Who SAP is
SAP is a German software company founded in 1972 and headquartered in Walldorf. It is best known for ERP software: SAP S/4HANA for large organisations, and SAP Business One and SAP Business ByDesign for smaller ones.
Its customers range from mid-sized companies to many of the world's largest groups. S/4HANA offers a journal entry API for posting entries from external systems, which is why SAP is one of the ERPs our Ledger module connects to.
What it does in your platform
Ledger
Receives the ledger's daily totals as journal entries in SAP S/4HANA, posted to your company codes and G/L accounts, so group finance closes with the platform's numbers. The entries behind every line stay in the ledger for audit.
How the connection works
One connector in the Ledger module posts to SAP S/4HANA through the Journal Entry - Post API listed on the SAP Business Accelerator Hub, a SOAP service built for posting journal entries from external systems.
The day is booked
Every payment, transfer and trade is recorded in the ledger as balanced debits and credits, in real time.
The day is reconciled
The ledger is matched against bank statements, processor files and blockchain confirmations, and differences go to a queue in the backoffice.
Entries are mapped
The day's movements are summed per account and currency, and mapped to your company code and G/L accounts, with the ledger day as the posting date.
SAP posts them
The module sends each journal entry, a header and its G/L items, to the API. SAP posts it synchronously and answers with a confirmation, kept next to the day in the ledger.
Group finance closes
In S/4HANA, the platform's entries sit with the rest of the group's accounting, ready for the period close.
Next to other providers
SAP keeps the group's books; the ledger keeps every customer's balance. Daily totals go to SAP, every entry can also go to a data warehouse such as Snowflake or BigQuery, and a core banking system, if you run one, stays the book of record for accounts.
A company that starts on Xero, QuickBooks or NetSuite and later joins a group on SAP changes only the connector. The ledger, its history and your apps stay as they are.
When SAP fits best
A strong fit when
- Your group already runs its finance on SAP S/4HANA.
- You report into a parent company whose books are kept in SAP.
- You want the platform's numbers in SAP every day, mapped to your company codes.
Also worth a look
- NetSuite, when that is the ERP your group runs.
- Xero or QuickBooks, for a single company with simpler books.
How we get you live
The contract
We help you get your SAP account and contract in place, and work with your SAP team or integrator on the S/4HANA side.
The mapping
We map ledger accounts to your company codes and G/L accounts with your controllers, and agree posting dates, currencies and document types.
The keys
The credentials the connector uses for SAP's API stay in your platform's secrets, with only the authorisations that posting needs.
A full test run
Entries post into your SAP test system first, and your controllers check them before the connector is pointed at production.
