How FPSL and Financial Control combine to streamline financial close

As technology advances, regulation and red tape increases and financial data becomes ever more complex, operating an efficient and compliant financial close is harder than ever. SAP Fioneer’s Financial Product Subledger (FPSL) and Financial Control products are specifically built to streamline end-of-month closing and reconciliation automation. Already powerful products when used separately, when used in tandem, they’re a game changer, enabling greater efficiency, transparency and speed. 

How Financial Product Subledger (FPSL) and Financial Control work together 

Fioneer’s Financial Product Subledger (FPSL) simplifies the accounting architecture that connects operational and financial systems and lets firms easily incorporate new products and business lines. Financial Control’s fully automated reconciliation and streamlined manual adjustment and substantiation processes provides the final piece of the financial closing puzzle. 

While FPSL handles the detailed line-item processing and prepares data for posting to the general ledger, Financial Control oversees reconciliations, adjustments, and final balance sign-offs for significantly faster closing. It takes the efficiencies of FPSL to the next level, enabling 100% of reconciliation and up to 80% of other financial closing processes to be automated.  

What does this mean for financial close?  

Unified financial operations and real-time accuracy 

Financial Control and FSPL’s direct integration with S/4HANA enable unmatched data accuracy and transparency. This single source of key financial processes enables finance teams to implement intelligent workflows, whilst ensuring standardized and robust governance of financial closing activities. This is crucial for FSIs with fragmented systems and high volumes of data from different sources, which heightens the risk of errors in data processing. 

SAP Fioneer’s scalable architecture ensures unwavering data accuracy, even as firms grow and incorporate more business lines, systems and data sources. Users can leverage enhanced analytics, enjoy extensive drill-downs and make more informed decisions. 

Integrated subledger and general ledger processes 

The key to efficient and compliant financial processes is reliable data. And that comes from real-time access, unified processes and automation. 

SAP Fioneer integrates subledger and general ledger activities and data with FPSL and Financial Control, underpinned by the direct, real-time connection with S/4HANA. 

This integrated solution delivers seamless account reconciliation, validation, adjustments and substantiation, with granular transparency while its modular architecture unites ledgers, transactional systems, analytics, and compliance, enabling end-to-end financial control. 

Automated reconciliation and intelligent workflows 

Manual reconciliation slows down financial closing and leaves FSIs open to costly errors, exposing firms to financial and reputational risks.  

With Financial Control, businesses can fully automate reconciliation and streamline validation and substantiation, transforming financial workflow management. This is huge for banks and insurance firms, as it eradicates inconsistencies and errors (easing regulatory concerns) and enables finance teams to report and submit accounts with confidence. 

Fioneer’s solutions enable firms to close 30% faster, giving staff more time to spend on revenue-generating activities. Plus, there are hidden cost savings, like avoiding regulatory penalties and reducing maintenance and overheads. 

Bolstered compliance with a clear audit trail   

As demonstrable compliance is crucial for banking and insurance providers, SAP Fioneer arms businesses with the tools needed to meet the ever-growing regulatory obligations faced by FSIs.  

An embedded, real-time audit trail automatically tracks all activities while the solutions offer robust risk management controls, watertight deduplication and proven governance principles, helping firms avoid eye-watering penalties, like Citigroup’s $136m fine for failing to fix historic data quality issues. 

FPSL and Financial Control in action  

Transforming and harmonizing Munich RE’s systems and processes 

Munich RE is a pioneer in risk assessment that expands its products and services as new forms of risk emerge. Working together, including establishing a financial steering committee, SAP Fioneer helped Munich RE complete its IFRS 17 transformation and harmonize systems and processes with a combined subledger across all its businesses.  

Using FPSL enabled Munich RE to: 

• move its applications to the cloud 

• meet IFRS 17 requirements 

• future-proof systems, with fast and easy ways to scale 
  

Learn more about this FPSL success story and listen to Robert Lempertseder, Head of Financial and Regulatory Reporting at Munich Re discuss the project, its aims and what Munich RE was able to achieve: 

Overhauling legacy systems and consolidating financial close processes with Rabobank 

Rabobank played a key role in supporting the development of SAP Fioneer’s Financial Control product. 

By overhauling legacy systems and consolidating financial close processes on a single platform, we enabled Rabobank to achieve the following: 

• significantly reduce time to close 

• increase agility 

• enable faster deployment of new features 

• deliver big cost-savings 

• support the organization’s ESG efforts 
  

The team harnessed unified functionality, cloud-based standardization and generative AI technology for a truly cutting-edge solution.  

Hear from Erwin Bosch, Head of Finance and Risk at Rabobank, about the bank’s ambitions and outcomes: 

Enhance your financial closing capabilities with Fioneer