SAC FP&A: Your quick start into agile financial planning

In today's fast-paced business world, agile and accurate financial planning is critical to a company's success. However, many finance departments still face the challenge of creating timely and accurate plans that enable informed decision making. One of the reasons for this is the lack of suitable tools that provide a standardised database for planning. Excel is still the most frequently used planning tool. This is precisely where Rapid Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Business Content for SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) comes in.

In this article, we analyse this solution, which SAP has developed specifically to simplify and speed up the process of financial planning and analysis. You will learn about the benefits of this predefined content and what you need to consider when implementing it. sac fp&a

Get to know Rapid FP&A

Rapid FP&A stands for Rapid Financial Planning & Analysis and is a solution developed by SAP that aims to significantly accelerate the process of financial planning and analysis in companies. It is part of the Rapid FP&A Suite and is based on the pillars of personnel, sales and capital expenditure planning. However, Rapid FP&A can also be used independently for P&L, balance sheet and cash flow planning.


Rapid FP&A delivers predefined business content with pre-built models, reports (stories) and planning functions (data actions) that reflect SAP financial planning best practices. It is characterised by deep integration with SAP S/4HANA to leverage both master and transactional data from the ERP system and ensure a consistent view of financial data. This minimizes the need for extensive custom development and enables rapid time to value.

One of the good news for companies already using SAP Analytics Cloud is that Rapid FP&A is available as a free download. This means you can use the entire Rapid FP&A Suite at no additional licence cost. This offers an excellent opportunity to increase the efficiency of your financial planning and maximize the value of your investment in existing SAP solutions. workforce planning

Who is Rapid FP&A for?

The Rapid FP&A Suite is designed for companies that want to modernize their financial planning while ensuring a quick start and standardized implementation. Organizations that already use SAP S/4HANA and SAC or are considering implementing them will benefit in particular. 

Predefined planning content, dashboards, and data actions provide departments such as controlling and financial planning with a solid foundation for creating reliable plans and making informed decisions in a short period of time. Thanks to standard integration in SAP S/4HANA, implementation effort is minimal and adjustments can be made in a targeted manner. 

SAP partners and consultants also use Rapid FP&A to accelerate customer projects and achieve results that are quickly visible to end customers.

What’s included

As part of the Rapid FP&A Suite, Rapid FP&A covers cost centre, profit centre, balance sheet and cash flow planning. The package consists of two models: Planning and Analysis model with live connection to the source system.

Moreover, 4 stories are delivered. In addition to the landing page, which serves as the central entry point, dashboards, tabular reports and input masks for the respective planning steps are also bundled in stories.

Furthermore, 21 data actions and 2 multi-actions for planning and administration tasks are delivered.

The entire package can be installed free of charge via the SAC Content Network and is available in just a few minutes.

Thanks to the included sample dataset, you can explore and try out the planning screens, reports, and dashboards even without connecting a source system. True to the motto "Rapid. Simple. Standard." Rapid FP&A uses standard SAC functions and dispenses with JavaScript coding. In addition to input in local currency, on-the-fly currency conversion is also supported.

SAP Planning Tools compared -
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Technical Setup and Integration Complexity

By using standard objects, the Rapid FP&A solution can be implemented with little development effort. Both S/4HANA on premises and SAP S/4HANA Public and Private Cloud Editions are supported. The dimensions company code, functional area, profit centre, cost centre and account can be easily used via an import connection leveraging standard OData APIs and CDS views such as API_COMPANYCODE_SRV and A_CompanyCode.

Standard CDS views such as GLAccountBalanceFlow and A_JournalEntryItemBasic are also used to load the transaction data. No additional development work is required in the source system, keeping development effort to a minimum. The configuration of the live connection to the S/4HANA system is required for the use of live data for reports.

Planning is carried out using SAP Analytics Cloud model; initially, no “Seamless Planning” with SAP Datasphere is planned. The reference data is imported from S/4HANA into SAP Analytics Cloud and the planning data is exported back to S/4HANA once planning is complete.

The greatest effort will probably be required to integrate the accounts. The solution is based on the Best Practices 2FM version of the balance sheet/P&L structure (FSV or Financial Statement Version), which will probably be adopted one-to-one by very few companies. The account hierarchy used in Rapid FP&A is a mixture of P&L and balance sheet accounts as well as cash flow accounts, calculated ratios and drivers for data actions (e.g. discounts and allocation ratios). The P&L and balance sheet accounts are taken from the S/4HANA source system. The cash flow accounts, calculated key figures and drivers for data actions are maintained in SAC. However, if the underlying P&L and balance sheet accounts are adjusted, the accounts in SAC must also be adjusted.

Data actions represent another cost driver. Company codes, cost centres and account values are hardcoded in the data actions (e.g. allocations to cost centres). Therefore, all calculation logic must be adapted to your company structure and provided with variables.

Despite the low technical barriers to entry, the actual implementation effort varies depending on the customization requirements. Rapid FP&A can be used as a plug-and-play solution or customized as a template. This enabled Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe to modernize its entire financial planning in just five months.

The final effort depends primarily on the desired granularity and the existing planning process. However, the introduction of a new planning solution can also be seen as an opportunity to streamline the existing process.

Differentiation to other Planning Approaches

The classification of SAP Analytics Cloud with Rapid FP&A in the overall picture of available planning options shows that, compared to alternatives such as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (SAP BPC) for S/4HANA or comprehensive BW solutions, Rapid FP&A offers significantly lower implementation costs. This is due to its simple integration and reduced modeling requirements.

The following table provides a structured comparison of the current planning options for SAP S/4HANA.

However, you should note that Rapid FP&A primarily addresses classic FP&A roles (controlling, finance planning), but not accounting or treasury requirements. For consolidation-related or legal/regulatory processes, it may therefore still be advisable to use SAP BPC, S/4HANA Group Reporting, or other solutions.

Community & Exchange

SAP Rapid FP&A is available as an official SAP Activate Accelerator in the Signavio Process Navigator. SAP experts Mark Burke and Nicolas Plocharski are key figures behind the solution. Both are part of SAP’s Global Center of Excellence for xP&A and are highly active in the SAP Community, on LinkedIn, and in webinars.

A lively and valuable platform for knowledge exchange is the LinkedIn group xPandA – Masters of Planning and Analysis. It brings together users, consultants, and SAP experts to discuss questions, share use cases, and provide access to helpful resources.

Roadmap and Outlook: Our Conclusion

Quarterly updates are published on Rapid FP&A WorkZone. In addition, new features can be tracked in the official documentation. However, there is no official roadmap. It remains to be seen whether in the future there will be seamless planning support for SAP Datasphere or whether delivery will take place via Intelligent Applications in the SAP Business Data Cloud context.

To summarise, Rapid FP&A for SAP Analytics Cloud can be used both as a project accelerator and as a guide to SAP best practices. It also serves as a source of inspiration for your own solution approaches. For companies looking to establish a new financial planning process, the Rapid FP&A Suite provides an effective starting point for quickly building a solid planning foundation.

Do you have questions on this or another topic? Simply get in touch with us - we look forward to exchanging ideas with you!