Have you ever wondered what it would be like if there was a one-stop-shop solution that allowed you to build budgets, adjust plans, and consolidate organizational activities in the same place? Well, with SAP, there is.
Cue SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (SAP BPC).
Read on to learn how the solution can help streamline your business processes and maximize your technical investment, as well as how our team of consultants can provide the support you need to succeed.
What is SAP BPC?
SAP Business Planning and Consolidation is a native SAP module that provides budgeting, planning, forecasting, and financial consolidation capabilities to help companies adjust business plans, improve the efficiency of financial cycles, and ensure compliance.
The SAP BP&C application offers pre-built functionality for improved:
- Budgeting
- Reporting
- Strategic planning
- Forecasting
The BPC platform also offers functionality for two platforms, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Office (SAP BPC MS) and SAP NetWeaver (SAP BPC NW), and each platform contains two versions to provide the most accurate and reliable tools to hold, manage, and store transaction and master data.
SAP BPC as an EPM Solution
SAP Business Planning and Consolidation provides users with an enterprise performance management (EPM) solution that helps companies build a unique repository for relevant business data and improve planning, reporting, and analysis features within the SAP Analytics Cloud.
With SAP EWM and BPC solutions, companies can improve operational and financial performance management processes, like financial consolidation, supply chain performance management, business strategy management, and more.
Key Capabilities of the Solution
Now that you have a better understanding of BPC in SAP let’s take a closer look at the key capabilities of the solution.
Built-in Business Intelligence
The SAP Business Planning and Consolidation solution offers built-in financial intelligence features that help companies eliminate the need for manual data entry and other business processes and run “what-if” scenarios to ensure they are adequately prepared for any business or market change.
With BPC’s intelligent features, automating tedious manual processes, like allocations or aggregations, is simplified, making way for faster, more efficient planning cycles.
Integration with SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP S/4HANA
On the one hand, BPC can be integrated with the SAP Analytics Cloud to provide a more collaborative approach to crucial planning processes, enhance financial data visualization, and improve predictive analysis functionality.
Conversely, the BPC platform is also embedded within the SAP S/4HANA cloud, making it even easier for companies to plan, consolidate, and analyze business process flows in real-time. And, because BPC’s integrated software solution is embedded in an on-premise solution like S/4HANA, integrations between critical financial and operational functions within SAP are simplified.
SAP BPC also helps engage important stakeholders throughout the enterprise by connecting core SAP functionality with other external solutions like Microsoft Excel and HTML5.
Unified Planning Solutions
SAP BPC offers a single software solution with built-in integration capabilities to not only help customers save valuable time by automating manual tasks but also reduce data entry, duplication, and migration errors with a single source of truth.
With one solution and pre-built integrations between applications and modules, companies will have the correct data whenever and wherever they need it.
More Accurate Business Consolidations
With SAP BPC, users can automate the consolidation process and enable better productivity across their entire SAP landscape.
This means that instead of wasting valuable time handling tedious auditing and closing processes, the BPC solution automates legal and management consolidations to help you deliver a quick and accurate close.
Automation of your financial processes not only enables you to meet financial reporting standards but also provides a complete and accurate audit trail to keep up with financial operations in the long run.
Improved Reporting and Forecasting
Improved web reporting, “what if” modeling, and strategic scenario planning features help companies assess their budget and closing cycles in real-time and enhance engagement and visualization.
The BPC solution allows companies to build in-depth budget models and determine the best course of action when budgeting or forecasting changes need to be made.
Top 5 Advantages for Your Company
Here are a few main advantages of SAP BPC for your organization:
Organizational alignment:
Alignment between employees, teams, and areas of your organization is crucial to the success of your entire organization.
BPC improves alignment by offering a single source for all of your organizational data and streamlines data management processes to determine organizational goals and outline plans to achieve them.
Improved productivity:
SAP BPC automates time-consuming manual processes, saving your team valuable time and maximizing budget cycle efficiency in the process.
With its automation capabilities, integration compatibility with other systems, and one-stop-shop solution for data monitoring, reporting, and analysis, the SAP Business Planning and Consolidation solution improves overall system efficiency and employee productivity.
Adaptable system organization:
With SAP’s business planning and consolidation features, SAP customers have all the tools needed to simplify legal and management reporting processes and store all necessary operational and financial data in one place on-premise or in the cloud. Users can also easily change data management and organizational operations to meet growing or evolving market needs over time.
Maintained legal compliance:
With BPC functionality, customers can leverage advanced reporting capabilities and detailed financial records to manage, consolidate, and store vital financial records safely and securely.
In the case of an audit, these well-structured records and reports help companies remain compliant with local, state, and federal regulations and provide quick and easy access to internal records whenever they’re needed.
More profitable decisions:
SAP BPC offers advanced capabilities that allow users to more accurately and efficiently process real-time data and outline more accurate projections for future financial budgeting and risk purposes.
With the SAP Business Planning and Consolidation platform, companies can not only allocate their resources more efficiently but also use more comprehensive data to make more informed and profitable decisions.
Partnering with Experts
Interested in learning how SAP’s Business Planning and Consolidation platform can improve the functionality and efficiency of your management team? Want to know more about how our team of consultants can help improve the reporting and analysis of important data, process cash flow statements and other records more accurately, and meet external financial reporting requirements? Surety Systems is here to help!
With extensive experience in virtually every SAP module and application and skillsets that have been built upon for years, our team of senior-level SAP consultants has what it takes to lead your team to success…the first time. Regardless of your organization’s size, location, industry, or complexity, we have the right consultant to meet all of your project needs.
How Can We Help?
Whether you need help deciding between SAP BPC versions, additional support understanding the built-in reporting and analysis features in the BPC platform, an extra hand leveraging BPC functionality to optimize business operations, or anything in between, our team is here to help.
And, to give you a better idea of what to expect when partnering with us, we’ve included a snapshot of one of our top-notch SAP consultants:
Surety Senior SAP BPC Consultant
- US Citizen
- 20+ years of SAP BPC experience
- Excels as an SAP Solution Architect and hands-on Developer
- Well-versed using S/4HANA, SAP BPC, SAC, and Group Reporting
- SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation 10/11
- Delivered multiple Full Life Cycle SAP/BPC Implementations
- Prior experience working directly at SAP America
Contact us today to learn more about our SAP support services, or get started with one of our expert BPC SAP consultants.