Importance of Currency Conversion in SAP Datasphere

[SharminiSenthil]

Accurate currency conversion ensures that financial statements reflect true value, enabling better decision-making and compliance with regulatory requirements. Without effective currency conversion, businesses may face issues such as financial discrepancies, inaccurate forecasting, and challenges in performance evaluation across different regions.

"Twenty-four-hour global nature of currency markets, exchange rates are constantly shifting from day to day and even from minute to minute, sometimes in small increments and sometimes quite dramatically" – Harvard Business Services.

In an interconnected world where businesses operate across borders, efficient currency conversion is essential. Currency conversion significantly impacts reporting and business analytics in the following ways:

Translation of Financial Statements:

Multinational corporations translate foreign incomes, expenses, assets, and liabilities into their reporting currency using relevant exchange rates.

Variances in Reported Financials:

Exchange rate fluctuations can result in significant variances in reported financials.

Currency conversion in SAP involves converting monetary values from one currency to another based on predefined exchange rates. This is important for multinational companies and businesses engaged in cross-border transactions.

Exchange rates in SAP define how one currency is converted to another. Let’s explore some significant business use cases where reporting with currency conversion is extensively required:

Case 1: Global Operations and Multinational Businesses

Companies operating in multiple countries need to manage different currencies. Currency conversion allows them to integrate financial data across various locations and ensure accurate financial reporting.

Case 2: Consolidated Financial Statements

Currency conversion in SAP enables the creation of consolidated financial reports in a single group currency.

Case 3: Budgeting and Forecasting

Companies often need to budget and forecast in a specific currency while dealing with costs and revenues in other currencies. Currency conversion allows for accurate planning and forecasting, providing a unified view of the organization’s financial health.

Currency conversion is used when posting financial information where the reporting currency differs from the transaction currency.

Currency Conversion Methods In SAP Datasphere

In an increasingly globalized business environment, companies often deal with transactions and data from multiple countries, involving various currencies. This complexity makes accurate currency conversion a critical aspect of financial reporting, budgeting, and analytics. SAP Datasphere, with its robust currency conversion capabilities, ensures businesses maintain financial accuracy and consistency across their operations.

Steps to Create Currency Conversion

Use Case

Step 01:

The client needs a report in Indian currency, but we have data in Datasphere in USD. So, using the currency conversion, we are converting from USD to INR.

Step 02:

• Check whether the connection of the source is in an active state.
  • Confirm access to Data flows, Tables, and Views, because running the data flow loads data into the local table before it becomes available in the views.
  • To perform currency translation in SAP Datasphere, the following tables must be available in your space:
  1. TCURV - Exchange rate types
  2. TCURW - Exchange rate type text
  3. TCURX - Decimal places in currencies
  4. TCURN - Quotations
  5. TCURR - Exchange rates
  6. TCURF - Conversion factors
  7. TCURC - Currency codes
  8. TCURT - Currency text
    
• DataFlows

• Tables

• Views

Step 03:

• In this case we don’t have data in the target table, so we have to run the data flow to load the data to local table.

Step 04:

• Here, we are converting the currency from USD to INR.
• We have filtered “From Currency” as “USD” and “To Currency” as “INR” to obtain the exchange rate type.
• After that, obtain exchange rate types M & P for the scenario.

Step 05:

• For this scenario we have selected the source measure as “Gross Amount,” so we have to change the “Semantic Type” to “Amount with Currency” and “Unit Column” can be selected accordingly.

Step 06:

• We have selected the billing document date as the transaction date because we are using the billing document fact model.

Step 07:

• The conversion from USD to INR is now complete.

Best Practices for Currency Conversion

• Address rounding and precision issues:

              Rounding Rules: Apply consistent rounding rules to avoid discrepancies in financial reports.

               Precision: Ensure that rounding practices maintain accuracy, especially withlarge datasets.

• Maintain consistency and accuracy:

              Accurate Data Entry: Ensure accurate entry of financial data and exchange rates to minimize errors during currency conversion.

               Data Quality Checks: Regularly perform data quality checks to identify and rectify inaccuracies in exchange rates and financial data.

• Regular updates and monitoring of exchange rates:

                Periodic Reviews: Conduct regular reviews of your currency conversion processes and update procedures as necessary to adapt to changing financial environments.