Lessons Learned: The First

Customer Implementation
of SAP Cash Management
Powered by SAP HANA
by Mary Loughran, Senior Consultant, Hanse Orga
Jochen Stiebe, Managing Director, SymQ
July 20, 2016

With the numerous aspects involved in an SAP HANA implementation a detailed

explanation is the best approach to have a good understanding of the considerations
required versus undertaking an implementation strictly in SAP ERP Central
Component (ECC).

Ensuring a detailed knowledge of the different components and various deployment

options for running SAP Cash Management on SAP HANA is the key to success.

This article includes details related to the first rollout to production of this
functionality in North America.

To date, there is only one SAP customer in North America running SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA in production. With the rollout of SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA, there are
a number of changes to the SAP
landscape. Following are highlights and Key Concept
lessons learned from that first customer There are three components included in SAP
implementation of this functionality. Cash Management powered by SAP HANA:

There are three components included
in SAP Cash Management powered by
SAP HANA: Cash Operations, Liquidity
Management, and Bank Account
Management. SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA integrates not
only with accounting in SAP S/4HANA
Finance but also with the solutions for
SAP Treasury and Risk Management,
SAP Bank Communication Management,
and SAP In-House Cash.
• Cash Operations
• Liquidity Management
• Bank Account Management.
The Cash Operations and Liquidity Management
components enhance existing SAP ERP
Central Component (ECC) functionality with
improvements both in functionality and the user
interface (UI). The Bank Account Management
component functionality is a newly built
technology for SAP HANA.

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The new SAP Cash Management on SAP HANA suite (SAP Cash Management powered by
SAP HANA) is web based using Fiori technology running on the latest database and web
technology. Therefore, the web browser replaces SAP GUI. A Launchpad (see Figure A in
the “Key Terms” sidebar) serves as a starting point for the different apps or tiles. Each tile
covers a business task. SAP delivers Fiori applications with all three components in SAP
Cash Management powered by SAP HANA.

The SAP licensing described in this article is the following:

• SAP NetWeaver 7.40 or later

• SAP HANA licensing

• SAP S/4HANA Finance, On-Premise Edition 1503

• SAP Cash Management for Finance

• SAP Integrated Business Planning for finance

• Fiori Framework

To provide a little background on SAP terminology, SAP differentiates different time

segments of managing cash – short-term, mid-term, and long-term planning. In terms
of short-term planning, the solution that SAP provides differentiates between the cash
position dimension and the short-term outlook dimension, which is called cash positioning.
The next time horizon focuses on mid- and long-term planning. The Cash Operations
component covers the cash positioning and short-term planning, and the Liquidity
Management component covers the mid- to long-term planning. Historical cash postings
are referred to as actuals. The terms mentioned here are shown with the associated time
horizons in Figure 1.

Liquidity Planning/
Rolling Forecast
Cash Flow Analysis Liquidity Forecast

Cash Position

History 1-3 days Up to four weeks 1 year Time horizon

(actuals)

Figure 1: SAP Cash Management terminology

Data source for SAP This article was originally published by Financials Expert in 2016
2 Cash Management
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 Lessons Learned from the First Customer Implementation of SAP Cash Management
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Note!
The time horizon for the Cash Position and Liquidity Forecast varies for different customers
based on their specific business and implementation. For example, for some customers the
Cash Position may be one to three days, but for other customers, it may be one to five days.
The same applies to the Liquidity Forecast time horizon.

Before going through the article, we recommend that you review the definitions in the
“Key Terms” sidebar.

Key Terms!
In this section we define a few key terms that would be helpful to understand while reading
this article.

SAP HANA. SAP HANA is a database that uses in-memory technology. An SAP HANA database
is faster, thereby reducing data redundancies in non-SAP HANA database landscapes. SAP
HANA has become possible because of the technological advancements that have been made
in database management.

SAP Fiori. SAP Fiori is a new user interface to SAP functionality. The key to Fiori apps is they
have a more attractive user interface and are able to run on multiple devices. Fiori offers a user-
definable dashboard, referred to as the Launchpad, to role-based functionality. Figure A shows
a Fiori Launchpad for a treasury team member.

Fiori apps are also called tiles and can be developed by any third-party software provider. There
are three types of Fiori apps. They are transactional (task-based access), analytical (monitoring
and tracking data usually with graphics), and fact sheets (a listing of essential information in a
report format with drill-down capabilities).

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (SAP HEC). SAP HEC consists of SAP infrastructure and
application management services with an SAP HANA database provided by SAP or a third party.
They are not on the SAP customer’s premises, but are instead on the premises of the SAP HEC
provider. SAP HEC infrastructure can be either custom or standardized. The standardized setup
would run only SAP standard functionality, and would have simplified SAP licensing. The custom
setup would be customer-specific functionality, and would have customer-specific SAP licensing.

On-premise. SAP installation in a customer’s system landscape. The customer purchases a

license from SAP.

The terms S/4HANA, SAP Simple Finance, and sFIN are synonymous. As of release 1602, SAP
S/4HANA Finance will be the only official product name for both the 1503 and 1602 releases.
SAP S/4HANA Finance stands for SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA and is SAP’s next-generation
financials solution, which runs on an SAP HANA database.

The term Cash Management add-on is sometimes used to refer to SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA, and is part of SAP S/4HANA Finance.

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Key Terms! (continued)

One Exposure is the data source that feeds the cash management and liquidity forecast reports
when using Cash Operations and Liquidity Management in SAP Cash Management powered by
SAP HANA. One Exposure stores both actual (historical) and forecasted (future) cash flows. One
Exposure is discussed further when we cover the Cash Operations component. (Note: You may
also see the term Exposure Hub used. Exposure Hub and One Exposure are synonymous. One
exposure is the newer term used by SAP.)

Figure A: A Fiori Launchpad

Deployment Options
Before reviewing the components in SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA
in detail, we first describe the different deployment options for SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA. Figure 2 shows the different landscape options. The first two are
the side-by-side (aka sidecar) landscapes. One of these landscapes should be selected
if the operating modules (Financial Accounting [FI], materials management [MM], sales
and distribution [SD], and Project System [PS]) remain on ECC, and only the SAP Cash
Management and SAP Treasury and Risk Management functionalities are moved to SAP
HANA. The integrated scenario is an SAP system with all modules running on an SAP
HANA database.

When you use a side-by-side approach, the cash flow information collected in ECC must
be transferred to the SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA box to be reflected
in the Cash Operations reporting. This is done by activating standard SAP distributed
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Figure 2: The initial screen to define settings for the Journal Entry Ledger

cash management. When using SAP

distributed cash management, SAP Cash Note!
Management is activated in ECC, and In Figure 2, BCM stands for SAP Bank
Communication Management, IHC stands for
the SAP system is collecting data from
SAP In-House Cash, and TRM stands for SAP
the relevant (configured) applications
Treasury and Risk Management.
(FI, SD, MM) in real time in ECC. The
operational data is then passed from the
ECC system to the SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA box via an IDoc. This
IDoc-based interface can be triggered either periodically in the background or manually
by a user. When the interface is triggered, it transfers the cash flow information from the
ECC SAP Cash Management database tables into the One Exposure feature of SAP Cash
Management powered by SAP HANA. The SAP distributed cash management functionality
is not new. It has been available from SAP for at least 15 years.

If a side-by-side deployment option is used, the bank master data (transaction code FI01)
also needs to be in sync between the ECC and SAP Cash Management powered by SAP
HANA systems. Either ECC or SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA is designated
as the master system, and the other should be updated periodically to ensure the two
systems are in line. SAP provides a standard (IDoc-based) interface to distribute bank master
data among systems. Using the SAP Distribution of bank master data (transaction code FI08)
with the IDoc BANK_SAVE_REPLICA type, bank master data is sent from ECC to the SAP
Cash Management powered by SAP HANA. It adds or updates the bank master data there,
assuming ECC is the master system for bank master data.

If a company decides to go with a side-by-side approach, and uses or plans to use In-House
Cash, SAP Bank Communication Management, or SAP Treasury and Risk Management,

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the company needs to decide which of the side-by–side scenarios it makes sense to select.
Factors that need to be evaluated in detail during the implementation include:

• If and how to integrate AP and treasury payments. For example, AP payments will
be made from ECC. If treasury payments are made from the SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA, a decision needs to be made if payments should be merged
before they are sent to the bank, or if AP and treasury payments should go to the
bank in separate files.

• Whether it makes sense for treasury users to log in to different systems (ECC or SAP
Cash Management powered by SAP HANA) based on the functionality with which
they are working.

• If the electronic bank statement should be imported into the SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA system for balance information or if the balance information
should transfer from the ECC system

• When the company plans to move to the integrated scenario also is a factor to
consider when designing the deployment landscape

• The migration effort of moving from a side-by-side approach to the integration

scenario. For example, if the second side-by-side approach is selected, In-House Cash,
SAP Bank Communication Management, or SAP Treasury and Risk Management, if
used, would not need to be migrated.

Advantages of the Side Car Deployment

Here are a few advantages of going with one of the side-by-side approaches:

• Treasury is able to take advantage of the latest SAP technology, and the other
modules or departments can follow at their own pace. It is natural that a move to
SAP HANA for FI would take longer due to the many changes with the transfer to the
Universal Journal.

• If you assume a company is ready for an SAP HANA landscape, it is difficult to make
an argument to go with older technology.

• SAP Treasury and Risk Management and SAP In-House Cash are capable of working
with S/4HANA. There is no new functionality in these modules, but in the future, SAP
may make changes to the SAP Treasury and Risk Management and SAP In-House
Cash modules. Companies that have gone with the side-by-side approach with SAP
Treasury and Risk Management and SAP In-House Cash on the SAP HANA platform
can incorporate the new functionality from SAP in these two modules. Companies that
have gone with the first side-by-side approach cannot incorporate new changes from
SAP and third-party vendors.

• Treasury users will have one consistent interface when working in the SAP system.

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• When using the second side-by-side approach, drilldown to trades and treasury
payments are possible on the SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA system,
which is a nice feature for treasury users.

• Another advantage of the second side-by-side approach is the treasury functionality

does not need to be migrated to SAP HANA when the other modules or departments
are ready to move to the integrated scenario.

Components of SAP Cash Management on SAP HANA

In this section, we discuss the three components of SAP Cash Management on SAP HANA.
For each component, we describe the functionality supported, and then add further
information about what has changed with respect to the comparable functionality in ECC.

Cash Operations
The Cash Operations component contains a number of Fiori apps to be used in the
day-to-day cash management processing. The Cash Operations component covers
the monitoring of bank statements, the reviewing of bank account balances in the cash
position report, bank transfers, and approval of payments. None of the underlying
functionality is new, but it has been changed to a certain extent, and the Fiori user
interface is completely new.

The functionality included in the Cash Operations component is:

• Monitor bank statements imported (similar to SAP Bank Communication

Management’s Bank statement monitor [transaction code FTE_BSM] in ECC)

• An overview of a Cash Position report with drilldown to detail (similar to the Cash
Position report [transaction code FF7A] in ECC)

• Overview of bank risk (There is not a comparable standard report in ECC. This is a
counterparty risk report.)

• Initiation of bank transfers and manual payments (functionality to make bank transfer
or track bank transfers)

• Approve bank payments (similar functionality to the payment approval in SAP Bank
Communication Management)

The Cash Operations component contains a Cash Position report app. This report is similar
in some ways to the Cash Position report in ECC (transaction code FF7A), but there also
are a number of improvements.

The Cash Position report app displays data from bank accounts (bank statements), cash
in transit (payments), and treasury deals. The source of data is taken from general ledger
(G/L) accounts, payment data (AP and treasury payment runs), treasury deals, memo
records, and bank statements.
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Figure 3 shows a sample of the Fiori web Cash Position app delivered with SAP Cash
Management powered by SAP HANA. Notice that the interface has been improved in that
the amounts are displayed in the transaction currencies, and when drilling into an account,
the user is not taken to a new screen. Instead the screen expands to show the detail of the
clicked-on account, leaving the other account information intact.

Figure 3: The Cash Position report on SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA

Two new key performance indicator (KPI) Fiori apps are delivered with the Cash Operations
component. They are the Bank Statement Monitor, which shows at a high level the bank
statement import status, and the Cash Position app, which gives a high-level view of
account balances. The Bank Statement Monitor (Figure 4) lets the cash manager know at a
glance the status of processing of the prior-day bank statements in the SAP system.

Figure 4: The Bank Statement Monitor KPI

It lets the cash manager know if the bank statement was received from each bank and
where the bank statements were successfully imported into the SAP system. If there are

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any missing bank statements, the cash manager can quickly see that. These are things the
cash manager needs to know before he or she starts looking at the account balances in the
SAP system. The cash manager then looks at the Cash Position app, which shows a high-
level view of the current bank account balances. Both these apps have drill-down capability
to allow the cash manager to get more information.

There is also a Make Bank Transfer app, which is a fast way to make a transfer payment
from one bank account to another. This is similar to running Bank-to-Bank Transfer
(transaction code FRFT_B) on ECC. With the Make Bank Transfer app, shown in Figure 5,
you enter an amount, value date, payment method, and reference text at the top of the
screen. Select the source and target bank accounts by clicking the bank accounts and
then clicking the Make Bank Transfers button at the bottom of the screen. Because SAP is
an integrated system, when the payment is saved, it is immediately reflected in the Cash
Position report.

Figure 5: The Make Bank Transfer Fiori app

You are then prompted with a pop-up, similar to the one shown in Figure 6, to confirm the
bank transfer. Click the Submit button on the bottom of the pop-up, and the bank transfer
payment request is created. The user interface (UI) is very easy to use.

The next app in the process flow would be the Approve Bank Payment app, which
allows a manager to approve a payment workflow, assuming the configuration is set
up for approving payments (not shown). This uses functionality within the SAP Bank
Communication Management module.

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Figure 6: Confirm the bank transfer

The planning levels and planning groups in

Cash Management in ECC continue to be Note!
the means to categorize the type of cash At the end of the article, there is a
complete list of the Fiori apps delivered
flows with SAP Cash Management powered
with SAP Cash Management powered by
by SAP HANA. The Cash Position report
SAP HANA.
is now displayed by Liquidity Items, which
is the term used to tag cash flows in SAP’s
Liquidity Planner module. The Cash Management Account name is no longer part of SAP
Cash Management powered by SAP HANA. The Cash Management Grouping in Classic
Cash Management has been replaced by Bank Account Group in SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA.

One Exposure provides data storage for cash management reports. One Exposure is a
central data structure of all transaction data that has an impact on financial exposure. Data
is stored within One Exposure with a certainty level. A certainty level is a way to capture
the likelihood of the cash flow on the corresponding date. In other words, it is a probability
of the cash flow happening on the corresponding date. A number of programs build the

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data in One Exposure including balance

Note!
records and cash flows from operations. All
Where you see transaction codes or
external data is stored in a database table Liquidity Planning/
programs with FQM, this is most likely
with a time stamp and an identifier. The cash Rolling Forecast
part of One Exposure.
managementCash reports access the data from Liquidity Forecast
Flow Analysis
this storage by analyzing the time stamp
and providing the most recent information to the cash management applications. One
Cash Position
Exposure holds all transactional data, and also all plan data.

The technical name of One Exposure is Financial Quantity Management (FQM). (The
underlying table for One Exposure is FQM_FLOW.)
History 1-3 days Up to four weeks 1 year Time horizon
One Exposure integrates data from different applications and modules even in a
(actuals)
distributed system landscape. Figure 7 shows the source of data for cash management
reports on SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA.

Data source for SAP

Cash Management

One Exposure from operations Local tables

Table FQM_FLOW
statements
Postings

records
Memo
Contract Accounts
Risk Management

Bank
SAP Treasury and
Bank balance

SAP Liquidity
Actuals from

Receivable and
Payable (FI-CA)
Classic cash

uploads

Planner
(IDoc)

Loans

Data from distributed

systems

Figure 7: The data source for cash management reports

SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA requires operational cash flows that are
Global cash
held with the operations
management modules, whether on the ECC
or treasury system in the case of a side-by-
Subsidiaries
side SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA approach or on the SAP HANA
platform in the Start
case new
of anplanning
integrated system approach. To get the operational cash flows
cycle for the period
to the SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA box to be reflected in the Cash
Enter or upload plan
Management in the case of a sidecar setup, distributed cash management needs to be
data for period
configured. The IDocs used to transfer the operation cash flows from the ECC box to One
When plan is complete,
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subsidiary data
 Lessons Learned from the First Customer Implementation of SAP Cash Management
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Exposure on the SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA box are CMSEND and
CMREQU. The transfer of data could be either or both scheduled or manually triggered by
the Cash Manager. For example, if the scheduled transfer of information is hourly, and the
cash manager wants a refresh of the cash flows from the ECC system a half hour after the
last scheduled run, he or she can manually trigger the interface to run.

The One Exposure is the central storage of all actual and forecast operational business
transactions and therefore SAP uses the phrase “single source of truth” for One Exposure.
In SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA, One Exposure replaces the data
source for the old transaction code FF7A and FF7B in ECC, both of which are in tables
such as FDSB and FDSR.

Cash flows from the following sources are stored in One Exposure:

• Financial operations (Central Finance integration possible)

• Treasury and Risk Management

• Customer and mortgage loans

• Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (FI-CA)

• Sales and distribution

• Materials management

• Bank account balances via Microsoft

Excel upload
• Expected cash flows from classic SAP
Cash Management via IDoc (distributed
cash management)
• SAP Liquidity Planner actuals
Note!
The Project System module is not
on the list, although the Cash and
Liquidity Forecast in ECC does reflect
Project System cash flows.

Liquidity Management
The second component of SAP Cash
Management powered by SAP HANA is Liquidity
Management, which brings together mid- to
long-term planning, and actuals determination,
to provide actual-to-plan, plan-to-forecast, and
plan-to-plan variance analysis reporting.
Parts of the functionality in this component are
similar to the Liquidity Planner functionality for
actual and planned data rolled out approximately
Note!
The difference between plan and
forecast data is that plan data is
related to business planning and is
not based on contracts within the
SAP system. Forecast data is based
on business for which contracts and
invoices are in place.

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10 years ago with SAP Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM). This functionality then was
phased out, but is now on the SAP HANA platform with a Fiori front end. This fills a gap in
mid- to long-term planning functionality that has existed for many years.

The functionality included in the Liquidity Management component supports daily forecast
and reporting activities (Cash Flow Analysis). Liquidity Management also tracks plan and
forecast data.

Liquidity Management supports basic planning functions, such as:

• Opening of a new planning period

• The system recommends initial amounts, such as use last year’s actual numbers

• The person entering the plan data has the ability to change the amounts

• Bump-up, bump-down plan data by percentage change

• The planning status of subsidiaries can be tracked

• High-level status tracker to check status of submitted or missing plans

SAP provides sample templates to be used with Liquidity Management to upload plan
data from Microsoft Excel. The Liquidity Management functionality also supports liquidity
planning by liquidity item, planning level, and cash pool. It also supports multiple
currencies for use in foreign exchange (FX) forecasting and hedging purposes.

For mid-term planning, there is a short-term liquidity forecast web Fiori app. Now with
SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA in this report, SAP has united cash
position and liquidity forecast data so both cash position and liquidity forecast data can be
displayed on the same report output, unlike in ECC. Another change with this component
is that the layouts of Cash Position and Liquidity Forecast reports are displayed by liquidity
item, as opposed to by planning level in ECC Cash Management.

Liquidity Planner, which has been delivered as part of an ECC license for at least 10
years, is now being repackaged by SAP as the Cash Flow Analysis report in the Liquidity
Management component. Liquidity Planner categorizes all cash postings into SAP-
configured buckets, which are the uses of cash an SAP customer wants to track for cash
forecasting and planning purposes. The categorized cash postings are referred to as
actuals. (Actuals describe how cash was used in the past. The actuals determination in
Liquidity Planner analyzes each cash posting and categorizes it into buckets or liquidity
items.) The Liquidity Item is a new key tag for cash flows in SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA, and it also relevant to the Cash Flows report layout. The actuals
are stored in One Exposure mentioned above under the Cash Operations component.

To summarize, cash postings are assigned to Liquidity Items by the SAP Liquidity Planner.
Cash Flow Analysis and Make Liquidity Plans use liquidity items as the buckets or
categories of data.

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Another new aspect introduced with Liquidity Management in SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA is the ability to create a rolling period plan, (for example, a
12-month rolling forecast with monthly granularity).

The process is as follows. Each period, a new planning cycle is started. This step would be
done by someone in treasury. Next, the subsidiaries enter or submit their forecast for the
next month. There are three options for how the planned data can be initially populated
(auto-filled) into the layout: liquidity forecast data, previous period plan data, or last
year’s actual data. The user can adjust the data after the figures are initially populated.
Treasury checks that all subsidiaries have submitted their plans using the Status Tracker
app (not shown). The opening balance is included as the starting point. Once all plans are
submitted, treasury looks at the aggregated plan data, and can make final adjustments, if
necessary. The plan for the month is then set.

The planning process is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8: The monthly planning process

The forecast is entered into the SAP system using SAP Integrated Business Planning for
finance. This is different from SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation (BPC).
SAP Integrated Business Planning for finance is designed for planning only, not for
consolidations. If a customer does not have a BPC license, using SAP Integrated Business
Planning for finance is fine. Companies already using BPC for consolidations need to
decide which BPC application to use for Liquidity Management. It is important to mention

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that there is no SAP-delivered migration path from SAP Integrated Business Planning for
finance to BPC.

Figure 9 shows a sample screen in which the plan data is entered. As mentioned, you can
also upload the plan data from Excel.

Figure 9: Enter plan data

FX forecasting is possible in that the planned data can be entered and viewed by currency.
The FX forecasting can be used for hedging purposes.

Once the plan data is in the system, plan-to-actual variance reporting is available.

One Exposure, mentioned above under the Cash Operations component, ensures that
planned, forecast, and actual data have the same granularity, which is key for reporting
purposes. (In other words, when you are doing a plan-to-actual comparison reporting, you
want to compare apples to apples.)

Bank Account Management

The Bank Account Management component is the third component in SAP Cash
Management powered by SAP HANA. It is a completely new functionality for bank account
management. Bank Account Management is a structured process to implement governance
structures to manage the processes and comply with rules and regulations around bank
account management. Bank Account Management includes a central repository of bank
accounts and related processes that can be monitored within the SAP system.

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This component fills the gap of bank account master data that existed prior to its release.
To clarify, in ECC, there is the definition of a house bank account (transaction code FI12),
which is the technical definition of house bank accounts. The definition of the house
bank account must be completed before transactional processing, such as payments or
electronic bank statements processing, can be done. This data in the technical definition
of a house bank account in ECC (listed in Table 1) was never meant by SAP to be master
data. It was always meant to be the technical definition of a bank account to enable
processing in the SAP system.

Field Description

Company code Legal entity

Bank ID A five-character identification of the bank (for example, BANK1)

Bank account ID A five-character identification of the account (for example, CHK01)

Description An approximately 35-character description (for example, BANK1

payroll account)

Currency The type of currency used (for example, USD)

Bank account number

Alternative account number

G/L account The main G/L account for the bank account

Table 1: Fields stored in ECC with a house bank account

The functionalities included in the Bank Account Management component are:

• Centralized bank account management with relevant data stored with each bank account

• A workflow approval process for opening and closing bank accounts and a periodic
review process

• The ability to mark specific fields as sensitive so that changes to those fields require
an approval process

• The ability for cash managers to assign the bank accounts to a hierarchy, which in most
cases would represent how the cash flows at the banks for cash pooling or concentration

• Mass signatory changes with approval process

• Integration with SAP Bank Communication Management for payment approvals

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With the release of Bank Account Management in SAP Cash Management powered
by SAP HANA, bank account master data is maintained for house bank accounts. Bank
accounts are defined as part of a bank account hierarchy. The bank account hierarchy
definition could follow how the cash is consolidated or concentrated. Figure 10 shows
the General Data screen for a bank account in SAP Cash Management powered by SAP
HANA. Notice that all relevant information about the bank account can be captured, such
as the status of the bank account, the company code, the beneficiary name, the account
type, the account number or International Bank Account Number (IBAN), a description,
bank key or Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) code,
overdraft limits, profit center, and contact person (both internal and external).

Figure 10: Configure the non-leading ledger

As you can see, the G/L account tied to the house bank account is not stored with the
bank account definition. This is because the G/L account is defined with the technical
definition of the bank account in ECC, using Maintain House Bank Account (transaction
code FI12), as mentioned above.

The new Bank Account Management functionality contains a workflow approval process for
opening, closing, and editing bank accounts. You can also define what fields are sensitive,
and if edited, should or should not require approval.

For each bank account, the signatories and signatory limits are stored in Bank Account
Management under the Payment Signatories panel, shown in the highlighted box

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in Figure 10. The data entered here is integrated with the SAP Bank Communication
Management module for payment approvals. In addition, users can store (attach) contract
information by clicking the Attachments button, also shown in the highlighted box in
Figure 10.

After entering the information for a new bank account as shown in Figure 10, and clicking
the Save and Submit button, you are prompted with a message similar to the one shown in
Figure 11.

Figure 11: Submit a request to create a bank account

Next, the workflow approval process is triggered to obtain the approvals for the new bank
account, as is shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12: The workflow approval list

From the screen shown in Figure 12, the approver can either approve or reject the new
bank account by clicking the workflow Approve or Reject button (not shown). Additionally,

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you can select the Create bank account link to view the full details of the new account, as
shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13: Approve or reject new account

As with all functionality in the SAP system, there is a complete audit trail on all processing,
adhering to internal compliance and regulatory guidelines. By clicking the audit trail log
icon under the History column, you can see who requested the new account and when.
This data is displayed in Figure 14.

Figure 14: An audit trail log

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In addition companies typically have an annual review process to review the current bank
accounts, which is supported by the Bank Account Management component. There
typically is a person in the company who is responsible for each bank account. This is
information stored in Bank Account Management and it is included in the annual review
process. Figure 15 shows the Initiate Review Process app and how after selecting the
accounts to be reviewed, you click the Initiate Review button to start the review process.

Figure 15: Initiation of the review process

The Monitor Bank Account Review Status app, shown in Figure 16, is used for treasury to
monitor the status of the annual review of accounts.

Figure 16: A report in the Monitor Bank Account Review Status app

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A very useful feature of this new functionality is the integration of the definition of the
bank account data with the cash pooling or cash concentration for the accounts. When the
accounts are created, they are added to a bank account group. This bank account group is
similar to the Cash Management Groupings in the ECC Cash Management functionality.

The Bank Account Management solution does not currently support fee analysis, which is
important functionality for many companies. Fee analysis is typically a somewhat tedious
monthly process. The treasury department should evaluate the bank’s monthly invoice,
which is composed of the different services the company has used over the month.

Lastly, the three components of SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA are
integrated and work together. It is important to mention that Bank Account Management
needs to be activated so the bank accounts can be used in the Cash Operations and
Liquidity Management components.

Information from the First Customer Implementation

The first customer rollout of the SAP Cash Management on SAP HANA implementation
was a customer in North America. This customer selected to go with the side-by-side
approach with SAP Treasury and Risk Management on the SAP Cash Management
powered by SAP HANA box. The SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA
components implemented were the Cash Operations and Bank Account Management,
both of which are currently live in production. The customer will move forward with the
implementation of Liquidity Management this year.

The side-by-side approach selected was the second side-by-side deployment option
mentioned in Deployment Options above. With the side-by-side approach, certain data
needs to be passed between the two systems (ECC and SAP Cash Management powered
by SAP HANA). For the two systems to have all the information needed, SAP standard
IDoc interfaces were required to exchange information. Distributed Cash Management
used the standard distribution feature based on IDoc technology described in the “Cash
Operations” component section of this article. In order for Cash Operations to work
properly, the operating information was gathered in ECC, and then periodically transferred
to the SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA system.

The aspects of Bank Account Management

that were important in the first customer
implementation were the annual review process
and the tracking of the bank account master data
information in a central and secure location.
Prior to using SAP’s Bank Account Management,
the annual review process was done by email
with no built-in audit trail, and standard SAP
reporting was not available. It was important
Note!
Most companies have an annual or
periodic review process of the active
bank accounts. In the annual review,
information such as signatories and
internal contacts for each bank account
are reviewed. In addition, companies
typically validate that each active bank
account needs to remain open.

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that the process of annually reviewing the active bank accounts was incorporated into
workflow, with an audit trail. Now with SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA,
SAP workflow is used, and with SAP HANA, the workflow can go to either the business
user’s company email account or the SAP workflow messages through Business Workplace
(transaction code SBWP). As part of the annual review process, the person or people in
charge of each account is reviewed, as well as the authorizers on each account. In addition,
the active accounts are reviewed to ensure the accounts should remain in place. Fee
analysis was not a high-priority factor at that point in time for this customer. (As mentioned
above, the Bank Account Management does not support fee analysis.) Prior to using Bank
Account Management, this customer did not have a secure system in which to store bank
account information centrally.

Here we mention some lessons learned from this first customer implementation:

• Be sure to include all people or departments involved in the decision before jumping
in. Some parts of the organization were keen to move forward at a rapid pace, leaving
other parts of the organization lagging on getting fully on board.

• The SAP contract signing process takes time. Make sure a sufficient amount of time is
included for this within the project timeline.

• This is new functionality being released by SAP, and there are many SAP notes that go
along with it. SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA is not as easy or fast to
roll out as a module in ECC, which is understandable. A buffer in the project timeline
should be included because this is new functionality from SAP.

• Although the SAP Note issues were not always resolved quickly, SAP was fully
dedicated to the success of the project. There was direct communication between
SAP and the implementation team during the implementation of the project.

• The customer did not have an on-premise SAP HANA landscape when starting the
SAP Cash Management powered by SAP HANA project. Therefore, the customer
used SAP’s HEC to start the project sooner, with the expectation of moving to an on-
premise system when it became available. When the on-premise SAP HANA landscape
was ready to use, moving from the SAP HEC to the on-premise system was technically
difficult to do, and this caused a delay in the project timeline. The difficulties, for the
most part, were related to the SAP HANA database setup. Another factor was that the
SAP HEC environment was set up by SAP prior to the project; therefore, the project
team did not have all the expertise needed for a swift transition. Overall, using the HEC
environment was a good decision. It was because of the HEC environment that the
project was able to start sooner. Unfortunately, those gains were lost with the technical
issues encountered when moving from the HEC to the on-premise system.

• Along the lines of the first lesson, stakeholder management cannot be underestimated.

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Here is a list of the Fiori applications that are provided with each of the SAP Cash
Management powered by SAP HANA components.

Cash Operations:

• Bank Statement Monitor

• Cash Position

• Cash Position Details

• Analyze Payment Details

• Make Bank Transfer

• Track Bank Transfers

• Approve Bank Payments

• Bank Risk

• Payment Statistics

Liquidity Management:

• Develop Liquidity Plans

• Display Liquidity Plans

• Display Liquidity Forecast

• Display Cash Flow

Bank Account Management:

• Manage Bank Accounts

• My Sent Requests

• My Bank Account Worklist

• Maintain Signatory

• Initiate Review Process

• Monitor Bank Account Review Status

• Create Bank

• Change Bank

• Manage House Banks

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 Title of article

• Bank
Note!
• House Bank We would like to thank Marco
Meyer, Hanse Orga SymQ Project
• House Bank Account
Manager, for the contributions he
The link below is a listing of the Fiori apps by added to this article.
category and then by role.

https://fioriappslibrary.hana.ondemand.com/sap/fix/externalViewer/index.html#/ 

Mary Loughran has been specializing in the SAP Financials area since 1997 and has worked with
numerous clients throughout North America and Europe in the areas of finance and treasury. She
was employed as a consultant with SAP America and was a designated expert within SAP America
for treasury before she left SAP in 2004. Mary’s expertise is in the areas of SAP Treasury and Risk
Management, SAP In-House Cash, Liquidity Planner, Accounts Payable, payments from SAP in
general, Cash Management, and Electronic Banking. Mary was an independent consultant from
2004 to 2016 and has recently joined Hanse Orga Group.

Jochen (Joe) Stiebe has more than 17 years of experience in the area of Cash, Treasury, and
Risk Management for industrial, trading and energy companies as well as for banks and asset
management companies. His consulting focus lies both on the realization of SAP-based solutions
and on designing and implementing alternative system designs in existing SAP system landscapes.
As managing director he is responsible for all business segments of SymQ, which is an SAP
consulting company within Hanse Orga Group.

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