Role and Responsibilities of a SAP FICO Consultant

A SAP FICO consultant is responsible for configuring and managing the functionalities of SAP Financial and Management Accounting within a organization's SAP ERP system. As you may already know, a SAP FICO consultant does more than just configuration and implementation work. Their role encompasses a wide variety of other tasks.

As a result, I've compiled a list of tasks that a SAP FICO consultant performs in this post. You can see nearly all kinds of responsibilities and roles you'll have to fulfill as a FICO consultant in the profile of your employer, which I detailed below. These should be read carefully to grasp what your employer expects from you as a SAP FICO consultant.

The Career of a SAP FICO Consultant

A career in SAP FICO can be fascinating and challenging at the same time. It offers plenty of growth opportunities, as well as a clear hierarchy.

Job profiles across the SAP software environment are consistent with job roles. Therefore, to become a successful SAP consultant, you must understand these roles. In addition, gaining all the necessary skills to be a asset to your company is crucial.

Because the duties of a SAP FICO Consultant are a combination of technical and non-technical responsibilities. You must be knowledgeable about the settings and familiar with support activities. You should collaborate effectively with your team and users to succeed.

Non-Technical Duties of FICO Consultant

SAP consultants do not only assist with technical tasks. They are also involved in non-technical work. They don't simply set up SAP ERP Financials; they also make sure it runs efficiently and that users like it.

• SAP FICO Consultant is the Customer's Liaison. A FICO consultant is responsible for communicating with the customer's representatives to translate business requirements into a abstract and algorithmic business model. The consultant would then identify use cases and transform them into technical and logical views.
• Do Financial Documentation The consultant documents all financial settings and creates proper instructions that other consultants may follow to make additional changes.
• Responsible for the Users' Training The FICO consultant ensures that users are appropriately trained, that the system is operable, performs correctly, and that the business process is complete and correct.
• Responsible for All Functionalities After launching the project, the FICO consultant guarantees that the procedures will remain effective and consistent in real-life situations. They will also propose new enhancements.
• Configuring Business Area This is the beginning of the main work – Configuring a company sector and ensuring that the system responds following expectations.
• Technical Assistance He helps the technical staff by testing the system's behavior during go-live.

Technical Responsibilities (Core Duties)

The primary duty of a SAP FICO consultant is to complete the technical work in a SAP project implementation. Some non-technical responsibilities are included, but the focus is on technology. Here's a list of groups of those duties that can be sets of responsibilities:

• The Role of FICO Consultant in a End-To-End Implementation A consultant's main responsibility is to pass on external expertise to the client. Intelligence, understanding procedures, a feeling for faults, and general common sense are more important than the workforce.
• Creating a Business Process Employers expect FICO consultants to develop knowledge about the business process, design current business flows, and study existing business processes and their complexity. In other words, we can go through with the present company arrangement.
• Documenting Your Configuration As part of your job, you must document all configurations using predefined templates. Once these have been completed, a team lead or project manager will need to approve them.
• GAP Analysis and Mapping Before configuring future business processes in SAP, the first step is to do a mapping and GAP analysis for each module. This process produces a document called the TO BE, which outlines the desired outcome of the configuration. In some cases, functional consultants also prepare test scripts that can be used to test different configurations scenarios.
• User-Training A FICO consultant's job is to write the End-User manual and provide user training. The project usually begins with a Kick-off Meeting, where the responsibilities, duties, methodology, dates & schedules, etc. of the SAP FICO consultants are formally established.

Utilizing the ASAP Methodology

ASAP method is the SAP standard implementation methodology. While companies are not mandated to follow it, doing so is recommended by SAP.

• Step- 1 – Project Preparation This stage aims to give you a solid foundation for your upcoming SAP project. This phase will help you plan and prepare for your project to run smoothly.
• Step- 2 – Blueprint Phase The goal of this step is to ensure that everyone in the company understands how we use SAP to run our business.
  The output of Business Blueprint is a comprehensive record of the findings gathered during requirements workshops. The Business Blueprint document represents the company's business process standards. It is the official statement by which a firm expresses its strategy for running its business in SAP ERP.
• Step- 3 – Realization In this phase, all business needs are implemented based on the Business Blueprint. The System Configuration Process is supplied in two work packages: Baseline (primary scope) and Final configuration (remaining scope).
  As a FICO consultant, you would configure Cost Calculation, General Ledger, Cost Analysis, Accounts Payable, Bank Accounting, and Accounts Receivable Asset Accounting.
• Step- 4 – Final Preparation This phase exists to prepare you fully for going live, including testing, user training, system management, and customer activities. All critical open issues must be resolved before moving on from this phase. If successful, you will have completed all the necessary steps to run your business in the live SAP system.
• Step- 5 & 6 – Go Live and Support This stage aims to go from a project-based environment that comes before production to a live operational space.
  An in-house or external FICO consultant may assist you. A in-house consultant works for the firm during the implementation and after becoming live. External consultants are part of the implementation team; their duties cease when the project is finished.