Advanced Compliance Reporting (ACR): Key Pointers for Successful Implementation

[sanilbhandari]

Advanced Compliance Reporting (ACR) is a new reporting tool, which is available with S/4HANA On Premise and Cloud Editions. It is a single frame architecture and one of the value adds in S/4HANA which allows the customers to create, generate and submit compliance reports to the Governments and Tax Authorities on time and in required formats. The tool helps to ensure that the reports are compliant with complex and ever changing legal requirements. This has become even more pertinent with COVID 19 where the legal changes are being introduced too fast and must be implemented in a very short period. ACR as a tool provides the required file formats and end to end integration with Tax Authorities in specific countries like India, UK, Netherlands etc and the list is only increasing.

Why ACR needs to be implemented in S/4HANA?

In my view, lot of customers do ask the rationale for implementing ACR. There are lot of reasons, why ACR needs to be implemented for customers who are on S/4HANA.

Traditional reports are going out of Product Support – With S/4HANA, lot of traditional tax and legal reports are going out of Product Support. This is one of the primary reasons, why a customer should implement ACR Reports. The list of legal reports, which are going out of Product Support are defined in OSS Note # 2835816 and 2480067

Integration with Government and Tax Authorities - In many countries, it is a legal requirement to submit the Tax and Legal reports electronically through an interface. In S/4HANA Environment, ACR is the go to tool to address the requirements. Examples of such countries are:

 

UK MTD for VAT Returns  - OSS Note # 2682182

VAT Reporting for Russia – OSS Note # 2632090

Netherlands VAT Report & EC Sales Report – OSS Note # 2701375

Common Tax Reporting - There are lot of SAP Customers, who have global instances and  offices spread across the globe. Implementing a tool like ACR ensures, that the way tax reporting is done is harmonized in a common framework and minimizes external dependencies

New Legal Changes in Complex Countries, especially in LATAM and Asia – The legal reporting framework in Many countries like Brazil and India is very complex. SAP has introduced a tool sometime back called as Tax Declaration Framework (TDF) as a sidecar implementation for ERP Customers for Tax Reporting in Brazil. The tool provides key reporting capabilities includes Audit Preparation, Predictive analsysis of fiscal information. The same TDF framework can now created reports out of ACR Framework, there by reducing the architecture complexity and capital cost. The TDF Capabilities for Brazil are now supported since S/4HANA 1809 FPS 2 and updwards for On Premise version and from S/4HANA 1902 Cloud Edition. In addition to Brazil, complex countries in terms of taxation like China for Audit Reports, India for GSTR 1 and 2 and other reports are now supported and being constantly updated, which reduces lot of application development and maintenance costs for the customers

While there are lot of value enablers for implementation of ACR overall for the customers, there are certain specific areas, which need to be kept in mind, especially if ACR is being implemented for S/4HANA On Premise. The below summary provides an overview of the various topics to be considered for ACR Implementation in addition to all the technical set up and configuration. The starting point for implementation of ACR (S/4HANA 1609 and upwards On Premise Edition) are OSS Notes 2435114, 2460073, 2374069 and 2465179

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2435114

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2460073

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2374069

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2465179

Key Considerations for ACR Implementation:

Mapping existing VAT Reports submitted in prior periods to ACR Configuration – This is one of the most difficult and time exhaustive task for ACR Implementation. In my implementation experience, the transactional data is not set up correctly and the tax users create compliant reports in excel based on transactional data in the system. This is a harsh reality. A early and very critical step would be to use a mapping document for old submitted reports with the configuration steps. A simple example : In one of my projects, Philippines had the same Tax Code A0 with 0% for sales to Govt Customers, Trade Customers and to Military. However, in the tax reports it was required that sales should be shown in the below format:

 

Sales to Govt

Sales to Trade Customers

Sales to Military

In such a case, we create new tax codes, so that the tax reports can also show the data correctly in the ACR Reports. This is just one very simple example of how changes in the process are required for the implementation of ACR and subsequent correct reporting out of the box. Other such changes, that were completed during implementation of ACR Reports in various countries in my implementation were:

• Process changes in various areas like Asset Sale and Purchase


• Creation of recurring documents with fixed tax codes


• Updation of right GL Accounts for Tax Postings


• Substitution rules to populate tax relevant data in document postings like Business Place and Section Codes


• Updation of Tax No and VAT No in Master data like Vendor and Customer Master


• Validation Rules in various countries to avoid incorrect postings


• Reassignment of Duties like AP Clerk generating reports used by Tax department along with updation of security roles to reflect correct work assignments

These are just some of the process changes which were required to make sure, that we could get the correct tax reports directly out of the system using ACR as a tool and eliminate dependence on excels and third party providers for drawing tax reports

Products Gaps in ACR – One of the biggest problems faced during ACR implementation was various product gaps in ACR. Our project team had a very close collaboration with SAP Development team. This included us providing feedback on various gaps in the reports so that they could be corrected and updated in the product. During the implementation time, some of the key product gaps encountered were:

 

• Missing data fields in the report output, which are legally required


• Some of the Apps like Managed Tax Line Items was not enabled in the system for some of the countries


• Performance issue for the reports, when the data records are huge

User Enablement and Training - The ACR Implementation for my customer was huge, with almost 21 countries across all continents in a span of around eight months. The customer also had shared service centers (SSC) in Singapore, Argentina and Prague, where the initial reports for ACR were run by Finance Associates with final submission by the Market Unit’s Tax Managers. Covering almost 70+ end users, the key success to successful implementation of ACR was the early enablement of key and power users from the design stage itself. The enablement for the reports for such a geographically spread team across the globe.

The fact that ACR had a common user experience across countries, even though the report output was country specific was a big plus to be able to train and enable the end consumers of the reports in a very short time.

Issues from the Tax Authorities and Government - One of the major impedents in the implementation of ACR was the available Test System of various countries for testing. Eg, in UK, the HMRS does not validate the content of the reports. It just validates that the report is in the right format. So the VAT and EC Sales list reports for UK could be validated only in the Production System if the data was right or not. Additionally, in LATAM Countries, the changes introduced are quite frequent and not updated in the Test system, which creates testing of new changes a nightmare for IT and Business Colleagues.

Skill requirements for ACR Implementation - One of the key success factors for implementation of ACR is to have the right skills in the implementation group. The key skills required for ACR Implementation are: FIORI, ABAP with SCP Integration, Security, Functional Consultants with a very rich tax experience.

In a nutshell, ACR is a very rich tool for Tax and Legal reporting which can be rolled out quickly. However, the key things pointed are absolutely critical for successful adoption and roll out.

[narasimhulu_konnipati]

Again a master piece from you.

Very Informative and very well written blog on ACR Solution Sanil.

Thank You and keep up the great work.

BR,

Narasimhulu

[i345983]

Hi Sanil,

Nice overview. Really helpful information…

 

Regards,

Mukesh

 

 

[sanilbhandari]

Hi narasimhulu.konnipati

Thanks a lot for the encouraging words.

Regards

Sanil

[sanilbhandari]

Hello mukesharma18

Thanks a lot for the encouraging words.

Regards

Sanil Bhandari

[former_member682347]

Hello Sanil

Thanks a lot for sharing the useful info

Regards

Neha

[former_member319224]

Dear Sanil,

 

Thank you for sharing your experience and so many details about ACR. I had checked with SAP for details of this service precisely for UK market and so far i remember this is a cloud based Software as a Service solution. So the customer has to be pay SAP a fee based on the actual transactions and i think its a flat fee for SAP S4HANA customers. The transformation of data happens in the cloud based on the compliance report requirements. is that right?

Thank you

Mayur

[sanilbhandari]

Hello mayurg.delta

My implementation exp was for S/4HANA 1809 OP edition. The reports were in the OP System and the HMRS was connected using SCP from S/4HANA. For ECC, you are probably correct that this is a cloud service since lot of things required to be set up in ACR are not available for ECC.Regarding licensing you need to talk to your account executive from SAP as I am not aware on that part.

Thanks & Regards,

Sanil Bhandari

[RPrabakar]

Sanil – Thanks for sharing info on ACR.

To mayur’s question, this comes with additional licence cost, that would become sticky point for adopting, however when existing tax report goes out of support, don’t know how this is going to be addressed by the customer.

[sanilbhandari]

Hello ramky.prabhakar

There is a cost involved for SCP provisioning. As I had mentioned, i am not an expert in pricing and you would need to get in touch with SAP Account manager for the same.

Regards,

Sanil

[former_member341728]

Dear Sanil,

Very good explanation....I saved in my favorites browser to use to present the solution!

Thank you for share.

Kind Regards

Lauro

[briantregea]

Hi Mayur,

You are mostly correct. The solution you speak of is the UK Make Tax Digital (MTD) SAP solution which utilizes the SAP Cloud Platform services for SAP Localisation Hub (SLH) and the Advanced Compliance Reporting Service (ACRS) to enable direct connection to HMRC and electronic submission of VAT returns through execution of the S/4 ACR solution.

Two scenarios are supported where if the customer is

1. on ECC6 system, tax line item data is replicated to the SAP Cloud SLH service and the VAT reporting generated and submitted (managed by the customer user via web Fiori launch pad (data storage and submission fee)


2. on S/4HANA Finance, the VAT report generation and submission is managed directly from the S/4 system and no data replication. (submission only fee)

https://help.sap.com/viewer/7a60944343e543a1ab99e9b2904dab09/CLOUD/en-US/a92336c2fcd74d22a7cbde9fdc9...

Or contact SAP UK Globalization Services for more information: sam.karbani@sap.com

Brian.

[former_member246678]

Very Informative blog Sanil.

We recently gone live with 1809 FPS 02 as conversation from ECC to S4. We are proposing this ACR to consider as a valu add.

We would like to do the POC for LATAM countries in sand box, what kind of precautions and challenges we may face.

Can you suggest please.

Thanks / Venkatesh

[sanilbhandari]

Hello venkatesh.bhandari

Thanks for the kind words.

There are couple of reports in LATAM Countries, which are good to start with. I would suggest the below countries:

1. Mexico


2. Argentina

In Mexico, key reports like Electronic Accounting, Auxillary Accounting are available. In case of Mexico, the UUID No availability for Invoices and payments is something, you should stick to in standard fields rather than custom. Also involvement of your local accountant, who prepares the financial statements is very critical since there are country specific FSV that need to be created upfront for the reports to be working in ACR.

For Argentina, the VAT Reports will be critical. You should look for OSS notes extensively since we had out own issues in terms of Product Issues during implementation and we were also on S/4HANA 1809 OP Edition

The reports in Colombia should be relatively easy to implement in ACR compared to other two countries i have mentioned, though the reports in Colombia are complex compared to those in Europe purely from implementation perspective.

Thanks & Regards

Sanil Bhandari

[former_member695495]

Hi sanil.bhandari

The information is extremely useful. Thanks for sharing

Regards

Sudhesna

[sanilbhandari]

Thanks a lot sudeshnam89

Regards

Sanil Bhandari

[former_member622313]

Good explanation on Need and purpose of ACR Implementation.

Really Awesome!!!

[sanilbhandari]

Thanks a lot nayak_vlr

[former_member575382]

Hello Sanil,

 

Nice blog you have written.

Some questions

Do you know that electronic submission to BE Authorities is possible with On-Premise 1909 ?

Do you already have a view of changes in Release 2020 and specific for BE and DE (reports that are end of support - new standard reports).

 

Thank you

Davy

• o

[sanilbhandari]

Hello je123myrrun

Thanks for the encouraging words.

I am not sure of Belgium VAT Returns if they can be submitted electronically. When i look at the OSS Note it mentions only the generation of XML File

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2687447

You would have to read through the product documentation.

For the new reports, i would look to the App "Announcement of Legal Changes" on service market place to get the most official information. However, you would need an S User id to browse through the same.

Thanks & Regards

Sanil Bhandari

[former_member10909]

Thanks a lot for the useful information

[former_member641291]

Nice Blog Sanil.

Do you have any complete configuration document.

The notes you mentioned are not applicable for us because we are at higher version S4 CORE 1709 102 .

Also approximately on average basis how many days it will take to implement ACR for one country, example France?

Thanks

 

[sanilbhandari]

Thanks a lot for the feedback. you can check for the configuration set up based on the link below

https://help.sap.com/viewer/3cc1da1e1e364fadb9b1af653a9597d2/2020.000/en-US/4975ec570b01f032e1000000...

You will find the steps to implement the basic framework as well country specific document listed here.

It took us seven months to implement for 21 countries (64 reports)

Regards

Sanil Bhandari

[former_member711536]

This is quite useful information. Thanks a lot sanil.bhandari

[former_member665178]

Hi Sanil,

your post are very informative and had already read for 3 times.

We are trying to run a POC for country NL, a normal VAT return report.

I do have one question regarding the XBRL output in Fiori App 'Run Advanced Complianced Report. After every run, there is only empty XML parameters in the output, the value on the output XML does not contain any tax amounts, its only 0 euro.

 

After executing configuration steps mentioned in SAP Help Portal, ACR dashboard modeling in 'Run Advanced Complianced Report', attachment service, output management config for ACR, and mapping the tax codes grouping, it is still the same results. What else configuration steps did you also execute?

 

Thanks so much in advance for your response.

Thanks

[sanilbhandari]

Hello starsbell

Thanks a lot for the kind feedback.

I would put any kind of query or a technical issue on the questions in the community.

I am not sure on what version of S/4HANA you are on, but please have a check on the below OSS Note and see if the implementation of the same helps you. There seems to be an issue in the underlying CDS View which might be causing the issue.

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2965735

If the issue still persists, please put it as a question on the community or raise an incident to Sap product support. You should details out the configuration steps as well done.

Thanks & regards

Sanil Bhandari

[former_member665178]

Hi Sanil,

thanks for your reply.

Yeah, We have already implemented this Notes and its related notes.

We will analyse further and raise an incident when necessary.

thanks&regards,

Yiwei

[former_member717753]

Thanks a lot for sharing the info. We are now implementing S/4hana and I wanted to check if GSTR 1 and 2 can be available on ACR or we need to still implement the DCS solution for the same.

Regards

R

 

 

[former_member718655]

Thanks a lot for sharing the information.

One question I have is if ACR is also supported for German VAT declarations in S/4HANA 2020

Regards

Matthias

 

[sanilbhandari]

The reports for GSTR 1 & 2 are available in ACR on S/4HANA. You should check up the help and OSS Notes for the same

Thanks & Regards

Sanil Bhandari

 

[former_member665178]

Hi Sanil,

Thanks for your swift reply. I have still another 2 questions:

1. the existing BTW report: additional list for Advance Return for Tax on Sales/Purchases (
   
   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   S_ALR_87012359

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   
   
   ) will be still available after traditional tax return product out of support?


2. Next to the Managed Tax Line Items Fiori App, is there any other similar way or on the XML output to show detailed invoice lists in the 'Run compliance report' Fiori App?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Regards Yiwei

[sanilbhandari]

Hi starsbell

Please find the responses below:

1. If the report is out of Support, I would not be able to comment how long will it run in the system. You might have to ask SAP Product Support. In my opinion you run the risk that such a critical report would stop running after a mandated date once a patch or note is applied. This is a business risk


2. I am sure, there is a way to get invoice level details as well in the application. However, i do not have a ready system to give you the screen shot of the same. You may want to look at scope item IJ2 for the ACR on the link below:SAP Best Practices Explorer. This should give you the steps to execute the report(s)

 

Thanks & Regards

Sanil Bhandari

 

[former_member665178]

Hi Sanil,

thanks for your reply.

About the first point, what i meant is not the VAT return itself, but the additional item list (S_ALR_87012359) which is normally used together with VAT return report.

thanks and regards

[sanilbhandari]

Hello starsbell

If the report is not listed in the below OSS Note

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2480067

It should work as it works today.

Thanks & Regards

Sanil Bhandari

[former_member718856]

Thanks a lot for valuable information.

I have one question that we are in the process of implementing ACR in our S/4HANA system and we can still run reports mentioned as out of product support. So do we need to still implement ACR. What are your thoughts?

Regards

Andrea

[sanilbhandari]

Hi polansky2018

Thanks a lot for the kind words.

I would say that anything which is out of support should not be used. One would not know when the report has an issue or the transaction stops working if there is an upgrade or note implemented.

Thanks & Regards

Sanil Bhandari

[former_member720185]

Thanks a lot for sharing the information.

[former_member720989]

Very useful information on ACR. I wanted to check if you could provide some insights on ACR coverage for LATAM in S/4HANA 2020.

[sanjaysota]

Hello

I need help and information from ACR - how tax reporting dates are being setup/configured in ACR? What is the reason behind of using tax reporting date? Why we use it?  I am seeking more information from UK prespecitve. from both Input/output tax side.

 

Regards Sanjay

[aha-unknown]

The reporting funtion as in ACR is possible via GUI or not?

It seems only Apps in S/4 HANA based the information i have got.

 

Yours sincerely

[sanilbhandari]

Hi aha-unknown

The reports are available through fiori app.

Thanks & Regards

Sanil Bhandari

[aha-unknown]

Appreciate it