- SAP Business ByDesign is no longer sold to new customers and faces an uncertain innovation outlook. Existing customers face long-term system decisions.
- SAP is rebuilding its ERP landscape for autonomous processes. Aderis was developed AI-native from the ground up and already uses AI agents.
- Migrating legacy ERP landscapes such as SAP can require extensive adjustments. Aderis enables the finance function to be modernised while existing operational systems can remain connected.
SAP Business ByDesign: what does the end of new sales mean for mid-sized businesses?
Anyone investing in a finance platform with AI capabilities today is not only deciding for the next few months. The solution also needs to meet the company’s requirements in the medium term. SAP’s current change of strategy shows how relevant this question is.
Since April 2026, SAP no longer sells its mid-market solution Business ByDesign. According to the SAP user group DSAG, operation is secured for existing customers for a few more years, although no further innovation is expected for Business ByDesign. No end of maintenance has been announced, which leaves many users uncertain about the long-term innovation outlook.
With Business ByDesign gone, growing mid-sized companies lose a cloud ERP solution with preconfigured processes. DSAG sees this as a gap in SAP’s portfolio. DSAG considers SAP Cloud ERP too extensive and too complex to implement for many mid-sized companies.
Keep running ByDesign or start planning the next modernisation today?
Aderis offers companies that want to modernise their finance function a different option: where accounting, payments and reporting are the priority, the Live Finance Platform can replace the existing finance system. Existing applications for order processing, payroll or invoicing can remain connected via interfaces.
From legacy ERP to autonomous finance: which tasks can AI take over?
Anyone planning the next system change after Business ByDesign can assess which routine work the new solution should take over. This includes matching incoming payments, preparing payment runs and handling outstanding receivables.
SAP is expanding these capabilities as part of its ‘Autonomous Enterprise’ strategy. With Joule Work and the Autonomous Suite, AI agents are set to coordinate business processes, execute tasks and prepare decisions. Initial capabilities are available, and others will be rolled out gradually from 2027, as SAP is in the middle of a fundamental shift in its technology architecture.
Aderis already takes this approach: the Live Finance Platform was developed AI-native from the ground up. Accounting, payments, controls and reporting operate within a shared architecture. AI agents are embedded directly in finance processes and can execute recurring tasks autonomously within defined rules.
The difference lies in the foundation: SAP is evolving an ERP portfolio built up over decades and has to connect new technologies with existing applications and customer landscapes. Aderis Core Finance is already designed for the autonomous execution of finance processes and is already running in production at customers today.
SAP Business ByDesign vs. Aderis: what makes the difference for CFOs?
Whether a platform is AI-native or has AI added retrospectively sounds like a technical question at first. For finance leaders, however, the issue is more concrete: how much work does the system actually take over, how current are the figures and how much effort does the switch require?
SAP vs. Aderis at a glance
| SAP Business ByDesign | Aderis (Live Finance Platform) | |
|---|---|---|
| Which areas does the platform cover? | ERP for finance, procurement, sales, production and HR. | Finance at the core: accounting, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payments, VAT and reporting. |
| What is the product outlook? | No sales to new customers since April 2026. No further development, maintenance only. | Active development with a focus on AI agents and Continuous Close. |
| How does automation work? | Rule-based, through configured runs and workflows. | AI agents execute finance processes autonomously within defined rules. Exceptions are escalated to finance. |
| Which AI agents are integrated? | No finance agent, SAP Joule not available. Invoice scanning included. | Finance agent Ada answers finance questions, captures documents and posts supplier invoices. |
| How are banks connected? | Via file import (camt, pain.001). Direct connection only via partners. | Directly via SIX bLink (AIS/PIS). ISO 20022, QR-bill and CAMT are integrated. |
| Where is financial data stored? | Data centres in Germany, no Swiss location. | Hosting and data residency in Switzerland and the EU. |
| How do close and reporting work? | Traditional period-end close via the Closing Cockpit. | Continuous Close: accounting, reconciliations and controls run throughout the period. |
| How does the finance team stay in control? | Roles, approvals and segregation of duties. | Permissions, approvals, segregation of duties and audit trail apply directly in execution, including for the agents. |
| How are multiple entities managed? | Parallel ledgers possible, but no integrated consolidation. | Multi-entity and multi-currency. Statutory, tax, management and group ledgers run from the same set of postings. |
| How does the platform fit into existing systems? | Integration via SAP BTP, usually with partners. | Open by design: direct connection to banks, billing, ERP, BI and operational systems. |
When AI does not just answer, but acts
Which customers still have unpaid invoices despite a payment reminder? And what needs to happen next? This example shows the difference between rule-based automation and autonomous execution with AI. In rule-based automation, the process is fixed in advance. An AI agent can infer from the context which of the permitted steps fits the current situation.
SAP Business ByDesign matches incoming payments according to stored criteria. A scheduled dunning run checks the open items and creates dunning proposals. The finance team can defer or block individual receivables directly in the proposal. If a different rule is to apply to all comparable cases in future, the team adjusts the dunning strategy in the system and checks how the change affects the proposals. The effort depends on whether a single criterion changes or several rules are affected.
At Aderis, the question itself can trigger the next step. The team asks the finance agent Ada which receivables are still outstanding after the latest incoming payments. The agent accesses current posting and bank data and, where required, can match an incoming payment. The finance team defines the rules and controls. Ada infers from the context which of the permitted steps fits the request and the current data. Where an approval or a professional judgement is needed, a person takes over.
AI agents in day-to-day finance: what already works today?
SAP Business ByDesign can automate routine tasks such as payment matching and the creation of dunning proposals based on stored rules. ByDesign does not currently list an integrated AI agent that answers questions based on current financial data and then executes follow-up tasks autonomously. The agents for journal entries, accruals and the clearing of open items released in 2026 belong to SAP’s broader cloud ERP offering, which is currently being rolled out step by step.
At Aderis, agentic AI is embedded in finance processes from the ground up. The results are visible across the existing customer base: 95% of incoming payments are already matched automatically today. In practice, the month-end close is reduced from 15 days to a few. To name another example from practice, the workload associated with dunning decreases by 70%.
This saves more than time. Financial figures become available earlier, outstanding receivables are identified sooner and finance teams can focus more on analysis and performance management.
For CFOs, the benchmark lies in their own operations: how many incoming payments does the team still have to match manually? How much time does dunning take? And when are reliable figures available for the month-end close? These three points indicate what additional value a switch can deliver.
Migration: does the entire IT landscape have to be rebuilt?
A new finance platform can be technologically convincing. But if implementation takes months, incurs high costs or puts ongoing operations at risk, the switch quickly becomes a hurdle for many companies.
This applies particularly to legacy ERP landscapes that have grown over time. Over the years, individual processes, interfaces, account structures and dependencies between departments emerge. A switch therefore involves far more than transferring accounting data.
SAP offers migration tools and programmes for the transformation to S/4HANA Cloud. So far, however, this applies only to SAP Cloud ERP. Companies that continue to run ByDesign can keep their existing processes and interfaces for now. What follows remains uncertain.
Aderis takes a modular approach: the finance function is migrated to the AI-native Live Finance Platform. Aderis transfers charts of accounts, master data, balances and historical postings. Existing ERP applications, invoicing and banks remain connected via interfaces.
Here too, the effort depends on data quality, company structure and existing integrations. Based on its experience with existing customers, Aderis describes going live in production within a few weeks, including a guided migration that is part of the service.
Conclusion: SAP confirms the direction of agentic AI in finance, so what comes next?
The direction is clear and confirms the core idea of Live Finance: finance processes should no longer depend on manual handovers, retrospective reconciliations and outdated figures. Instead, they should take on the work themselves and be kept continuously current. SAP is expanding its cloud ERP offering in this direction. Aderis was developed AI-native from the start and already puts this approach into practice with the Live Finance Platform.
For companies running Business ByDesign, continued operation remains possible for now. It is still unclear whether the existing solution will be continued. For the next switch, the decisive question is therefore whether several business areas need a new ERP or whether the priority is to modernise the finance function. This is where Aderis comes into consideration as a specialised platform, including for companies with multiple entities, ledgers or currencies.
Ultimately, what counts for CFOs is not what AI might one day be able to do. What matters is which processes can be automated today, how much effort the migration requires and what improvements this can deliver for the business.
The next generation of finance is already in use. With Live Finance, the finance function already runs in step with the business today.
