Building a modern finance core with SAP S/4HANA and group reporting

Background

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A leading European Bank operated a highly customised, decades-old ERP landscape that relied heavily on manual processes, fragmented reporting structures and thousands of offline spreadsheets. Rising regulatory demands and the need for granular, trusted data highlighted significant limitations in both the close and consolidation processes. 

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To modernise finance operations and strengthen regulatory compliance, the bank launched a greenfield S/4HANA Finance and Group Reporting transformation to simplify processes, automate controls and establish a scalable, insight-driven finance platform.

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The Challenge

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Decades of customisation had pushed the legacy finance platform far from standard practice, resulting in manual close activities, complex consolidation processes and fragmented reporting structures. Core Finance and Group Reporting processes relied heavily on spreadsheets, bespoke workarounds and historical accounting practices that were poorly documented and difficult to unwind. 

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Inconsistent hierarchies, non-standard ledger usage and extensive inter-company reconciliations limited automation, slowed close cycles and increased operational risk. As regulatory expectations increased, the bank needed to redesign its finance architecture to restore standardisation, enable automation and create a scalable foundation for future reporting and compliance demands.

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The Solution

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The bank delivered a greenfield implementation of SAP S/4HANA General Ledger and  Group Reporting, and transformed Finance to reset the finance core and eliminate decades of accumulated complexity. The solution was built around clean-core, finance-led principles, ensuring automation, control and scalability were embedded from the outset.

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Rather than replicating legacy processes, the programme reimagined the end-to-end finance architecture, from source systems and ledgers through to consolidation and reporting, creating a unified, future-ready finance platform to support evolving regulatory and business demands.

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Key principles applied included:

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1. Clean-core by design – adopting standard S/4HANA functionality and redesigning processes to avoid legacy customisation and technical debt.
   
2. Finance-led transformation – anchoring all design decisions in Finance outcomes such as close efficiency, control and reporting integrity.
   
3. Greenfield mindset – designing from future-state requirements instead of replicating historical processes and structures.
   
4. End-to-end architecture thinking – treating General Ledger, Group Reporting, sub-ledgers and reporting as one integrated system.
   
5. Standardisation before automation – simplifying charts of accounts, hierarchies and processes to enable meaningful automation.
   
6. Integrated Group Reporting – embedding consolidation directly into the finance core with automated eliminations and journals.
   
7. Phased, risk-aware migration – transitioning safely from the legacy environment while maintaining business continuity.
   
8. Single source of truth – ensuring all reporting reconciles to the general ledger by design.
   
9. Design for regulatory change – building flexible data and reporting structures to support future statutory and regulatory requirements.
   
10. Strong business engagement – challenging legacy practices and embedding ownership of new ways of working across finance.
    

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The Results

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The transformation delivered a modern, scalable finance platform that significantly improved efficiency, control and insight. Manual effort across close and consolidation was reduced through automation, simplified structures and embedded controls, enabling finance to operate faster, with greater confidence and transparency.

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Key benefits included:

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• Accelerated close and consolidation through automated journals, eliminations and ledger-driven Group Reporting
  
• Significant reduction in manual effort by removing spreadsheet-driven processes and legacy workarounds
  
• Improved data quality and reporting integrity with all reporting reconciled to a single source of truth by design
  
• Simplified finance structures through rationalised charts of accounts and reporting hierarchies
  
• Stronger control and auditability via standardised processes and embedded governance
  
• Greater scalability and regulatory readiness to support evolving statutory and regulatory requirements
  
• Enhanced insight and business partnering by freeing finance teams to focus on analysis and forward-looking decision support