Leading by example: How Tricentis is approaching its own SAP S/4HANA implementation

In late 2024, Tricentis embarked on its own SAP transformation — migrating from NetSuite to a greenfield implementation of SAP S/4HANA Finance. This blog kicks off a series that will follow Tricentis’ migration journey, from planning and implementation through to outcomes and impact.

Having supported many of our customers through similar transitions, we saw value in documenting our own transformation — from a system we had outgrown to one that could scale with our company’s continued growth.

Why we made the move: A scalable foundation for growth

Tricentis has grown fast. As our operations expanded, so did the complexity of our financial processes, and we needed a platform that could keep pace. We encountered increasing friction with our existing NetSuite implementation, finding ourselves limited by the level of manual effort required to meet evolving business needs and by the lack of built-in flexibility.

We chose SAP S/4HANA public cloud to modernize our financial systems, future-proof our operations, and better align with our strong existing partnership with SAP. S/4HANA Finance offers a significantly more sophisticated fit for our use cases, from robust automation to native features that reduce reliance on manual processes. And most importantly, it gives us the scalability needed to support Tricentis’ fast-paced growth.

Deployment strategy: Strategic rollout with a first-of-its-kind URR implementation

Tricentis is deploying a new instance of SAP S/4HANA Cloud. This greenfield implementation follows SAP’s fit-to-standard methodology, with minimal configurations (around 10%) and a focused set of strategic integrations, including with our internal CRM system, Salesforce.

The phased rollout is designed to minimize risk while enabling continuous learning across teams. We’re targeting full migration by February 2026. By introducing capabilities in stages, we can validate functionality, build confidence through automated testing, and refine processes before expanding to other areas of the business.

A key element of this implementation phase is SAP’s Universal Revenue Recognition (URR) — making Tricentis one of the first companies to go live with URR on SAP’s public cloud. This milestone carries significance not only for us but for the broader SAP ecosystem.

URR unifies event-based and contract-based revenue recognition into a single, cloud-based process. For a business like Tricentis, where revenue models are complex and evolving, URR offers greater precision, improved compliance, and better integration across sales, contracts, and accounting. As with any first, we know we’ll encounter unknowns and unexpected roadblocks along the way. But the opportunity to lead and shape early best practices makes the investment more than worthwhile.

Building the right team: Cross-functional from day one

From the outset, Tricentis established a cross-functional steering committee to oversee the implementation. We deployed Accenture as the key partner to support various aspects of the project, bringing specialized expertise to complement our internal teams.

As the lead implementation partner, Accenture is working closely with both our enterprise applications team leading the implementation and our finance team as business users to ensure SAP S/4HANA is integrated effectively into our day-to-day operations. Accenture teams are leveraging SAP best practices and running deep-dive workshops with Tricentis to map our existing workflows, such as Order to Cash, onto SAP’s capabilities.

Accenture is also leading the overall testing strategy. In partnership with Tricentis’ internal professional services organization, it is developing a comprehensive testing plan using Tricentis’ best-in-class tools for SAP, including Tricentis Tosca.

Accenture has engaged its digital transformation and managed services provider to execute testing using Tricentis Tosca as part of the deployment process. Its work complements Tricentis’ internal efforts, where we lead user acceptance testing and manage the enterprise-wide quality strategy.

This combination of Tricentis domain knowledge, Accenture’s implementation and testing leadership, and Accenture’s execution has created a collaborative, high-functioning team from day one. That collaboration has also allowed us to bring testing to the forefront of the implementation, embedding it early and deeply into every phase of the deployment process.

Test automation as a strategic lever and a key measure of success

As a leader in software testing, Tricentis considers robust test automation and coverage as key indicators of implementation success. On average, before AI was introduced to the testing workflow, our professional services team reported 45% test coverage in the NetSuite environment through manual testing. With the migration to SAP S/4HANA, we’re expecting 75% AI-assisted test coverage and 100% automation for unit testing. This increase will be powered in part by the expanded, AI-driven functionalities now available in Tosca.

Defining success and proactively managing risk

Beyond automation, we’ve defined a set of clear success metrics to measure the impact of our S/4HANA implementation:

• Enable a faster, more accurate financial close
• Improve visibility and control through real-time reporting and insights
• Reduce manual effort and streamline global financial processes
• Successfully deploy URR in a public cloud environment without disruption

At the same time, our steering committee is actively managing two key risk areas that could introduce complexity into the migration and our test plans:

• Regionalization requirements for the diverse countries that Tricentis contracts with will require careful configuration and compliance alignment
• URR implementation challenges will likely arise, as we are among the first organizations globally to deploy this model in SAP’s public cloud

Both risks are being addressed through proactive planning, rigorous testing, and a close working relationship with SAP and Accenture. Our testing framework, alongside our cross-functional governance model, is designed to ensure we identify and address issues early on.

What’s next

In our next post, as this transformation progresses, we’ll share an update on our implementation progress and lessons learned. We’ll take a closer look at how our test strategy is evolving, how teams are adapting to the new tools and workflows, and how we’re navigating early-stage complexities.

Our transformation is more than a technology upgrade. It’s a shift in how Tricentis manages, automates, and scales its financial operations. We’re excited to share this journey, and we hope our experience provides valuable insights for our customers on a similar path.