The Query family of tools that come with SAP include the Ad Hoc Query, the SAP Query, QuickViewer and the HIS. These tools can be used for data retrieval but are limited only to data that is shown on an infotype screen or contained in a basic table. They are known for producing unnecessary multiple rows but more importantly they are very limited in which data they can retrieve, for example they can’t be used to read directly from the Payroll or Time clusters.

The Adhoc and SAP query cannot report on HR/PY transactional data, including payroll results, leave quotas, posting results, time eval wage types, benefit enrolment, costs, dependents etc. It also will not formulate the data into columns (Such as a headcount report which counts full time employees into one column and part time employees into another column).

Additionally, the selections within the SAP query tools are not as advanced as those in the Easy Reporter. The Easy Reporter can make advanced selections on wage types and other data within the SAP system.

Within the Easy Reporter all forms of mathematical operations can be performed including averages, if then statements etc. These functions previously could only be performed in Microsoft Excel, in the Easy Reporter these functions can be built directly into your report without any coding or programming skills.
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Don’t the Ad Hoc Query and SAP Query Tools allow for Payroll Result Reporting?

This has been a difficult area for SAP as this is the data most critical for reporting. In version 4.6 SAP added the ability to have a list of infotypes updated with Payroll Results each time a payroll was run, thus making it possible to get at the basic payroll data. If a company decides to build and configure these infotypes each time a payroll runs, a payroll infotype is updated with certain wage types and amounts. The trouble with this is that it isn’t as sophisticated as payroll reporting in that it doesn’t store details of retro’s, in periods, for periods etc…In addition to the processing and system storage for this duplicated and often inaccurate information is often too much for an organization to maintain. See comparison matrix for more information.
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What is the difference between the Easy Reporter and SAP Netweaver Business Information Warehouse BI/BW?

SAP BW (Business Warehouse), is generally used as a strategic management reporting tool that allows for high level reporting from multiple modules and systems. This is a separate SAP module that serves as a data warehouse where data can be exported from the various SAP modules (including HCM) and other computer systems for strategic analysis. This data is also not real time and it is not designed for transactional reporting which is so important for HR and Payroll.. BW extracts data out of the HR/PY system and imports this into infocubes for reporting. BI/BW programmers can delve into those infocubes to produce offline reports although they will not contain the transactional level data.

The Easy Reporter however, focuses on the transactional reporting. See comparison matrix for more information. For many of the business process reports, such as a pay to pay comparison report and the Audit Reports, there is a need to create reports as soon as the pay has been run.
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Can additional infotypes be added to the Easy Reporter?

Yes, both SAP customer delivered 9000 infotypes and any custom infotypes and/or fields added to existing infotypes can be made available within the solution.
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Can reports be scheduled with the Easy Reporter?

Yes, any reports can be scheduled via the traditional using the standard SAP scheduling functionality embedded directly into the EASY REPORTER. The reports can be scheduled to reduce load on the system.
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What Output Format are the Reports Available in?

Reports can be output to the screen, to a file (in various formats including Excel, Adobe pdf, formatted txt etc.) or to email (inside or outside of SAP or email based on position via the Organizational structure) with simple selection in the Easy Reporter tool.
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Can reports be easily moved between systems?

All reports developed with the Easy Reporter can be moved between any system that uses the Easy Reporter with a simple upload/download feature.
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How will system upgrades impact my reports?

When a major version upgrade of the SAP system is preformed the we will provide you with a new set of transports for loading. All reports can be transferred from version to version.
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How Does the Easy Reporter Audit Report differ from the standard SAP Audit report?

The Audit report shows the master data changes that have been made in the system. The report can be executed for a period of time, to show these changes.
The data that the audit report is reporting is sourced from the same place as the standard SAP audit report. However, this report varies from the standard SAP report in several ways

The data output is much reduced. This report only shows the records that have changed. So, if there were 50 fields on an infotype, and only one record was altered, the standard SAP report would show all 50 fields with old and new values. The Audit report in the Easy Reporter only shows the one field which was changed. It will show the old and new values
With the standard SAP report, depending upon how the record is changed, there will be a delete and an insert shown. This means that potentially if a record has simply been delimited, then 50 records could be shown for the old record and 50 records shown for the new record. In the Easy Reporter, additional logic has been added which will marry up these records and create a single Changed record, which only shows the values that have actually changed. This can potentially reduce the output of 100 lines down to 1 line.
The output is all shown on one single screen. There is no need to drill down into the data. The data however can be sorted by any of the criteria required.
Additionally, the selection screen can limit the data reported to show particular employees, or to report only certain infotypes.
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How Does the Security Work?

In addition to the User Roles, which will allow only specific reports to be executed (if required), the Easy Reporter also links into the standard SAP Security for accessing employee details. This means that if there are employees that a User ID cannot access within normal SAP reporting, then they will also not have access to those employees within the Easy Reporter reports. There is no additional security which needs to be setup.

The SpinifexIT reports use the standard SAP logical database for determining what employees a user can access. This means that SAP takes care of determining which employees a User ID can access. This covers all normal authorizations, as well as structural authorizations.
Example: A User ID can access all employees, except for the executive team, who are on their own monthly payroll. The employee’s access is setup to not be able to view the payroll area for the executives. When the reports are executed, they will not return any reference to the executive employees. Another User ID who has access though, will be able to correctly report on these employees.

Finally, if an employee does not have access to certain infotypes (For example: Basic Pay infotype), then they can still execute the reports, but fields from these infotypes will not be displayed.
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Does the Easy Reporter have a data store?

Some SAP Reporting vendor tools create new tables in SAP with full copies of the data, a strategy that increases security risks and changes the format to non real time reporting. The SpinifexIT Easy Reporter does not follow that method it reports the data directly from the SAP tables in which the data is stored. There is only a few tables that the Spinifex tools uses, and these are generally for setup and execution of the reports. Where these may hold data, it will not be payroll related data. As these tables sit within SAP these can be restricted, if required, using the standard SAP authorisations.
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How does Spinifex integrate with SAP?

Yes, the Easy Reporter fully integrates into SAP.
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Does it have auditing?

Yes, It is possible to track who has run the reports, using the standard SAP transaction audit functionality.
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Does the application require encryption?

No.
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Does the application use data compression?

No – The software reports on existing data in SAP, which means there is very little data / tables used by the Spinifex tools. This means that due to the extremely small amount of data, there is no need for data compression.
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How will upgrades be delivered?

Upgrades to the software are delivered on 6 month basis. These are delivered as SAP transports and can either be emailed directly, or can be downloaded from the web.
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Can advanced Selections be made on wage types by Evaluation, processing or cumulation classes?

Yes. They are all settings against wage types which can be used as selection criteria when creating a report. They are described below:

Processing Classes:
These are settings that control how payroll calculates. For example: There are processing classes for determining the tax rates that the wage type is to be calculated at, processing classes for whether the wage type should cumulate into the year to date table (CRT) etc.. There can be 100 processing classes against a wage type. Each processing class has a value which can be set if required. So, the tax processing class 21 will be set to a value depending upon what rate the wage type is to be taxed at (I.e. Marginal, termination rate, fixed tax etc)..
Cumulation Class:
This is used for storing certain wage types into a bucket. The bucket is the /1nn wage types. So, if a wage type had cumulation class 01 set, this will add the value of this wage type into /101 wage type. This is actually how the total gross works as all wage types which are gross wage types are set with cumulation 01 which cumulates into /101 (Total gross).. Other uses for this are taxable gross, superannuation totals, totals for allowances, totals for deductions, etc.. There are 100 cumulation classes. These are either turned on or off.
Evaluation Classes:
These are generally used for reporting. There are 20 possible evaluation classes. For each evaluation class, there will be a subset of values. The payslip and the Payment summary use evaluation classes. So – For example : the payment summary uses evaluation class 11. SAP provides default settings for evaluation class 11 (Such as Taxable Gross, Tax, Lump sum A, Lump sum B etc). The consultant will go into each wage type and set evaluation class 11 to a value based on where it is to be reported onto the payment summary.

The toolkit can do selections on each groupings above. Through the reports, you can select something like – Give me all wage types which are setup with evaluation class 11 = G1 (Which will report all wage types that are configured to go to the Taxable Gross section of the payment summary). The report can also use a combination of Processing classes, evaluation classes and cumulation classes.
No other reports within standard SAP will have this level of selections. In fact all other reports only allow you to select individual wage types. So the advantage for a support desk, is that if they are looking for certain very specific wage types, they can use the evaluation, processing class or cumulation class selection.

Also – For evaluation classes, a lot of customers have setup their own evaluation class for reporting. This just allows them to have a setting against every wage type which categorises them. An example would be that they may have setup evaluation class 20 with the values (01 – Ordinary payments, 02 – Overtime, 03 – Penalties, 04 – Leave, 05 – Termination payments, 06 – Tax etc). Now, when they setup an overtime report, rather than selecting every overtime wage type, they can just say to select evaluation class 20 = 02 (Overtime). The advantage of this, is that if another overtime wage type is added over time, they don’t need to change the variant because the report will automatically pick it up as it would be configured with evaluation class 20 = 02.
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What types of reports come pre-delivered with the EASY REPORTER?

There are over 100 pre-delivered reporting templates that are come with the system for all application areas within HCM including: Master data reporting, headcount, turnover, audit etc., Payroll reporting: verification, Retroactive, Post pay, Country specific reports. The pre-delivered reporting templates also include Tax reporting, Leave, Finance posting, CATS and many more. There are also many options for analysing an employees pay including:

Wage type Trend reports: The wage type Trend reports can report a number of pay periods at a time. Each individual period can be reported in its own column. This is good for highlighting a pay period that payments have increased or decreased.
Day of the Week reporting: It is possible to report any payments that are flowing from time evaluation into payroll as well as any leave payments by the day of the week. This will allow you to show the hours that have been booked to leave by the day of the week. Example: To show which day of the week has the highest occurrence of sick leave.
Day of Week trend Reporting: It is also possible to examine a particular day of the week over a period of time. For example: Using the previous report, it has been identified that over the last 4 months that there has been more sick leave on a Monday than any other day.

It is then possible to execute a report which will show you every Monday for the last 4 months and how much sick leave was booked on each Monday. This could be used to highlight certain days (Such as more sick leave was taken the Monday after the Christmas Party).
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