An early-warning alert that fires the moment any Company Code drifts past its FI period-close deadline.
At a glance
The single governance pulse that tells the CFO whether the books will close on time. It watches every Company Code in scope, compares each one’s actual period-close status against its scheduled close deadline, and raises a P1 alert the moment any Company Code runs more than five days late. A late close on even one Company Code holds up the whole Group Reporting consolidation run, which means the consolidated P&L and balance sheet cannot be finalised, the audit trail has a gap, and the statutory filing clock is at risk.
| What it counts | The number of Company Codes whose FI period-close status (open / in-close / closed in the period-control configuration, conceptually transaction OB52) is still not closed and whose close is more than five days past the scheduled deadline. A reading of 0 is the healthy state. Any positive number is a live governance breach. |
| What triggers it | A Company Code where the posting period is still open for closing activities (period-end accruals, foreign-currency valuation, reconciliation-ledger postings) beyond the agreed deadline, or where the Group Reporting data-collection task for that consolidation unit has not completed. |
| Data source | SAP S/4HANA Cloud FI period-control settings and the Group Reporting close monitor. The card reads the close-task status per consolidation unit, not the raw Universal Journal. |
| Company Code scope | Every Company Code visible to the connected SAP business user / API role. The card lists each breaching Company Code by name so Finance knows exactly where to chase. |
| Real-time vs batch | Real-time. The card re-evaluates close status on every connector poll, so a Company Code that closes mid-morning clears the alert without waiting for an overnight batch. |
| Time window | RT (real-time, evaluated continuously) |
| Alert trigger | close deadline >5d past on any CompanyCode |
| Roles | owner, finance |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your SAP data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK enterprise group running SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition with four Company Codes and a 12-month fiscal year. The Group close calendar sets the soft close at working day 4 (WD4) and the hard close at WD6 for fiscal period 005 (May 26). The Group Reporting consolidation run is scheduled for WD8. The card is read on 09 Jun 26, which is WD7.| Company Code | Scheduled close deadline | Actual close status on 09 Jun 26 | Days past deadline | Breaching? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1000 UK Group Holdings Ltd | 05 Jun 26 (WD6) | Closed 05 Jun 26 | 0 | No |
| 2000 US Distribution Inc | 05 Jun 26 (WD6) | Closed 06 Jun 26 | 1 | No |
| 3000 EU Distribution BV | 05 Jun 26 (WD6) | Still in-close (FX valuation pending) | 4 | No (under 5d) |
| 4000 APAC Trading Pte | 03 Jun 26 (WD4, earlier local deadline) | Still open | 6 | Yes |
| Card reading | 1 |
- One Company Code trips the whole card. Three of four Company Codes are either closed or comfortably inside the five-day tolerance. Company Code 4000 alone, at six days past its earlier local WD4 deadline, takes the card from
0to1. The card is deliberately blunt: a single late close is a P1 because it blocks the consolidation that depends on all four. - Deadlines are per Company Code, not group-wide. APAC Trading runs a tighter local statutory deadline (WD4) because its local tax authority demands an earlier filing. The card compares each Company Code against its own configured deadline, not a single group number, so a Company Code can breach even while the group hard close (WD6) has not yet arrived.
- In-close is not the same as breaching. Company Code 3000 is mid-close with foreign-currency valuation still running. It is four days past deadline, so it is on the watchlist but not yet breaching the five-day trigger. If FX valuation stalls one more day, 3000 joins 4000 and the card reads
2. This is the value of the card: it shows the slow drift before it becomes a crisis. - The downstream blocker is consolidation. With 4000 still open, the Group Reporting data-collection task for the APAC consolidation unit cannot complete, so the WD8 consolidation run cannot produce a clean consolidated set. The CFO’s WD8 board pack slips. The card surfaces this two days before the consolidation deadline, which is enough lead time to escalate.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Period Close Past Deadline is the headline governance alert, but the period-close health story is told across several cards. Pair it with these to see why a close is slipping and whether the pattern is chronic.| Card | Why pair it with Period Close Past Deadline |
|---|---|
| Period Close Status by CompanyCode | The per-Company-Code breakdown behind this headline alert. Tells you which entities are open, in-close, or closed, so you know exactly where to chase. |
| Period Close On-Time Rate (12mo) | The trend version. One late close is bad luck; a falling on-time rate over twelve months is a structural close-process problem. |
| Intercompany Imbalances (consolidation blocker) | A second, distinct reason the consolidation run can stall. A close can be technically complete yet still blocked by unmatched intercompany pairs. |
| Accrual Reversals (last close) | Shows the period-end accrual hygiene that lengthens a close. Heavy manual accrual-and-reversal cycles are a common cause of slow closes. |
| Open / Unposted Journal Entries | Parked and unposted documents must be cleared before a Company Code can close. A backlog here is often the direct cause of a late close. |
| SAP S/4HANA Health Score | The composite roll-up. Period-close timeliness is one of the inputs; this card shows where it sits relative to GL imbalances, IDoc errors, and AR health. |
Reconciling against SAP
Where to look in S/4HANA Cloud: The closest native equivalents inside the SAP Fiori launchpad are:Manage Closing Tasks / Close Financial Period apps for the period-control and close-task status Group Reporting: Data Monitor and Consolidation Monitor for the per-consolidation-unit close status that gates the group run Open and Close Posting Periods configuration (conceptually transaction OB52) for the per-Company-Code period-control variant Embedded Analytics: the close-task status query inside the Advanced Financial Closing (AFC) content, where AFC is licensedDirect link template:
https://my{tenant}.s4hana.cloud.sap/sap/bc/ui2/flp#ClosingTasks-manage
The period-control state you see in Open and Close Posting Periods should agree with this card to the Company Code: a Company Code whose closing periods are still open beyond its deadline is the same Company Code the card flags. For the consolidation view, the Group Reporting Data Monitor shows each consolidation unit’s data-collection status; any unit not at “completed” is what holds the consolidation run, which is the downstream risk this card warns about.
Common mistakes when comparing against SAP’s own reports:
- Confusing posting-period open status with close-task completion. A Company Code can have its posting periods technically open for legitimate late postings yet still be reported as on-time by the close team. The card uses the scheduled close deadline, not raw period-open status, so it can read healthy even when periods are still open inside tolerance.
- Reading the group hard close instead of the local deadline. Local statutory deadlines for some Company Codes fall earlier than the group hard close. A Company Code can breach its own deadline while the group calendar still shows time remaining.
- Treating a manual sign-off as a system close. Some teams sign off a close in a spreadsheet before the system close tasks complete. The card reads the system state, not the spreadsheet, so it can flag a Company Code the team believes is done.
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Local deadline vs group deadline | Card higher | The card compares each Company Code against its own configured deadline. A report run against the single group hard close will show fewer breaches. |
| Five-day tolerance | Card lower | The card only flags closes more than five days past deadline. A close-task report that flags anything past deadline will show more in-flight items than this card. |
| Posting-period vs close-task definition | Either | If a tenant defines “closed” as posting-period locked while another defines it as all close tasks complete, the counts differ. The card follows the close-task / consolidation-unit status. |
| Advanced Financial Closing not licensed | Either | Where AFC is not in use, the card falls back to period-control status, which is a coarser signal than task-level completion. |