Is it difficult for accountants to switch to SAP consultants? What are the prospects?

The experience of SAP consultant has long promised to write to you about my experience as an SAP consultant. Today, I am a little free. Remembering my promise to you, it is better to start writing early, so as not to forget the words for a long time. I haven't been in this industry for a long time, but I feel deeply. I want to share it here, I hope it's good for you! Divided into the following topics: 1. A few simple concepts. 2. How to become an SAP consultant? 3. How to become an excellent FICO consultant? 4. Survival status of 4.SAP consultants. 5.Fico consultant's tasks at different stages. 6. Conclusion 1. Several simple concepts: key users, IT users and end users 1. Key users: In an SAP project, key users are the backbone of the customer's business, responsible for conveying the key requirements of the internal area of the enterprise to the module consultants in the project, and are also the key testers in the system testing stage. For FICO, it is usually some experienced accountants and financial managers. Key users fully grasp the operation of SAP front desk, are responsible for the operation training of end users, are the contacts between consultants and end users, collect the needs of end users and explain them to consultants. 2.IT user: a member of the customer's IT department, usually with a good computer foundation. In the process of project implementation, he obtained the business knowledge of enterprise-related fields from key users and the SAP knowledge and skills of related modules from consultants. IT users fully grasp the front and back operations of SAP, and are responsible for solving technical problems in the use of SAP. In the process of project implementation, he is the consultant's right-hand man, and as an internal consultant after the project, he analyzes the new business needs of the enterprise and gives solutions. 3. End users: end users of enterprise SAP, general business personnel, managers at all levels, etc. As long as internal SAP users are not key users, IT users can be called end users. End-users are the initial proponents of customer needs, and the ultimate goal of SAP system planning is to meet their needs. In daily business, each end user only uses some related operations of SAP foreground. For FICO, end users can be divided into general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, assets, cashier, cost, financial manager and so on. People usually only have some front desk operations. IT can be seen from the above concepts that IT users are most likely to become SAP consultants, followed by key users and end users. From the statistics of a website, we can see that among FICO consultants, IT background and financial background account for half. 2. How to become an SAP consultant: 1 It can be inferred that IT users are the easiest consultants, because IT users usually know the technical knowledge, related business knowledge and project implementation process of SAP, so it should be easy to apply for junior consultants. For some key users who are very interested in SAP, because of their rich business knowledge and understanding of the front-office business of SAP system, it is relatively easy to become department-level consultants, and the end users are poor. As an end user, it takes considerable efforts to become a key user first, and then it will be easier to become a consultant. After many large companies implement SAP, the turnover of personnel is very fast, and the turnover rate of IT users and key users is very high. It is difficult for new employees to be key users or IT users before, and they are interested in SAP. At this time, they can try. 2. Without any foundation, if you have received training from SAP Consulting Institute and obtained PA certificate, it is easy to apply for becoming a consultant; The tuition fee of SAP Consulting College is extremely high, and the training is usually funded by enterprises. You can imagine how strict the breach of contract agreement behind this training will be, and you may not get this certificate after training. There are various other training companies that provide training for students, but it will be better if there is a project internship, but no company can guarantee students' project internship opportunities, and even if there is, the cost is absolutely high. 3. Without any foundation and PA certificate, it is even more difficult to be an SAP consultant. What I want to emphasize to you is how to become an SAP consultant in this situation. After the training of this course, I feel that even if the application level of SAP is poor, if the content of our classroom exercises can run through, the foreground operation of SAP should be no problem. Compared with people who don't understand SAP, you already know it very well. If you practice a little and then apply for a key user of an enterprise, there is absolutely no problem. Better, you can directly apply for some consulting companies. Of course, don't choose a top company, which requires you to have more strength in other aspects. Nowadays, enterprises seem to have high conditions when recruiting KEY USER, but I believe that you only need to tell them that you have more than one year's experience in a company during the interview, and they can't beat you from the concept of front desk operation and SAP. You may be a key user. Being a key user of SAP is actually very comfortable, and even many consultants finally choose to be a key user of the enterprise. When you become a key user and have been implemented in the enterprise, you are fully qualified to be a consultant, and the rest is how to show your understanding of SAP to the consulting company you want to go to. For several students who are engaged in ABAP, I suggest that you enter a consulting company to be an ABAP consultant, and then start studying as a project and module consultant. Many ABAP consultants in our company are transformed into module consultants in this way, and if you can master ABAP and understand SAP business modules, the level of ABAP is also very valuable! There are many ways to become an SAP consultant, but only if you are eager to develop in this field. We often say: where there is a will, there is a way. Yes, I believe this sentence very much. You can do it if you want to. And I absolutely believe that we students will start consulting soon, you know, everyone's starting point was the same before! 3. How to be an excellent FICO consultant: FICO consultants should participate in almost all SAP projects and be related to almost all modules. Personally, FICO consultants have great potential for development. 1 FICO: The PP of almost every project is different, so it is very hard and tiring to do it. FICO is almost the same in almost every project, and FI is not so flexible. Everything should be set up and operated in a way that conforms to the accounting system. CO has great flexibility, but it is this flexibility that gives consultants more room to play, which is also the perceived value of customers. FICO has little to argue about. FI's practice is always standard, and CO's flexibility usually exceeds customers' expectations. 2. As a FICO consultant, the first is the financial guidance of other module consultants. The business processes of other modules all involve the financial part, and the financial department can finally decide whether to accept or reject. After all, finance is an external requirement, and it is difficult to be flexible. If the financial impact of a logistics operation does not conform to the accounting system, it will undoubtedly be cancelled. Therefore, many times, the new process proposed by logistics consultants (PP, MM, SD) must seek the opinions of financial consultants. This requires financial advisers to have a certain understanding of SAP logistics knowledge. 3. As a FICO consultant, it is not enough to just introduce SAP to customers. It is necessary to communicate with the financial manager in business. Customers sometimes question some operations of SAP, and we should explain them from the perspective of financial principles. Understanding customer needs requires consultants to have some basic financial knowledge. In the project, if the customer feels that the consultant does not understand finance, once the authority is questioned, then the next project will be very hard. 4. SEM, EIS and BW extending from the financial part are the development direction of information system. If you master the financial part, you will have a clearer understanding of the principles and objectives of an enterprise operation. From the above, we can know that if you want to be an excellent financial consultant and have financial knowledge, you must know some common SAP logistics modules, so you need to work hard. All this is exactly what you should have as an excellent FICO consultant. To do this, we need attitude and hard work. You can see all kinds of consultants, but being proficient in a certain module of SAP is completely different from being an excellent or senior consultant. How much knowledge of SAP module, overall knowledge of SAP, project implementation experience, customer communication ability, work enthusiasm and attitude … If you want to be an excellent consultant, you must do well in these aspects! IV. Survival status of SAP consulting industry: 1. Be prepared for hardship; Can you bear this hard work? Consultants earn a lot of money, but they are also extremely hard. Investment consultants on Wall Street and consultants of big companies always sleep only three or four hours a day for three or four days. Fortunately, SAP consultants are not so hard. In addition to the online stage, they usually work overtime until eight or nine o'clock for the project. But the problem is that everyone must have heard of the profoundness of SAP, and practitioners can't stop it, especially those who are new to this industry. ? 2. Under great pressure: you will definitely go through this stage. Customers have a lot of needs, and some of them you don't know whether SAP can be realized or not, and you can't find help from others, so you have to test it yourself, but you can't tell customers that you don't understand. You have to read a lot of documents and turn an unfamiliar thing into something you are very familiar with in a short time. 3. Always rely on yourself: Don't expect any help from the company, and don't expect any great help from others. No one will patiently explain to you the various connections within SAP. Questions you ask other senior consultants should be asked by seeking confirmation. For example, you can ask .. Can specific requirements be realized in the system? B can a function be realized in a certain way, and what are the potential risks? Is a requirement usually realized in this way in the system? D have you sent any relevant documents (configuration files, operation manuals)? This kind of question is easy for others to answer your question according to experience, and everyone's time is precious. You need to get information from him to confirm some of your ideas, instead of asking him to tell you how to do it in detail, so you need to make more efforts to think and read some materials when preparing questions. Only in this way can your technology grow rapidly, because sometimes, excessive dependence will also form a habit. 4. Frequent business trips: Few projects are held in our city, so business trips are commonplace. If it is a project in a nearby province or province, it is not a problem to go home every week. If you need to fly far away, better companies will allow free round-trip once every two weeks, and many companies even allow free round-trip once a month. So you can think about it, is this kind of life tolerable for you, like it, or prefer it because of high income? Be sure to consider from your own reality! I have seen some counselors' wives divorced and their girlfriends broke up because of this line of work, and some counselors' parents need to take care of them because they are old. In short, we must first weigh whether they can bear it once they live like that. Five. FICO consultant's tasks at different stages. Generally speaking, no matter what project implementation methodology is adopted, the overall project implementation process is basically the same. I have explained to you in class that there are five stages in project implementation: project preparation, blueprint design, system implementation, online preparation, system switching and online support. Next, I will introduce FICO's tasks in each stage: 1. Project preparation: this stage is usually regarded as the summary of the preliminary work of the project, marked by the project kick-off meeting, including the setting of project plan, project charter, organizational structure, personnel responsibilities, project working environment, etc. At this point, the consultant has not even fully entered the project, and usually the consultant can be present when the project kick-off meeting is held. 2. Blueprint design: This stage mainly completes the design of the customer's future process. As a FICO consultant, the main things you need to do are as follows: A. Concept training: give a training on SAP FICO overview to key users and IT users. This training is usually based on IDES system, mainly to let customers master the basic concepts of SAP and have a basic understanding of the operation and operation mode of SAP. B status survey: survey the status of financial sub-functions such as general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, fixed assets, cost planning, accounting and so on, and learn more about customers' needs in all aspects. At this stage, consultants should communicate frequently, so as to grasp the needs of customers more comprehensively. C. Blueprint design: Compared with the gap between existing processes and SAP standard processes, financial processes are usually standard, and special needs can be given special consideration. At this stage, the consultant has to write blueprint documents, which is also the stage of the biggest conflict between the client and the consultant. The key to success is to guide customers' needs and reduce their unrealistic expectations of the project. This stage is extremely painful for junior consultants. You should spend a lot of time preparing a lot of things you don't know in your spare time to make customers trust you. You just need to be fully prepared, and these all require a lot of energy. 3. System realization: At this stage, the process involved in blueprint design should be realized in SAP system, which is more technical work, that is, system configuration. After the configuration is completed, the internal test of the consultant should be carried out, and the basic process test should be carried out after there is no problem. The unit testing process is the starting point for it users and key users to master the detailed functions of SAP. Perform functional tests on all business scenarios within the business scope. Unit test documents are written by key users to record the test process and results. This document is also the blueprint of the training manual for the next user training stage. At this stage, the consultant should focus on solving the problem of how various business processes proposed by key users are represented in the system, which is also the most important step in SAP operation training for key users. After the unit test, the integration test will be carried out. We can test the integration between the two modules first, then solve various problems encountered in small-scale integration, and then carry out large-scale integration, which involves the main scenes of daily operation of enterprises, such as sales forecast, sales order, production plan, procurement, inventory, production, sales, collection and other business cycles, voucher display and query, document circulation and so on. This part of the content is mainly carried out by key users; What you should be responsible for at this stage: A. Configure the system and conduct internal testing with other module consultants. Conduct unit test with key users and be responsible for solving various problems in the test. Train key users and IT users in basic business process operation. D key users conduct integration tests, and are responsible for explaining the problems raised by logistics business departments and solving interface problems. E. Setting of permission roles (usually with templates, which I also gave you) F. Development and testing of various documents and forms required by customers (communicating with ABAP) 3. Online preparation: The main work to be done at this stage is the preparation of online data and the training of end users. Data can be divided into static data and dynamic data, and dynamic data can also be called main data, such as customers, suppliers and materials. , and dynamic data is data generated by business, such as customer balance and material inventory. For FICO consultants, the static data to be prepared is nothing more than general ledger accounts, control accounts corresponding to customers and suppliers, bank information and price information of materials, while the dynamic data is nothing more than account balances of various accounts. As a FICO consultant, what you need to do at this stage is: a. Provide key users with templates for data preparation. Be responsible for explaining the meaning of each field in the template. B. check the quality of data preparation. C. Key users will conduct final training for end users, and consultants will be responsible for supporting D. At this stage, there will still be configurations with specific customer needs. Change, etc. E. System data switching strategy (the data conversion strategy I once gave you) 4. System switching and online support: At this stage, data is imported from the original system into the new system. For logistics business, you must first import the material master data into the system, and then publish the BOM, technological process, and the purchase orders and production orders that have not been received. For undelivered sales orders, etc. For the financial part, the most important thing is the reconciliation between the general ledger and the subsidiary ledger: a. Import the financial data when online into the new system: for the inventory account balance of the general ledger, it must be reconciled with all the material value details, and the allowable differences should be recorded in the material cost variance account. The balance of fixed assets in the general ledger should be reconciled with the details of fixed assets, and accounts receivable, accounts payable, advance receipts and prepayments should be clearly reconciled with the balance of customers and suppliers. You can usually do it with CATT. B. Operating cost calculation, which generates the standard price of materials from the system, so that the logistics materials can be moved and the cost information can be accurately reflected. C. Nissin operation after going online: After going online, all financial vouchers generated by logistics business should be checked to ensure the correct integration of logistics business and finance. Once an operation error is found, it will happen on the same day and be solved on the same day. Finance should pay special attention to the warehouse receiving and dispatching operations, wrong material prices and wrong sports types, which often have a great impact on finance. Such mistakes must be corrected and some reward and punishment measures can be taken when necessary. D. Monthly closing support after online launch: Generally, the monthly closing of SAP system in the first month of online launch requires on-site guidance of financial consultants, and some business problems exposed during the monthly closing process need to be corrected. E. Other support after going online: About two weeks after the system went online, the consultant left the client company, and most of the support in the future was solved by telephone, email and VPN remote connection. The problems of end users are passed on to key users and IT users. IT users are internal consultants of enterprises, and IT users will gradually replace the role of FICO consultants, and then they will pass on the problems they cannot solve to consultants. If the consultants can't solve these problems, they will send a message to SAP asking for global support. It is such a help chain that ensures the normal operation of SAP system. 6. Conclusion: `This passage began on April 17 and ended on the plane from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur on May 3. It is reasonable to say that this matter can be done in one go, but my busy work makes me less in the mood to write, but I still want to share with you what I know about SAP consultants. I hope I can help you. I believe some students are still hesitating: Do you want to be a consultant? What is the future of being a consultant? I have always believed that IT is not easy for a person to do one thing well all his life, and the market for enterprise IT applications has been developing. So, don't hesitate to do anything. What you do when you are young is meaningful. The key is to make good use of your time, cherish every day and make every day meaningful. Your efforts will eventually pay off, I believe you will succeed! Make yourself professional enough, and the world will truly belong to you! I'm trying, I hope we can work together! Thank you, I copied ... tlewewxrnywk ママㄕㄗㄗ ta "Ziting"