S/4HANA Transformations
Greenfield, brownfield or bluefield — transformation risk concentrates in finance. Universal Journal, Business Partner and asset accounting are not ‘technical items’; they are the decisions that carry the close.
Who it is for
CFO/CIO teams leaving ECC, looking at RISE with SAP or GROW, or moving to on-premise S/4. Multi-company, multi-currency landscapes with Türkiye localization and an IFRS parallel ledger sit squarely here.
How we run a transformation
- Prepare: readiness, add-on inventory, the truth about Z-code, finance data quality.
- Choose the path: greenfield / brownfield / bluefield as a data-and-process fact, not a slogan.
- Design: chart of accounts, BP, new asset accounting, document types, who owns the close.
- Convert and validate: dry runs, balances, IFRS vs local-book checks.
- Go-live and hypercare: close the first period together.
The four migration scenarios
We run projects in all four scenarios for moving from SAP ECC to S/4HANA. The first two describe how you move, the last two where the system runs; every project answers both questions. The right answer depends on your current system, your data quality and how far you want to change your processes.
- Greenfield: S/4HANA is built from scratch and processes are redesigned on SAP best practices.
- Brownfield: the existing ECC system is converted to S/4HANA (system conversion); current setup and historical data are kept.
- Cloud: S/4HANA runs in the cloud through RISE with SAP or S/4HANA Cloud, not on infrastructure you operate yourself.
- On-premise: S/4HANA runs in your own data centre, so you keep control of where the data sits.
What we carry in finance
In finance, S/4HANA brings a different data model from ECC and some new mandatory elements. The six topics below are decided in the design phase, well before go-live, and each directly affects the close and reporting. We run their design, data conversion and testing together with your finance team.
- Universal Journal: financial and cost postings sit in one table, so FI and CO no longer need to be reconciled.
- Business Partner: customer and vendor records merge into one master-data object, which needs mapping and clean-up before the move.
- New asset accounting: each valuation (for example IFRS and local GAAP) is posted in real time with its own document.
- Parallel ledgers: the same transaction is tracked in separate ledgers, with separate valuation, for IFRS and local GAAP.
- Türkiye localization: e-invoice, e-ledger, e-reconciliation, VAT and special consumption tax (ÖTV) requirements are handled within the design.
- Inflation accounting: our ready-made suite is live in 25+ companies and can be included in the transformation project.
From the field: five S/4HANA programmes
- Rönesans Holding: greenfield S/4HANA; 200+ companies went live simultaneously, and the project was completed in 1.5 years as planned.
- Koç Sistem: greenfield S/4HANA for seven companies, with FI, CO and PS implemented end to end.
- Karaca: S/4HANA and SAP Retail on RISE with SAP; 40 companies, 100+ stores, and RE-FX for store lease contracts.
- TPAO: S/4HANA project with public budget management (FM), CO, PS, investment portfolio management (EPPM) and SAP IS-Oil.
- Altay Otomotiv: S/4HANA transformation live since 1 January 2025; PP-CO production costing, MM and SD.
After go-live: hypercare, then AMS
Go-live is followed by hypercare: the project team stays on the system, resolves incoming requests with priority and works through the first close with you. Once request volume drops and the first close is done, support moves to AMS under a separate contract and SLA. At Rönesans Holding, Koç Sistem, Karaca, TPAO and Altay Otomotiv, AMS continues after the transformation.
Case pages
Frequently asked questions
Greenfield or brownfield?
Clean processes and little Z-code favour greenfield. Heavy history and industry constraints favour brownfield or a selective bluefield. Decide in a workshop, not on a slide.
How do you separate RISE, GROW and on-premise?
GROW fits mid-market teams who will live inside the standard. RISE fits those who will move operations onto an SAP-run contract while keeping some process depth. On-premise fits those who must keep data residency and add-on control. None of the three collapses into the word ‘cloud’.
Will Türkiye e-invoicing block the programme?
It should not. Plan it in parallel. GİB integration is a go-live criterion, not ‘phase 2’.
What is different about your finance data conversion?
‘Loaded the balances’ is not enough. Open items, asset sub-numbers, customer/vendor BP mapping and the period cut are validated separately.
How long does it take?
It depends on scope. A single-company brownfield and a multi-country greenfield should not share a sentence. We estimate after the inventory.
Does Conforcus run this alone?
We carry the finance and AMS core. On large programmes we work shoulder to shoulder with an integrator and other module partners — as we have described publicly on the Evyap S/4 programme.