business user guides. Learn how SAP S/4HANA Finance is different and more powerful than the legacy suite. See what migrating to and configuring the SAP S/4HANA system entails, and then discover how to use the finance functionality of the new suite! And with E-Bites on all of the latest functionality in new SAP S/4HANA releases, you'll always be ahead of the curve when it comes to your system.
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