SAP is Europe’s leading ERP system for large organisations, enhancing operations company-wide. But it has limitations when it comes to automated account reconciliation, which can lead to inefficiencies and errors in financial reporting.
In this article, we’ll outline how Aico’s account reconciliation software fills the gap in SAP’s solution to ensure a more streamlined and accurate close process. We'll also compare Aico and SAP across key account reconciliation process areas.
Let’s dive in.
The account reconciliation limitations of SAP
While SAP offers basic solutions for journal entry and closing automation, it falls short in providing features for automating reconciliation, storing evidence and tracking the account reconciliation process. The introduction of SAP Fiori has made some SAP system features web-based, enhancing accessibility, yet there are still several areas where external tools like Aico stand out in functionality and usability.
For example, SAP Fiori provides applications for viewing account balances and open items but lacks a built-in reconciliation feature. Although it’s possible to develop custom SAP Fiori applications using the ACDOCA table, this approach demands significant time, resources and a skilled team for development and maintenance.
Simply put, due to SAP’s limited reconciliation capabilities, additional tools are essential for effectively managing the entire closing process within a single platform. Aico fills this gap, offering a more comprehensive and user-friendly solution.
How Aico fills the account reconciliation gap
Aico's live ERP integration ensures that professionals work with real-time data, providing accurate insights and enhancing decision-making. Data transfers between systems happen instantly with just a click.
How does live ERP integration work? Imagine you're starting the reconciliation process early, focusing on an account with minimal bookings. Since the account is still active, ongoing bookings can occur. You might reconcile the account on the last working day of the period, only for someone to post to it the following day.
With Aico's live SAP integration, any changes in the account balance after reconciliation are immediately detected. Aico will alert you to add or modify evidence as needed.
Consider another scenario: while working on an account, you notice an invalid posting. You need to adjust or reverse the posting while the period is still open. Aico allows you to make this adjustment in real time by posting a journal and refreshing the reconciliation. This updates all balances and line items instantly. Instead of explaining why the number was incorrect, you can correct the issue on the spot, eliminating the need for explanations.
Live SAP integration vs. batch file integration: What’s the difference?
Aico is the only account reconciliation software that offers live integration with SAP, allowing you to pull closing balance and line item data in real time. In contrast, other vendors rely on Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) or batch file integration. They extract large files of data from your ERP system and upload these files into their reconciliation systems, typically just once every 24 hours, which can delay critical updates. Even when they have an SAP connector, this is simply a program that downloads the data into a file. This helps, but it’s not live integration.
Delayed ERP data updates complicate the balancing of closing processes with other important tasks for finance teams. Live integration, like Aico's, offers significant advantages over batch file integration:
- Higher financial accuracy: With live integration, you can always work with the latest data, ensuring higher accuracy in your financial processes.
- Automated reconciliation: As the live data is read in, the auto-reconciliation rules are applied and accounts can be automatically set as reconciled when they meet the rule conditions.
- Zero touch automation: From the start of account reconciliation to data refreshes, live integration eliminates the need for finance teams to spend time and resources manually extracting and importing data.
SAP and Aico account reconciliation functionality comparison
Here's a quick snapshot of the functional differences between Aico account reconciliation software and SAP S/4HANA:
For a detailed comparison, check out our in-depth guide: Aico and SAP S/4HANA
account reconciliation functionality comparison.
|
Category |
Functionality |
Aico |
SAP S/4HANA |
|
Configuration |
Include standard templates with the necessary information to process reconciliation documents for various accounts, such as balance-managed, grouped, open and line-item managed accounts. |
✅ Fully supported |
🚫 Not supported. There are currently no standard SAP Fiori templates specifically designed for account reconciliation. |
|
Automation |
Capability to automatically link reconciliation documents to related documents, such as the previous month's reconciliation documents, clearing documents and journal entry documents. |
✅ Fully supported |
🚫 Not supported |
|
Data preparation features |
Capability to upload reconciliation data from multiple external sources into a single template. |
✅ Fully supported |
🚫 Not supported. By default, SAP doesn’t facilitate the retrieval of external data. Although technically possible, it requires a significant level of technical proficiency and may require the use of additional tools or custom developments. |
|
Automated evidence attachment |
Capability to automatically run standard SAP reports and attach them to the reconciliation as supporting evidence. |
✅ Fully supported |
🚫 Not supported |
|
Automated reconciliation rules |
Ability to set rules at the GL account level, which will automatically reconcile the account. |
✅ Fully supported |
🚫 Not supported |
|
Internal controls features |
Capability to identify whether all accounts are reconciled and to generate a summary report indicating any unreconciled accounts. |
✅ Fully supported |
🚫 Not supported |
|
Process visibility features |
Dashboards displaying reconciled accounts across multiple ERP instances. |
✅ Fully supported |
🚫 Not supported You can create dashboards based on different accounts, but the concept of reconciliation in S/4HANA is not clearly defined. |
|
Module integration features |
Journal entries, financial close tasks, account reconciliations and internal invoicing can all be managed within a single system. |
✅ Fully supported |
✅ Fully supported if you have those templates and functionalities created in Fiori. |
Faster close with live integration
While SAP S4/HANA serves as the foundation for accounting systems in many large companies, it is not a complete solution.
With Aico, the most advanced enterprise-focused financial close software, you gain global visibility of the entire month-end, ensuring transparency and efficiency throughout the close process. Aico’s live SAP integration allows for improved data flow, financial data accuracy and overall operational efficiency.
To see Aico in action, book a live demo.
