SAP accounting software, for finance teams a package can no longer carry
Entry-level accounting software is better than it gets credit for.
For a single company with straightforward trading, packages like Sage or Xero do a great job of running the ledgers, managing debtors and producing a clear set of accounts. If that’s where your business is today, there’s no need to change, and Codestone will always tell you so honestly. We’ve happily advised businesses to stay with what they have when it’s the right fit.
As businesses grow, it’s usually complexity rather than size that signals it’s time for something more. You might notice the stock figure in your accounts no longer matching the warehouse, a second company that needs consolidating in a spreadsheet, or a month end that relies on one person’s workbook and whether they’re available. These are all signs of a business that’s moving forward, and they’re often the moment when an ERP can help everything come together and give your team room to grow.
SAP Business One – Finance as a whole package
SAP Business One gives you a complete finance function that goes well beyond the ledger. Your chart of accounts, journals, sales and purchase ledgers, banking and reconciliation, fixed assets with depreciation, cost centres, budgets and multi currency handling are all included as standard. If you’ve been looking for an SAP accounting package or SAP accounting program, this is the part of SAP Business One that brings it all together, and Codestone will help you set it up around the way your finance team works.
What makes it so valuable is where your numbers come from. Sales orders, goods receipts and stock movements post to the ledger as they happen, because everything lives in the same system. That means far less time spent reconciling and chasing figures between separate tools, and more time for your finance team to focus on the insight and planning that help your business grow. Codestone works alongside you to shape your chart of accounts, bring your data across carefully and make sure your team feels confident from day one, so you see the benefit from your very first month end.
A faster close
and clearer reporting
With SAP Business One, your month end becomes quicker and calmer, because the numbers are already together in one place. Instead of spending time gathering figures, your team can focus on reviewing them, and you can see exactly where you stand at any point in the month without waiting for the period to close. Codestone helps you shape your close process around the system from the start, so the time savings show up straight away.
Several companies, currencies and tax
If you run more than one company, this is usually the deciding factor. SAP Business One handles separate sets of books with their own local accounting rules, posts across companies, and consolidates without anyone rebuilding a workbook. Currency revaluation and translation are built in, with realised and unrealised differences calculated by the system.
For UK businesses it is Making Tax Digital compliant and handles VAT including the reverse charge and partial exemption. For international trading, local tax and statutory reporting requirements are supported per country.
There are two situations where Codestone would point you elsewhere. If your group has many companies with genuinely complex ownership, minority interests and a formal disclosure process, a dedicated consolidation platform such as CCH Tagetik should sit above your accounting system. If your business is one company with simple trading, this is more system than you need, and we will tell you so.
Where finance connects to the rest
Accounting is the reason most businesses buy it, and rarely where the value stops. Because sales, purchasing and stock run in the same system, finance sees margin as an order is taken, well before the quarter closes, and the questions you can answer change accordingly.
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What SAP software can do for the SAP Accounting sector
Streamline Every Function of Your Business
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SAP Accounting
SAP’s Accounting software provides you with a way of managing your business accounts including journal entries, accounts receivable and accounts payable, as well as accurately tracking cash flow, fixed assets and monitoring performance against budgets. Accounting with SAP Business One shows a user-defined chart of accounts that truly represent your business.
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Banking & Reconciliation
Accounting with SAP simplifies your banking tasks by fully integrating these into your financial applications. You can quickly process reconciliations and process payments whether these be by payment card, cheque or electronic funds transfer. Integrated financial management means far greater accuracy on cash-flow.
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International
Whether you have international operations or source products from international locations, an Accounting solution from SAP has this covered. SAP Business One supports multi-currencies and enables you to manage separate entities against the accounting and taxation rules of that country. SAP Accounting software makes international business easy and simplifies the task of compliance.
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Budgeting
As companies grow, accurate budgeting and management of these budgets is essential. Accounting through SAP Business One enables you to define your cost centres and create budgets for each one including user defined cost allocation rules. These budgets can then be allocated on both a monthly and annual basis with real-time tracking of performance against budget.
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Month-End Close
A SAP Accounting solution enables you to accelerate the month-end close process. Having all of your financial and operational data in a single place, and available in the cloud removes the challenge of compiling month-end data. SAP Business One also enables you to assign tasks to individuals or create reminders to complete each aspect of your close process.
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Financial Reporting
With accounting software from SAP you manage your accounts in a way that represents your business operations, with reports providing you with the information that truly matters. Furthermore, Accounting through SAP Business One lets you manage financials in real time.
What You Can Achieve
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Accuracy
With information captured at source and held within one solution, you significantly improve both the consistency and accuracy of your financial data and financial reporting.
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Control
Through linking financial management to all parts of your business, you have insight and control over every element that contributes to the profitability of the company.
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Immediacy
With data captured, processed and reported on in real-time, your accounting manages the ‘now’ improving cash-flow management, stock management and control of budgets. We call this ‘Run Live’.
Common questions
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Is SAP Business One overkill if we only need accounting?
Sometimes, and it is worth saying so. If you want ledgers and a set of accounts for a single trading company, a package will do that more cheaply. SAP Business One earns its place when finance is being slowed down by everything sitting outside the ledger.
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Can it handle multiple companies and currencies?
Yes, and it is the most common reason finance teams move to it. Separate books per company with local rules, cross-company posting, consolidation without a spreadsheet and currency revaluation handled by the system.
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Is it Making Tax Digital compliant?
Yes. Submissions are MTD-compatible, and the VAT treatments that catch people out are handled inside the system.
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How does it make month end faster?
It removes the assembly. The numbers are already together, so the close becomes a review. Most finance teams notice the difference in the first or second cycle.
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Can we migrate our history?
Yes, and it is worth deciding how much on purpose. Most finance teams bring open items and master data into the new system and leave the older detail where it can still be searched, because moving all of it costs more than it returns.
What it looked like
for finance teams
The CFO Centre, a professional services firm, had outgrown a set of separate Sage systems across the countries it operates in, and needed its UK and group accounts consolidated on one platform. Codestone moved it onto SAP Business One as a service, hosted on our cloud so no office needed its own hardware, and built a billing platform that lets its 700-plus finance directors, CFOs and principals raise client invoices that post straight into SAP. Wayne Smith, their group financial controller, said one of the aims was “to reduce the number of suppliers we had to minimise risk and effort.”
The same system carries far larger organisations too. Utmost Wealth Solutions manages £27.9 billion of assets for more than 136,000 clients across the Isle of Man, Ireland and Guernsey, and needed finance systems that could stand up to regulatory scrutiny. We implemented SAP Business One alongside SAP Concur for expenses, with automated overnight processing and live exchange rate feeds. Their previous setup could not process files of more than 18,000 records. Charlotte Barham, their head of finance, said: “With SAP in place across the group, we can build a consolidated finance structure, enabling us to comply with rigorous regulatory reporting requirements.”
Read the Utmost Wealth Solutions story · More customer stories
How much does it cost, and how long does it take?
A finance-led implementation usually sits in the lower price bands on our pricing page, because there are no manufacturing or warehouse processes to configure. Expect a few months, with the data migration and your opening balances taking longer than anyone budgets for.
After 30 years of finance system work, Codestone plans for the awkward parts of a migration, such as opening balances, historic VAT and inter-company history, from the first week.
