Sap ecc compliance archive engineered for SOX 7yr, German HGB §257 + AO §147 10yr, IFRS, MiFID II, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, BaFin, Italian SDI, Brazilian SPED, Polish KSeF, Mexican CFDI. WORM-locked Parquet, forensic audit log, country pack generators.
Retention obligations are not solved by 'putting data in S3'. They are solved by per-data-class WORM-lock, forensic-audit logging, and country-format export packs that satisfy every active regulator demand.
Every SAP ECC tenant carries an accumulated set of retention obligations from SOX (if any US-listed entity), German HGB + AO (if any German legal entity, often via subsidiary), IFRS (statutory reporting), MiFID II (any investment-services activity), FDA 21 CFR Part 11 (pharma/medical devices), BaFin (German banking), Italian SDI (any Italian VAT registration), Brazilian SPED (Brazilian entities), Polish KSeF (Polish entities — mandatory from 2026), Mexican CFDI (Mexican entities), UK HMRC, French Chorus Pro, ASIC, CFTC, FCA, plus dozens of country-specific tax retention rules. Multinationals routinely face 8–15 different active retention regimes simultaneously, each with its own retention window (5/6/7/10/15/30+ years), format requirements and access SLA.
A general data archive — 'we put it in S3' or 'we wrote it to the data lake' — does not solve this. Auditors want to know the partition is immutable, not just stored. Regulators want country-format extracts on demand, not a generic CSV dump. Forensic investigators want a defensible read-access log, not 'we'll check the application logs'. And different data classes have different retention rules — applying the longest globally is wasteful (storage cost) while applying a single short window is non-compliant (HGB violations).
Syntra ETL's sap ecc compliance archive is built for this. Per-data-class WORM-lock policy aligned to the longest applicable retention rule for that class, sharded by company-code country for data-residency compliance, with pre-built country pack generators covering 13+ regulatory regimes out of the box. Every read logged to SIEM with tamper-evident audit trail. Schema preserved through DD02L/DD03L snapshot so the data remains interpretable for the full retention window. External audit and Wirtschaftsprüfer sign-off pack issued at the decommission point.
Beyond just storing data. The capability set that lets external audit, German Wirtschaftsprüfer, FDA inspectors and Finanzamt sign off.
Each data class gets the WORM window matching its longest applicable retention rule. SOX 7yr on financials, HGB 10yr on German books, FDA lifecycle+ on regulated records. Storage cost optimised, compliance guaranteed.
DD02L/DD03L dictionary snapshot captured at archive time and stored alongside data. Every Z-* field documented. Schema is forever — auditors in 2032 can still interpret a 2018 ECC archive.
Every read logged with user, timestamp, query/document, result hash. Logs themselves WORM-locked and shipped to SIEM. Defensible chain-of-custody for forensic investigations.
Pre-built GoBD, SDI, SPED, KSeF, CFDI, Chorus Pro, HMRC MTD, IRS field-audit pack generators. Parameterised by company code and period. Regulator-ready in seconds.
Per-country company-code sharding. EU data in eu-central, US in us-east, APAC in ap-southeast. GDPR/GoBD/local privacy compliant by design. Customer-managed encryption keys optional.
Decommission-time evidence pack documenting WORM policy, schema preservation, access log, country pack capability, retention timer per class. External audit + Wirtschaftsprüfer sign off in writing.
A repeatable workflow running alongside the Fusion migration. Total elapsed time: 5–9 months running concurrently with the migration programme.
Per data class (FI, CO, MM, SD, HR, sector-specific), document the applicable retention rules from SOX, HGB, IFRS, MiFID II, FDA, BaFin, country tax and e-invoicing regimes. Output: per-class WORM-window policy signed off by legal, finance, audit and country compliance leads.
Cloud platform (AWS/GCP/Azure/OCI), object-storage WORM mode (S3 Object Lock Compliance, GCS Bucket Lock, Azure Blob immutability), KMS key strategy (CMEK by country), residency partitioning, SIEM integration, country pack generator deployment.
ECC history extracted into Parquet partitions; each partition WORM-locked per the data-class policy as it lands. Schema snapshot stored alongside. Hash-signed manifests filed for tamper-evidence.
Per active regulatory regime, configure the export pack generator with the correct format, content rules, signing certificate (where required), submission channel. Tested against historical periods for content accuracy.
External audit, Wirtschaftsprüfer and country tax-team representatives run simulated demands against the archive: SOX sample testing, §147 AO inquiry, FDA records request, MiFID II trade reconstruction. Sign-off pack issued.
Archive declared the system of record for retention. ECC decommission proceeds. Country pack generators available on demand. Annual audit dry-run scheduled. Retention timers tick down per WORM policy.
What actually happens when a regulator, auditor or tax authority comes calling years after ECC decommission.
German tax authority requests 2019 invoices for company code DE01. GoBD pack generator parameterised, runs against the WORM-locked archive partition, produces compliant CSV + image bundle. Filed within statutory deadline.
External auditor uploads sample BKPF doc-number list from SOX testing plan. Lookup app retrieves each doc with full BSEG + supporting evidence. Each read logged to SIEM. Audit completes without IT involvement.
FDA inspector requests electronic records for cleared medical device lot. Archive returns full traceability with electronic-signature integrity verified, audit trail of every prior access. Submission accepted.
BaFin requests 5-year trade documentation for German private-banking subsidiary. Archive returns full record set with WORM-immutability verified. MiFID II 5-year retention satisfied.
Italian Agenzia delle Entrate audits 2020 e-invoice retention. SDI XML pack regenerated from the archive matching the Italian timbro fiscale format. Compliance demonstrated.
Internal forensic team investigates suspected vendor fraud across 2018-2021. SQL queries against archive identify outlier payment patterns. Read access log proves data integrity. Investigation defensible.
A sap ecc compliance archive is a regulatory-grade archive of SAP ECC data engineered specifically to satisfy retention obligations across SOX (US), German HGB §257 + AO §147, IFRS, MiFID II (EU/UK financial services), FDA 21 CFR Part 11 (pharma), BaFin (German banking), Italian SDI e-invoicing, Brazilian SPED, Polish KSeF, Mexican CFDI and other country-specific or sector-specific rules. It differs from a general data archive in three ways: (1) every retention rule is encoded as a per-data-class WORM-lock policy on the underlying object storage, (2) every read is logged for forensic audit trail, (3) regulator-demand response is built in via pre-configured country-format export pack generators. The compliance archive lets you decommission ECC while satisfying every active retention obligation that ECC was carrying.
The major ones used by ECC customers globally: SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley, 7-year retention with auditable trace for US-listed entities), German HGB §257 plus AO §147 (10-year Aufbewahrungspflicht for accounting records and supporting documents), IFRS (financial reporting trace), MiFID II (5-year retention for investment-services records, extended to 7 in some jurisdictions), FDA 21 CFR Part 11 (electronic records and signatures for FDA-regulated entities), BaFin (German banking, alongside HGB), Italian SDI (e-invoice retention through Agenzia delle Entrate), Brazilian SPED (digital bookkeeping retention), Polish KSeF (national e-invoicing system), Mexican CFDI (timbrado fiscal retention), French Chorus Pro (public sector e-invoicing), UK HMRC (6-year records), Australian Privacy Principles, Indian DPDP. Each regime is configured as a per-data-class policy at archive time.
German HGB §257 plus AO §147 mandate 10-year retention (Aufbewahrungspflicht) of accounting records, supporting documents, journals and inventories — non-negotiable, with significant penalties for non-compliance. The sap ecc compliance archive applies a 10-year WORM-lock to all FI/CO partitions (BKPF, BSEG, BSID, BSAK, BSIK, BSAD, KNA1, LFA1, ANLA, etc.) under German company-code partitioning. GoBD (Grundsätze ordnungsmäßiger Buchführung) compliance covers the orderly-bookkeeping requirement — schema documentation, change-history (CDHDR/CDPOS), audit-trail of read accesses, tamper-evident WORM. Pre-built pack generators produce GoBD-compliant CSV plus image bundle for Finanzamt §147 inquiries. German Wirtschaftsprüfer signs off as part of the decommission prerequisite.
SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, primarily Sections 302, 404 and 802) requires 7-year retention of financial records, supporting workpapers and electronic communications, with auditable trace from financial statements back to source transactions. The sap ecc compliance archive applies a 7-year WORM-lock to all FI/CO partitions, preserves the document-level trace (financial-statement aggregation → Fusion GL after cutover → archive ECC GL → BKPF doc → BSEG lines → original supporting document), logs every read for forensic audit trail, and integrates with the SOX testing platform of your external audit firm. External auditor sample selection runs directly against the archive — no IT involvement per test. Section 802 obstruction-of-justice concerns covered by WORM-lock immutability.
Yes. FDA 21 CFR Part 11 governs electronic records and signatures for FDA-regulated entities (pharma, medical devices, biotech, food). The archive applies the Part 11 controls: secure user authentication, audit trail of every record read, electronic signature integrity, retention through product lifecycle plus 1–5 years post-discontinuation depending on submission class. BaFin (German banking and financial services) requires retention alongside HGB plus sector-specific rules for trade documentation. MiFID II requires 5-year retention of investment-services records. ASIC (Australia), CFTC (US derivatives), FCA SYSC (UK) similarly. The compliance archive supports per-data-class policy so sector and country rules layer cleanly without conflicting WORM windows.
Every read against the archive — whether through the lookup app, through SQL, through the country-pack generators or through BI federation — is logged with user identity, timestamp, query/document accessed, result returned and result hash. Logs ship to your SIEM via standard integration (CloudTrail to Splunk/Datadog, Cloud Audit Logs to Chronicle, syslog, Splunk HEC). The logs are themselves tamper-evident (signed and held in WORM-locked storage). For forensic investigations (insider-trading, fraud, regulatory enforcement), the access log provides defensible evidence of who saw what and when. Combined with the WORM-lock on the archive content itself, the chain-of-custody covers both the data and the access pattern.
The major ones for ECC customers: German GoBD pack (CSV per table per period plus image bundle for §147 AO inquiries), Italian SDI XML pack (e-invoice retention format for Agenzia delle Entrate), Brazilian SPED Contábil and SPED Fiscal packs (ECD/ECF/EFD format), Polish KSeF JPK_FA pack (national e-invoicing XML), Mexican CFDI pack (timbrado retention format), French Chorus Pro pack (public-sector e-invoicing PDF/A-3), UK HMRC MTD pack (Making Tax Digital format for VAT), US IRS field-audit data pack. Each generator is parameterised by company code and period range, and produces regulator-ready output in seconds. New country packs added quarterly as customer demand drives them.
Yes — and that is the recommended pattern. Post-Fusion-cutover, financial-records retention spans two systems: pre-cutover history in the ECC compliance archive, post-cutover activity in Fusion (with Fusion's own retention configuration). Regulators rarely care about the system boundary — they care that the full retention window is preserved. The compliance archive integrates with Fusion via OTBI/FAW federation so unified compliance dashboards span both. Country pack generators in the archive cover the pre-cutover periods, while Fusion's own pack generators (or the same Syntra ETL generators pointed at the Fusion data lake) cover post-cutover. End result: a single, unified compliance posture across the ECC-to-Fusion transition that any regulator can audit through one workflow.
30-minute discovery call. We'll inventory your active retention regimes (SOX, HGB, IFRS, MiFID II, FDA, BaFin, country e-invoicing), map per-data-class WORM policy, scope the country pack generators you need, and produce a compliance-archive timeline.