SAP Advanced Financial Closing (SAP AFC)
Streamline period-end processes for faster, smarter decisions.
SAP Advanced Financial Closing
SAP Advanced Financial Closing (AFC) is a cloud-based solution that serves as a central hub to orchestrate and manage a company’s financial closing process. Its primary goal is to transform the complex, often manual, and decentralized closing activities into a standardized, automated, and transparent process.
AFC is a strategic tool for the “Record to Report” process, helping finance departments to close their books faster, more accurately, and with greater confidence. It can manage closing tasks not only within a single SAP S/4HANA system but also across a diverse landscape of on-premise and cloud systems, including both SAP and non-SAP environments.
Key Features of SAP AFC
- Centralized Task Orchestration: SAP AFC provides a single platform to define, sequence, and manage all closing tasks. It acts as a central command center, creating a structured “task list” or “closing template” that outlines all activities, their dependencies, and assigned responsibilities.
- Automation of Closing Activities: The solution automates a wide range of repetitive and time-consuming tasks. This can include triggering batch jobs, running standard SAP reports, and even integrating with intelligent technologies like SAP Build Process Automation for more complex, cross-system tasks.
- Real-time Monitoring and Visibility: With SAP AFC, managers and stakeholders have real-time visibility into the progress of the entire closing process. Fiori-based dashboards provide a clear overview of task status, bottlenecks, and the “critical path” to completion, enabling proactive management and issue resolution.
- Collaboration and Workflow: It enhances collaboration among finance teams, even when they are geographically dispersed. The system uses workflows to assign tasks, send notifications, and manage approvals. It also provides a centralized space for communication and documentation related to each task.
- Pre-delivered Best-Practice Content: SAP AFC comes with pre-configured templates and best-practice content for closing activities, particularly for the entity close. This allows companies to get started quickly and provides a strong foundation for standardizing their own closing procedures.
- Auditability and Compliance: The system maintains a clear and comprehensive audit trail of all closing tasks. This includes who performed what task, when it was completed, and any associated documentation. This is crucial for demonstrating compliance with regulatory requirements and for simplifying internal and external audits.
Integration Across Landscapes: A key strength of SAP AFC is its ability to orchestrate tasks across a hybrid IT landscape. It can manage and monitor tasks in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, on-premise SAP systems (ECC and S/4HANA), and even non-SAP systems, providing a unified closing experience.
Key Benefits
- Accelerated Financial Close 🚀
SAP AFC significantly shortens the time it takes to close the books. By serving as a central hub, it provides a structured framework for all closing tasks. It automates repetitive activities and enforces dependencies, ensuring that tasks are performed in the correct order. This eliminates bottlenecks and idle time that often occur in manual, decentralized processes, allowing the finance team to complete the close faster and move on to analysis.
- Enhanced Transparency and Visibility 👀
The solution provides real-time, end-to-end visibility into the entire closing process. Managers can use Fiori dashboards to see the status of every task, identify who is responsible for what, and pinpoint potential delays. This level of transparency makes it easy to track progress, resolve issues proactively, and ensure accountability across the organization. It replaces scattered spreadsheets and emails with a single, clear source of truth.
- Improved Compliance and Auditability ✅
SAP AFC creates a comprehensive and secure audit trail for all closing activities. Every completed task, every user action, and all related documentation are centrally recorded and time-stamped. This makes it much easier for companies to prove compliance with regulatory requirements and simplifies both internal and external audits. The standardized processes and clear evidence of control help to build trust in the integrity of the financial data.
- Increased Operational Efficiency and Automation 🤖
By automating manual tasks, SAP AFC frees up your finance team from routine, low-value work. They can shift their focus from administrative duties to more strategic activities like financial analysis, forecasting, and business partnering. The system’s ability to orchestrate tasks across different systems and platforms—both SAP and non-SAP—further streamlines workflows and reduces the need for manual data handling.
- Better Collaboration and Communication 🤝
SAP AFC centralizes all closing tasks and communication. It provides a platform for assigning tasks, sending automated notifications, and managing documentation in one place. This is especially beneficial for global teams where finance professionals are in different locations and time zones. The collaborative environment reduces miscommunication and ensures everyone is aligned on the closing objectives.
How Can We Help?
At iSYNC, we help organizations leverage SAP Advanced Financial Closing to transform their period-end processes into a seamless, efficient, and controlled operation. Our experts guide you through every stage—from strategy to execution—ensuring your closing cycles are faster, more accurate, and fully compliant.
Our support includes:
With iSYNC, your financial closing process becomes faster, more transparent, and future-ready.
Why iSYNC?
At iSYNC, we combine deep SAP expertise with a results-driven approach to help businesses unlock the full potential of their financial systems. We don’t just implement technology—we ensure it works in harmony with your processes, people, and long-term business goals.
What sets us apart:
- Proven SAP Experience – Years of delivering successful SAP Finance, Controlling, and S/4HANA projects.
- Tailored Solutions – We align configurations and workflows with your unique business model.
- End-to-End Support – From design to post-go-live optimization, we’re with you at every step.
- Business + Technology Mindset – Our team understands finance operations as deeply as the systems that power them.
- Commitment to ROI – Every solution is built to deliver measurable operational and financial gains.
- Future-Ready Approach – Leveraging the latest SAP innovations to keep you ahead of the curve.