In 1997 I started as freelance SAP consultant. Since then I have worked for many clients via my one man company Finesse, with focus on S/4HANA Since 2019.

Over 20 years of SAP implementation experience gives me a good background for assisting clients in a variety of SAP projects such as:

·   Jumpstart of a SAP financials project.

·   FICO rollout in Belgium in compliance with local legal requirements with regards to financial accounting and VAT.   

·   Analysis of a productive financial SAP system in order to identify and implement improvements.

·   Implementation of IFRS compliant financial reporting system.

·   Instant SAP technical problem solving via remote consulting.

·   Evaluation of an outsourced SAP financials project or system

·   Release changes.

I Started my consulting career with SAP and I also worked a couple of years for Deloitte consulting, so I can appreciate the perspective of other parties involved in your SAP implementation.

Successful SAP projects

Successful SAP projects have the following in common:

·   A strong project manager (from the client) who can force the active participation of key people of the organisation who fully understand the business processes. This means the best people are put on the SAP project, not the ones that happen to be available. 

·   Finance and controlling modules are implemented in full integration with the logistics modules. Finance will almost never be the driver of the SAP project, but the active participation of the finance function is needed to monitor the financial impacts of the implemented logistics scenarios. This avoids shortcuts taken by the logistics implementation team which may have a negative impact on the finance function.

·   Proper internal and external reporting is an integral part of the implementation and not something which is postponed to later project phases, or worse, another module ( e.g. we'll fix that in BW/BI). The way you design your transaction system should support your reporting requirements.

·   Prototyping of end to end processes is executed in an early phase of the project. It is useless to try to think out a complete theoretical design to the Nth level of detail. The first real life case in SAP will bring up lots of details you didn't think of in your endless design discussions.

·   Global common processes are implemented. Do not go for a quick win to get your first site on SAP in a record time.  If you don't implement with a global view, your rollout will be costly.

·   Interfaces and custom developments are rigorously questioned and monitored. If accepted, they need to be ready for full integration testing in the Quality Assurance phase of the implementation.

·   Project planning is kept simple by having up to 15 project phase/milestones which can be easily tracked. In parallel an issue/TO-DO list is used where each subject is assigned a priority and a percentage of completion. No complex project planning tool needed!

·   Complex processes are handled pragmatically, avoiding irrelevant details. SAP processes can provide lots of data that are useless if the users can not interpret them. Keep it as simple as possible.

·   Once a documented design is implemented, further developments and later project phases are carefully reviewed. SAP has plenty of overlapping financial functions ( e.g. numerous allocation techniques in different modules) Implementing all functions independently may serve some individual business requirements, but it often compromises the coherent use of the FI/CO system (causing reconciliation problems, higher maintenance effort and confusion with end users.) SAP is about making choices. In this example: don't use all possible allocation mechanisms in parallel, but use only the one that suits your needs best.

·   Client personnel is assisted by experienced SAP consultants both on the logistics and on the finance modules. The consultants also need a good technical and cross functional knowledge. This is where I may be able to help you. If you need assistance and your SAP project is about to start, please check my availability and CV at the top of this page to see if I can be of help!  I work without much overhead so I can share my experience with you for a reasonable price.