SAP S/4 HANA, a new business suite of applications built on advanced in-memory platform and designed on the most modern user experience (SAP Fiori), is definitely here to stay. SAP’s aim is to shrink and simplify the underlying data structures; in-memory database works best with wide tables. Tables that once were nested are now compressed.
Currently and in the near future, customers are and will be migrating into the S/4HANA platform thereby losing some of the functionalities in the traditional ERP system.
One such feature is the foreign trade functionality which is leaving the core ERP if and when you switch to S/4 HANA. A large number of folks use this foreign trade functionality for Intrastat reporting. Intrastat reports are a system for collecting statistics on goods traded between European Union member states. Anyone with Intrastat reporting in place must be aware of this potential functionality loss when switching over to S/4 HANA.
That is not to say that you should reconsider switching to S/4 HANA. In fact, do it! Make the switch because (not only can Krypt help you create a roadmap and conduct the implementation) there is an easy solution to save your intrastat reporting.
SAP Global Trade Services (SAP GTS) Release 7.1 and later enables SAP Electronic Compliance Reporting (SAP ECR) to create Intrastat declarations for authorities, thus absorbing the potentially lost functionality when switching to S/4 HANA.
Using SAP GTS for Intrastat reporting
It is mandatory for companies to report information regarding company’s goods movements with other states or statistical regions of the European Union. One can provide information about receipts and dispatches of duty-paid products (community goods) in intra-community trading, which lets the statistical, national, and community authorities and organizations analyze trading activities. Receipts and dispatches that are free of charge must also be reported.
In some cases, member states can request Country of Origin or Region of Origin information, terms of delivery, mode of transport or in some extreme cases even statistical procedure may have to be reported. Also in special cases such as triangular trade, return goods, credit/debit memo, Intercompany invoices, Cancellation invoices, subcontracting etc., system has to be sophisticated enough by having all information necessary to report to authorities.
SAP ECR within SAP GTS is tailor-made to help specify all the necessary information in the statistical reports on intra-nation trade, country-specifically and send it to the respective authorities in the proper data formats. Furthermore, some of the unique features with SAP GTS Intrastat reporting include: allowing to users to define regions which can be excluded from Intrastat declarations, defining exceptions for mapping partner country since it may not comply with modeling required by statistics authorities and defining exceptions for modeling the country of origin.
