SAP ends main ECC support in 2027. Firms that move off it can lose the record of which payment settled which invoice.

Konrad Szpirak runs operations at Blueacrobat, a firm paid to archive data from retired business systems. Writing in ERP Today on 26 October, he says projects plan the new system and the switchover, leaving the old records until late.

His examples come from his own projects. If a move copies only unpaid items, the business may be unable to tell a supplier when an invoice was paid. Amounts recalculated from a rate table may not match the books to the cent. When ECC goes, he writes, the custom reports auditors know go with it.

SAP announced the 2027 date for mainstream maintenance of ECC in 2020. Optional extended maintenance for three more years costs two percentage points more on the maintenance basis.

Our reading for controllers: they answer auditors and suppliers about closed years long after the switchover. The 2027 date drives the plan for the new system. The old records have no date of their own. The open question is who owns the list of records that do not move, and whether a finance user without SAP skills can still read them.