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SAP Solution BrieSAP ERPSAP Financial Closing Cockpit

With the SAP Financial

Closing cockpit, you canaccelerate your inancialclosing cycle throughenhanced user eiciency,greater automation, andcentral monitoring andcontrol. It lets you completeinancial closes aster and

more accurately while meet-ing regulatory requirementsand inancial reportingstandards.

Streamlining the FinancialcloSe with the SaP FinancialcloSing cockPit

Many irms struggle with the inancialclosing cycle because its complex serieso tasks must be executed on time andin the correct sequence to meet reportingdeadlines. Typical closing cycles involvetime-consuming manual tasks, such asjournal entries, accruals, intercompanyreconciliations, and the gathering oinancial data rom across dierent

systems or consolidation and validationor inal report production. In largercompanies, the closing cycle can be evenmore complicated because the work onumerous people must be coordinatedacross dierent subsidiaries, divisions,time zones, and sotware systems. Eachclosing task must be perormed correctlyand in the proper sequence, or delays canresult. Typically, these tasks are man-aged using spreadsheets. Althoughspreadsheets may help in identiyingparticular tasks and the time in which

they need to be completed, they ail intheir ability to enable scheduling, collab-oration, monitoring, and control acrossvarious teams and locations.

Standardizing the closing cycle into aseries o repeatable process steps andmanaging those steps in accordance withbest practices and a tightly controlledschedule is key to achieving superiorinancial close perormance. Additionalperormance improvement can beachieved by ensuring that close pro-cesses are consistent across organiza-tional units while centrally monitoringtheir execution across the entire cycle.

SAP provides a comprehensive solutionor streamlining the inancial closingcycle, helping companies meet external

requirements or accelerated reportingand internal mandates, to reduce inan-cial closing-cycle costs and resourcedemands through improved collabora-tion and the automation o accountingentries, intercompany reconciliations,accruals, consolidations, and internalcontrols monitoring.

A key component o this solution is theSAP Financial Closing cockpit, a robustgraphical application designed or the pur-pose o standardizing the closing cycleand giving you greater control over theentire process. It provides task schedulingand automation, collaboration, and moni-toring across the entire entity closing cycleor all companies within the group. It helpsindividual task owners collaborate moreeectively via an intuitive, powerul inter-ace through which they receive assign-ments and report their status. It also helps

ensure that they perorm their work ontime and in the proper sequence, resultingin ewer errors and delays.

Standard reporting unctionality in theSAP Financial Closing cockpit lets inan-cial managers measure the eiciency othe closing cycle. The cockpit providesthem with an intuitive visual environmentcontaining a real-time view o everyclosing cycle task and its status (seeFigure 1). In addition, inancial managerscan view the cycle rom either a macroperspective (by presenting each task ona Gantt chart view) or a micro perspec-tive (by allowing them to drill down oneach task to view its status and otherdetails). This greater transparencyhelps ensure that managers can detectproblems such as overdue tasks and

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resource bottlenecks early and correctthem beore they impact the schedule.Finally, enhanced reporting eaturescapture detailed data on each task tocompare planned perormance to actu-al perormance, to highlight areaswhere system perormance adjust-ments may be required.

Automating the Closing Cycle

Companies oten perorm operationssuch as period-end accruals, allocations,and closing journal entries manually,which lengthens the closing cycle andincreases resource demands and costs.The SAP Financial Closing cockpit is ullyintegrated with the SAP ERP Financialssolution and provides automated taskscheduling and execution within systemssuch as the SAP General Ledger appli-cation and various SAP ERP Financials

up and schedule the closing cycle (seeFigure 2). It utilizes the intuitive SAP inter-ace to enable inancial proessionals tocreate the closing schedule as a series oautomated and manual time-based tasks.They can create tasks, assign them totask owners, or schedule them as auto-mated jobs in various systems. They canalso assign dependencies and help ensurethat all tasks, manual or automated, areexecuted in the proper sequence.

SAP Financial Closing CockpitBusiness Beneits

The SAP Financial Closing cockpitprovides your company with the abilityto accelerate the inancial closing cyclethrough enhanced user eiciency,greater automation, and central moni-toring and control. The beneits include: Increased eiciency and greater

control over the inancial closing cycle

subledgers. The cockpit can trigger au-tomated tasks to speed the closing cy-cle. Furthermore, many companies arechallenged by complex system land-scapes consisting o multiple ledgersand other source systems rom dier-ent vendors. The SAP Financial Closingcockpit, in conjunction with the SAPCentral Process Scheduling application

by Redwood, provides you with theability to automate tasks across bothSAP and non-SAP sotware systems.Moreover, automated tasks and manualtasks are combined on the same sched-ule, or complete orchestration o theclosing schedule.

Simpliied Administration

The SAP Financial Closing cockpit pro-vides an easy-to-use, template-drivenenvironment that enables users to set

Figure 1: A ProgressiveView o the ClosingCycle with the SAPFinancial ClosingCockpit

We really wanted to go to one

place to see where we were in our

close schedules. The ease and the

flexibility of the financial closing

cockpit is actually fantastic.

Sandra Hartman-Holbrook, Finance Manager,

Dow Chemical Company

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Lower maintenance and administrativecosts via standards-based, single-product solution, which is both power-ul and intuitive

Improved productivity through im-proved coordination and collaborationacross distributed organizational unitsand through an intuitive display odependencies across task owners,

helping to ensure less time spent incommunication lags and aster taskexecution

Rapid time to deployment via simpleconiguration and powerul adminis-trative tools

Broad-scale deployment to all usersacross geographies and time zonesvia scalable, server-based, enterprise-class inrastructure

Comprehensive storage ability, whichrecords the history o all tasks per-ormed and by whom, to support

audits

Powered by SAP NetWeaver

SAP ERP Financials, a solution withinthe SAP ERP application, is poweredby the SAP NetWeaver technologyplatorm. SAP NetWeaver uniies tech-nology components into a single plat-orm, allowing organizations to reduceIT complexity and obtain more business

value rom their IT investments. Itprovides the best way to integrateall systems running SAP or non-SAPsotware.

Find Out More

I you would like to know more aboutast-close solutions rom SAP or theSAP Financial Closing cockpit, visit ourWeb site atwww.sap.com/solutions/business-suite/erp/inancials/topics/ast-close/index.epx.

Figure 2: The TaskList in ExecutionMode, Which AllowsFinance Proessionalsto Schedule andExecute Tasks, CheckDependencies, ReviewResults, and Set TaskStatus

The SAP FinancialClosing cockpit helps

you accelerate yourinancial closing cycleand meet regulatoryrequirements andinancial reporting

standards.

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Quick FactS www.sap.com/contactsa

SummaryThe SAP Financial Closing cockpit is a robust graphical application that gives you the abilityto accelerate the inancial closing cycle through enhanced user eiciency, greater automation,and central monitoring and control. You can streamline the closing cycle, completing inan-cial closes aster and more accurately while meeting regulatory requirements and inancialreporting standards and recording tasks or ull audit support.

Business Challenges Execute a complex series o tasks on time and in the correct sequence to meet

reporting deadlines Coordinate numerous people across dierent subsidiaries, divisions, time zones,

and sotware systems Standardize the closing cycle into a series o repeatable process steps Ensure that close processes are consistent across organizational units

Key FeaturesAutomated tasks Establish task scheduling and automation, collaboration, and

monitoring across the entire closing cyclePowerul, intuitive interace Collaborate more eectivelyIntuitive visual environment View every closing cycle task and its status in real timeStandard reporting unctionality Measure the eiciency o the closing cycle, overall

or at a task-by-task level

Business BeneftsIncreased eiciency and greater control through standard reporting

Less maintenance and administration thanks to single-product solution andWeb-based administrationImproved productivity through improved coordination and collaborationRapid time to deployment with simple coniguration and powerul administrative toolsBroad-scale deployment with a scalable, server-based, enterprise-class inrastructure

For More InormationTo learn more about SAP Financial Closing cockpit, call your SAP representative today or visitus on the Web atwww.sap.com/solutions/business-suite/erp/inancials/topics/ast-close/index.epx.

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