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November 19, 2019
Currently we use both functionalities of SAP BPC: Planning and Consolidation.
- Planning: With BPC we manage the financial budget across all the business units of the Company. We configured standard interfaces with the GL of our ERP (SAP R3) so we can easily measure the actuals vs. the annual plan. With the use of the EPM add-in for Excel, the financial users can create, consume and share reports.
- Consolidation: With the interfaces from the General Ledger to BPC it is easy to acquire information (balances) for reporting purposes. Also, we have configured business rules such as inter-company eliminations, adjustments or journals, so by executing a package from the EPM add in for Excel the consolidation team has been empowered and there is no IT involvement in the process.
- User friendly, with the use of the EPM add-in for Excel, business users can work in a familiar environment.
- SAP Analytics Cloud easy and native integration for dashboarding purposes.
- Can manage several business scenarios (versions): actuals, plan, forecast, etc.
- For Consolidation, there is a required dimension for auditing purposes (audit trail) so it is useful for internal and external audits.
- EPM add-in is only available for the Microsoft Windows Operating System.
- In order to open or refresh an inform, it is required to have the EPM add-in for MS Office already installed.
- Difficult to configure, ex. Script logic for ad-hoc adjustments.
Must need a solid and experienced partner, must need the following specialist to deploy:
- Basis
- BW
- Depending on the objectives or goals, you will need a BPC specialist on Planning scenarios or a high financial BPC expert for Consolidation.
February 12, 2020
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) is being used as part of a larger project integrating several different databases. The end goal is to get the data from some proprietary systems into a format that will line up with SAP and allow timely forecasts and accurate reporting of past sales, billing, etc. It's a useful tool for this type of consolidation, especially when the end goal is SAP.
- Integrates with Excel.
- Has APIs that can connect to all different types of databases.
- The refresh time for our spreadsheets is maddeningly slow.
- It is not an intuitive product. I had to be taught how to unhide a tab in Excel because it doesn't let you unhide in the traditional way.
The project started as a blend of employees and independent contractors. Eventually, we used a consulting firm that specializes in IT for Entertainment. They are called OnPrem. The knowledge the consultants bring to this highly specialized line of business is invaluable. They have the best and brightest entertainment IT professionals.
BPC is used by our entire organization to do budgeting for the year. A BI team loads the data using custom SSIS components and a custom scripting language created by SAP. It addressed the problem of not being able to properly plan and consolidate financial information from disparate sources across the organization.
- The Finance team loves it.
- Custom reporting.
- Custom SSIS components.
- Custom scripting language.
I can not divulge who our professional services partner is. However, their work was very professional, direct, and quick. They were very easy to work with.
June 19, 2019
The software is used mainly by the financial department across the organization. I support the implementation and work on further improvements mainly around RPA. SAP BPC allows us to plan, budget and forecast using one tool which is fantastic and helps us to better understand the connections between single pieces of data. To add to this, these financial subjects are captured in a unified system which significantly improves data collection.
- Front-end of SAP BPC is Excel-based, so drag and drop functionalities can be enabled to easily analyze figures
- We can load data from different source systems
- This software has helped to simplify, streamline and automate the whole budgeting process
- Simplify data aggregation
- Comply with changing local and international accounting standards
- Protection on data could be better, since creating restrictions based on multiple combinations is quite difficult
- The license is expensive
- Performance when using dimensions with many massive data records could be improved
We mainly used our resources, however, there was/is support from an external company.
The user interface is similar. It uses MS Excel so it is very adaptable. Internal and external reporting has been made super easy.
- Very useful in analyzing the data. We are using it to compare historical performances month by month to current months.
- Great customer service.
- The program is very easy to learn due to its Excel UI.
- It brings several business units under one system and therefore data presented at the enterprise level is really solid.
- Well integrated with HANA.
- Implementation is very tricky. Make sure you know what you are looking for and what you will be using it for in the long run to be able to get best out of the software.
- EPM Limitations.
- Expensive for small and medium-sized companies.
SAP. Great to work with.
January 10, 2019
SAP BPC is being used in reporting and financial departments at the customer end. We were also able to do financial consolidation with different parties through SAP BPC.
- We have implemented SAP BPC 10 with one of our customers to achieve consolidation with their different vendors and to generate the budgetary reports and fetch the same data within different departments. With the help of SAP BPC, our upper management and financial team are confident with the reports, helping them make business decisions.
- So far we have not seen any area where we are stuck or needed improvement, except where the data fetched over the intranet from different sourcing had failed to consolidate on the reports. The data should be fetched from any sourcing without any network leak to avoid missing data.
I have worked with SAP itself to deploy BPC components to achieve the business goals for our US client. It was very easy, friendly and without any hurdles. We were able to configure and setup the functionality and we have generated the finaicial reports to broadcast the data for the internal department of our customer.
My company uses SAP BPC for forecasting and analysis and is now currently undergoing implementation for consolidation. It's currently used by finance departments, and once it's implemented for consolidation will be used by Corporate Reporting and Corporate Accounting. One of the benefits of SAP BPC is that two finance teams (Financial Planning & Analysis and Corporate Reporting and Corporate Accounting) will now be using the same tool for internal and external reporting. This will eliminate the need for reconciling systems, which is currently a manual and many times frustrating task. Like many other companies before SAP BPC, my company currently heavily utilizes Excel for consolidation, which has its flaws including not being able to have multiple users edit the workbook and slow performance. On the Financial Planning & Analysis side, SAP BPC has been instrumental in collaborative work between all business segments and Corporate. It has increased performance and allowed for faster quarter closes.
- SAP BPC is real time data. You can send information into the system and see it reflected in your reports immediately. Other systems may require a manual push into a reporting system.
- SAP BPC is a shared reporting tool, so multiple users can be working in a model/environment at the same time, real time. This is especially helpful if your workbooks incorporated multiple processes requiring multiple users to get into the same model.
- SAP BPC is a powerful tool designed to help all facets of the company, from cash flow to capital expenditures to headcount management to financial planning to consolidation.
- An easily accessible resource page for quick how-to's and tips, as well as things to avoid (maybe a YouTube page).
- In 10.1, one thing that was removed was the ability to go into the dimension and select multiple members/parents and copy-paste those into your workbook. Please bring this back.
- When I have a BPC workbook open and a non-BPC workbook open, it slows down performance because whenever I'm toggling between the two workbooks as it's constantly bringing in the EPM context pane into the non-BPC workbook. Is there any way to disable this easily?
My company partnered with Column 5 to help deploy SAP BPC for financial planning many years ago, and they helped us upgrade from BPC 7.5 to BPC 10.1 this past year. Now they are helping us deploy SAP BPC for consolidation. My company has had a long relationship with Column 5, which is a testament to their professionalism and good work.
March 23, 2018
We use it within our department of Financial Planning and Analysis only. It was initially used solely for its consolidation capabilities in order to better report and analyze data, both actuals and budget, with the budget being done in a separate application and loaded in. We have now implemented the planning cubes and use it to develop or annual budget and an annual reforecast with actuals still being loaded in at the end of each month.
- Allows for full integration of data to be analyzed in real time. Although we still load actuals on a delayed basis (2 business days after month end), when developing the budget, we not longer have to do a full loading process from a different application into BPC prior to being able to report and analyze the current budget status to prior budget versions or actuals.
- It is easy to learn basic report building. The hardest part is learning the available dimensions and the different possible combinations and their results, but that will also vary from company to company depending on the complexity of the industry.
- Being from a law firm, the system needed a lot of custom tailoring in order to fit our full needs (although many companies could say the same thing). Although the ability to highly customize the system to the company's needs is a positive, it frequently results in the system responding in unexplainable and unrepeatable ways which negatively impacts and slows the budget process. Because of the sporadic nature and variety of the issues, we are unable to repeat them on cue and therefore cannot nail down a solution.
Column 5 was used for both implementations (consolidation and planning). Based on my understanding of the initial implementation of consolidation, everything went well and the process was smooth. The development of the planning cubes was a little more difficult as there was a different consultant from C5 than the original implantation, and halfway through the development, the consultant left and had to be replaced. This caused some set backs and confusion as every consultant has their own technique and the new consultant couldn't always follow the rationale of what the original had done. The final consultant was great to work with and knowledgeable, but the turnover caused for some issues and could potentially be (just guessing) the reason for some issues we have experienced post-rollout.
January 18, 2018
BPC is being used as the system in which we develop our yearly budgets, collect quarterly forecast, and do an analysis of the spending and revenues throughout the organization. The FP&A organization is the heaviest user, with extensive reporting and analysis being done on a daily basis. Over 300 users across campus access it during budget season in order to enter their budgets and half that many enter it quarterly to update forecasts.
- Dimensional model allows for slicing and dicing of the data in a variety of ways
- This is a custom tool - it provides an environment but you define what the structures look like, which offers flexibility
- Updates are not backward compatible - on the server side they require complete reinstalls.
- While they suggest the tool is unlimited, in practice, there are substantial performance limitations on the Microsoft Platform if you let the cube get too large
- The Microsoft platform is legacy from the original tool (Outlooksoft) that SAP purchased. The result is that it gets the least effort in development
- If you aren't using SAP Business Warehouse, the load process is considerably more complex than it otherwise might be.
Column 5 - They have been very helpful in both implementing and advising us as we have moved through version updates.
Freudenberg IT is our hosting provider and they have been less helpful - if it isn't running on NetWeaver/HANA, they seem confused by the architecture. We've struggled to get things working correctly in that environment and try hard not to make changes that might disrupt a currently working system.
Freudenberg IT is our hosting provider and they have been less helpful - if it isn't running on NetWeaver/HANA, they seem confused by the architecture. We've struggled to get things working correctly in that environment and try hard not to make changes that might disrupt a currently working system.
Our entire organization uses it for budgeting. Departments and offices enter annual expenses. Practice groups use it to track employees with annual billable hours and billable rates. Th finance and accounting department uses it for reporting as well as analyzing variances during the fiscal year. The system also is used for creating and updating revenue and expense forecasts during the year.
- Allows for tracking of actual vs budgeted expenses. Can have multiple budgets or forecasts for comparison.
- Can create reports that can be modified to show either department or office views of the data.
- Allows for budgeting of production hours, billed hours and collections by individual timekeeper.
- Data is not easily moved between modules. Several steps necessary to accomplish this.
- Users often overwrite data entered by others. Need better controls for this.
- Better reporting of changes between versions of a budget. In particular, the user who made the changes and what those changes were.
Column5 was the partner used for the design and implementation of the system. They have been very helpful and responsive. They have also held conferences and training sessions which have helped educate the users of the system.
March 14, 2018
At the World Bank Group (WBG), SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) is used as a corporate performance management system to enable financial planning and management and to support the budget processes across IBRD, IFC, and MIGA.
- BPC acts as the single source for all budget, revenues, expenses, forecast plans and eliminates the need for budget monitoring staff to maintain their own spreadsheets and legacy systems.
- Results in substantial time and cost savings due to the reduction of manual errors and data redundancy, enhanced data quality, and data governance, and an expedited planning and monitoring cycle for unit level and corporate planners.
- EPM Menu can be simplified.
- Compatibility issues with MS Office 365 need to be resolved.
- Single sign on needs to be implemented.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
We use BPC for consolidations and eliminations for SEC filings as well for projections and forecasting. It allows for one source of the truth for month end reporting. Only accounting and finance employees have a BPC license. Financial statements and other reporting is pushed to our field users (GMs, VPs, etc).
- Accounting and finance users love this tool because reports are built using native Excel. If commands such as EPMCopyRange are utilized it can further the use of native Excel.
- Compared to BPC 7.5 our elimination and consolidation logic runs in a fraction of the time. Processes that would take multiple days can be accomplished within hours.
- Powerful and dynamic reports can be built to help business leaders make decisions and see trends.
- There is missing functionality on the ability to use the dynamic filter on apply a property when using the excluded members tab of the report editor. We are currently running SP30 BPC 10.1 and the ability existed in previous service packs. We now have to manually exclude some dimensions. We use member exclusions on our income statement tabs to help clean up the multiple total lines that appear when having two dimensions in the row running on member and descendants.
- In SP 30 and some of the later BPC 10.1 service packs, when a user searches for a dimension member, it displays the dimension member the number of times it shows up in another hierarchy. In previous service packs, when searching for a dimension, it would display the dimension member within the first hierarchy it appears in and then if the user clicked next, it would jump down to show the dimension member within the next hierarchy it is a part of.
- BPC is not able to handle to calculated member formulas in a report. For example, if a calculated profit center and a calculated datasource are used in a column of the report, BPC is not able to correctly compile and display the correct value for both calculated members.
We used VantagePoint and they were some of the most excellent consultants we have used. They truly passed on in-depth knowledge to our team.
BPC was used mainly for planning purposes for my previous client. Consolidation implementation started 6 months back where they planned to create a consolidated statement for 20 plus co codes with regions spread across Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia etc. They plan to achieve auto removal of intercompany transactions through this.
- Detailed planning
- Intercompany transaction identification
- Reporting
- None
Deloitte
We use BPC for our planning and consolidated financial reports and [we are also] using it for reporting purpose. The biggest challenge is the data integration between the SAP system ECC, BW, and BPC. It's not real-time processing due to the data flow.
If it were a real-time data flow then it would be very useful for all kinds of reporting needs.
- Real time flow integration between the ECC, BW and BPC systems.
- Real time integration
Deloitte
October 24, 2017
SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) is being used as both a planning and reporting system at our organization. It allows us to have control over the financials and allows for systematic driven results. Users like the flexibility of the tool and that it's built right into Microsoft Excel. It lowers the risk of reporting errors and increases the quality of our financials. We can work through many scenarios of [our] annual plan and/or monthly forecast to make sure we achieve the results we want in the business.
- Automation of financial processes using a systematic solution.
- User-friendly Excel Interface to allow for various reporting requirements.
- Data Integration with your current SAP ERP solution.
- The new 10.1 web interface is a little slow when trying to manage a lot of dimensions compared to previous 10.0 web interface.
- Training tutorials or application demos for various levels of user engagement.
- Business process flows are really nice to have to organize the flow of a process, but they are more of a maintenance than a help.
TruQua consulting helped us with our BPC upgrade from BPC 10.0 to BPC 10.1 on HANA. They were excellent to work with and provided top enterprise solutions for our BPC performance. We saw a 95% increase in performance in our reporting and input forms after the upgrade to HANA. They were realistic and provided expectations that were exceeded in the end. I would highly recommend them.
We use BPC primarily for Planing and Consolidations/financial reporting. In support of Planning, we also have depreciation, resource assignment for projects and Head Count/Cost Center planning models. BPC enables us to group most planing activities within a logical progression. BPC enables us to have the planning detail and financial summary level in one place.
- Pushes data from one model to another. This is helpful to have detail in one model, and summary level in another model.
- Reporting flexibility using formatting, filtering and attributes is good. This offers flexible reporting and input templates by selectively choosing which data sets are relevant to the user.
- Scripting language isn't very robust...it is a proprietary language that isn't as capable as VBA or other languages. Sometime ABAP code is needed to supplement the business requirement.
- Web Templates don't have the same features as the Excel Ad-in. The use of filters and dimension over-rides don't exist.
Macrospect helped us implement. They were fantastic. Full of experience and best practice suggestions.
October 20, 2017
Used across the whole organization by approximately 150 users at corporate headquarters, mine sites and regional offices.
Used to consolidate actuals and budget for +/- 250 legal entities for quarterly external reporting and monthly internal management reporting.
Used to consolidate actuals and budget for +/- 250 legal entities for quarterly external reporting and monthly internal management reporting.
- Timeliness of close process i.e. ledgers are closed on work day 5 and consolidated financial statements are issued on work day 10 (non-quarter end months) and work day 15 (quarter end months).
- Consolidation completes in 12 minutes across 5 entity hierarchies.
- The Excel front-end report writer is very user friendly so users are able to create adhoc analysis reports quickly.
- From an administration point of view populating the 'Ownership' model is laborious across 5 Entity hierarchies and setting up data access profiles in Security is also tedious i.e. Security interface needs improvement.
Performance Analytics Corporation (previously OutlookSoft
Canada) was the only implementation partner back in Feb-07 and therefore the
most knowledgeable on the product at that time. Implementation took 6 months and delivered on budget.
PAC was also involved when we went from Canadian GAAP to IFRS in 2011 but little assistance has been needed since then.
Canada) was the only implementation partner back in Feb-07 and therefore the
most knowledgeable on the product at that time. Implementation took 6 months and delivered on budget.
PAC was also involved when we went from Canadian GAAP to IFRS in 2011 but little assistance has been needed since then.
SAP BPC on HANA is used by the whole finance team for all activities including consolidations, financial planning/forecasting to reporting.
- Custom BADIs help with complex forecasting calculations
- EPM Excel add-in enables the use of complex Excel functions with EPM features
- Non BPC users have problem accessing BPC spreadsheets, offline feature does not work well.
Worked with quite a few partners in the early days. Most enhancements were done internally.
January 17, 2019
The use of BPCs within the organization of one of my clients has been fundamental to allowing highly skilled users in the area of business intelligence (professionals or very practical users in the BI sector) go into detail regarding well-defined processes of cost saving, reorganization of the company budget, and the restructuring and optimization of resources.
- Perfect integration with SAP
- The data, once made available and imported in the SAP environment, allows all users to use them immediately without having to implement any process of ETL or data manipulation
- Is optimized for SAP S/4HANA , so the finance department has a complete suite available to manage projects at best in a single software that speaks with the same business terms
- Working with extremely complex workbooks can have repercussions in terms of performance
- While certainly suitable for personnel already skilled in using and knowing the whole Sap environment, the documentation regarding the potentialities and above all the functionalities of the product could be slightly improved.
- Integration with SAP NetWeaver or Microsoft Excel requires good expertise for the implementation
SAP BPC is used to support financial consolidations by Accounting team and for budgeting & forecasting (Capex, Headcount, Opex, Integrated Financial Planning) by FP&A team. It is used across the whole organization.
- SAP should focus on delivering one single product for planning, consolidation and budgeting needs rather than providing a large list of options to choose from.
- The product is not very user-friendly compared to other cloud competitors. There is a heavy dependency on IT teams.
- SAP BPC should come up a pure cloud option.
Column 5 team is very competent and handled the requirements and deliverables very well.
- Online training
- In-person training
- Self-taught
Yes - Upgrades are time consuming and laborious.
March 13, 2018
BPC is being used for consolidation purposes. It is being used by Finance Controllers. First all P&L trial balances from all sites are uploaded with a flat file coming from SAP at month-end. Then with input schedules the flows for B/S are being updated. The BPC team analyses if there are no significant variances or changes in mappings and then runs the consolidation process within BPC. A major issue with BPC is that there are still a lot of manual steps done by users and very little script logic is used in BPC to automate month-end process.
- The Excel EPM functions are really good
- BPF functionality with a step by step guidance is a plus
- Intercompany Eliminations within BPC engine is very straightforward and easy to setup
- When a change is needed in the EPM reports it is not very flexible and needs IT intervention
- Performance sometimes is an issue when consolidating more then 20 entities specially at quarter end
- Script logic complex to handle and always needs BPC consultant when changes are requiered even if minimal - has very high costs
Internal BPC consultants were hired and ex IBM consultants
SAP BPC is used as Reporting tool of consolidation. It is used for monthly reporting (short Financial Statements) and quarterly reporting, including Intercompany reconciliation. We use also it to retrieve historical data based on different variants: i.e. IFRS/LOCAL GAAP/US GAAP, Local amount, Consolidated amount... etc.
- Legal consolidation
- Detailed reporting package
- Retrieval of historical data
- It's not user friendly
- Depending on how it is implemented it is not as flexible as it should be, in case of changes in consolidation rules
In the past I sused PwC consultant, very good high professionality
We use BPC in our planning and forecasting for FP&A and consolidation for corporate reporting; as far as I know, we also use it for our international distribution.
- Running ad-hoc reports
- Researching on variance explanations
- Creating standardized reports across the team
- It'll be helpful to make the ID/description selection change a stand-alone button in the ribbon
- Add back the option to select and copy ID's from the dimension dropdown
A consulting company helped us with our system upgrade. They are resourceful and professional.
We primarily use BPC as the consolidation and external reporting software. We have a basic planning implementation to support reporting. Data entry is primarily integrated from ECC with some topside entries made by corporate at the business level. Plans are entered at a business level directly into BPC via forms or pulled in from ECC.
- Use of data sources allows easy identification of data origin. Ex: ECC, manual entry, management adjustment entry, ICC elimination, etc...
- Reporting is generally fast if best practices are used to avoid performance hits.
- There are a lot of BPC experts available to implement and provide training.
- BPC out of the box is a blank slate and requires system development to be implemented. Generally will need to hire consultants to build and train your organization.
- Many people are not familiar with multidimensional databases like BPC so there is a learning curve.
We used a combination of IBM and independent consultants in conjunction with SAP support. They were all knowledgeable and helpful.
SAP BPC is used by the finance function across the enterprise. It provides a planning solution for finance users for their revenue forecasts for the current year, next year, and five-year planning. BPC allows us to plan, consolidate and report our forecasts internally and externally.
- SAP BPC leverages Microsoft Excel well and provides an user interface that is easy to use for finance.
- SAP BPC integrates with our SAP R/3 to provide a holistic look at our project level data.
- SAP BPC provides flexibility that is needed in the A&D industry. We are able to customize functionalities for our business needs.
- I'd like to see BPC better handle large volumes of data. Our company plans at the contract level and often find ourselves struggling with data volume in terms of system performance.
- I'd like to see BPC have real-time data from our SAP R/3 system to facilitate a faster closing at month-end.
Our local IT took the lead in customizing and deploying SAP BPC to the Finance user base. I am unsure if they worked with a professional services partner initially.
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Scorecard Summary
Feature Scorecard Summary
What is SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)?
The SAP BPC software is designed to help users plan and achieve a faster, more accurate close. The SAP BPC software aims to help users spend more time growing their business and less time closing books. The vendor’s value proposition is that their software delivers planning, budgeting, forecasting, and financial consolidation capabilities in a single application. This, in turn, enables them to easily adjust plans and forecasts, speed up budget and closing cycles, and ensure compliance with financial reporting standards.
According to the vendor, with SAP BPC users can:
•Make better decisions based on what-if analyses and scenario planning
•Use collaboration tools to improve accountability and planning accuracy
•Shrink cycle times, close the books faster, and align their plans with strategic goals •Get real-time access to data in SAP S/4HANA Finance
•Run on their platform of choice – SAP BW/4HANA, SAP NetWeaver or on Microsoft
•Engage in further visualization and predictive analysis leveraging SAP Analytics Cloud in a seamless manner
Categories: Corporate Performance Management (CPM)
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Screenshots
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Video
SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, optimized for SAP S/4HANA allows organizations to plan, budget, and forecast in a real-time manner with instant insights to data. Watch this video to learn how the finance department can plan with the utmost flexibility within the SAP S/4HANA environment with full data and master data integration and the ease of Microsoft Excel. Learn how SAP Lumira and SAP Fiori can be extended for visualization and analytics on Plan vs Actual data.
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Integrations
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Competitors
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Pricing
- Does not have featureFree Trial Available?No
- Does not have featureFree or Freemium Version Available?No
- Has featurePremium Consulting/Integration Services Available?Yes
- Entry-level set up fee?No
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Support Options
| Free Version | Paid Version | |
|---|---|---|
| Forum/Community | ||
| FAQ/Knowledgebase | ||
| Social Media | ||
| Video Tutorials / Webinar | ||
| Phone | ||
| Live Chat |
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Technical Details
| Deployment Types: | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems: | Windows, Mac |
| Mobile Application: | No |