Enterprises adopting SAP Cloud ERP, formerly known as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, or modernizing through RISE with SAP share a common goal: moving faster without losing control. The SAP clean core methodology makes that possible. By keeping the ERP system close to standard, it removes friction and potential technical complications that can delay upgrade paths, improves resilience and makes it easier to adapt as business priorities evolve.
Applying clean core strategies reduces complexity by emphasizing configuration instead of customization. With less customized code buried in the ERP, updates install cleanly, integrations behave predictably and technical debt can be avoided as much as possible. It also shortens the time it takes to roll out new functionality and enhancements, so the system evolves in step with your business.
When clean core principles are paired with orchestration and side-by-side extensibility, your enterprise can handle complex operations without sacrificing flexibility or creating long-term maintenance issues.
What is an SAP clean core?
A clean core describes an SAP Cloud ERP or SAP S/4HANA on-premises environment that remains as close as possible to standard SAP. Enhancements are built externally using approved extensibility frameworks such as SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). This keeps the foundation stable and cloud-ready while giving your teams room to innovate.
A clean core strategy enables consistent upgrades and simpler integration of new SAP and non-SAP capabilities. Guiding principles include:
- Relying on standard SAP functionality whenever possible
- Extending through platforms like SAP BTP
- Governing all custom development to maintain transparency
- Preserving compatibility across future SAP releases
- Allowing key user extensibility without altering core logic
ASUG calls clean core a foundation of agile ERP and business transformation. Standardization accelerates innovation, trims long-term maintenance and streamlines compliance while leaving room for business-specific differentiation.
At SAP Sapphire Orlando, SAP leaders reiterated that clean core is not optional anymore. It’s essentially a baseline for every modern ERP strategy.
The problem with customizations: Technical debt and inflexibility
Many long-standing SAP landscapes still rely on layers of custom ABAP code built to address one-off requirements. Over time, these changes pile up, forming a cluttered landscape of custom code. The further a system drifts from SAP standard, the more expensive, fragile and time-consuming every future change becomes.
Common consequences include:
- Upgrade delays: Each new release requires re-testing and re-work
- Higher total cost of ownership (TCO): Maintenance grows harder as custom logic ages
- Reduced adaptability: Connecting new technologies, such as AI or analytics, becomes more complicated
- Performance concerns: Additional code can slow processing and increase resource use
- Security exposure: Non-standard modifications introduce potential vulnerabilities
NTT DATA notes that once an ERP environment diverges from SAP standard, even minor upgrades demand heavy manual validation.
Reducing this dependency sits at the heart of the clean core approach. Externalizing logic and integrating through APIs rather than internal code changes restores agility and simplifies ongoing maintenance.
How future-ready orchestration enables clean core extensibility
Maintaining a clean core while still running large, interconnected business processes efficiently requires coordination. Orchestration is the answer.
Modern Service Orchestration and Automation Platforms (SOAPs) can link SAP and non-SAP systems without embedding logic in the ERP. They handle workflow sequencing, manage dependencies and automate handoffs across applications. Instead of writing isolated scripts, your IT teams gain a central control layer that unifies automation.
The advantages are practical:
- Streamlined integration through standardized APIs and connectors
- Faster response to business or process changes
- Less testing and regression effort with each upgrade
- Centralized visibility and stronger governance
- Consistent behavior across hybrid and multi-cloud landscapes
With orchestration managing process flow, the SAP core stays clean, upgrade-safe and easier to evolve. As a result, you reduce the technical debt that too often slows and, what’s worse, limits innovation in transformation projects.
Leveraging SAP BTP for extensibility
SAP BTP provides the official foundation for extensibility in SAP Cloud ERP. It lets your teams build, integrate and operate new applications that enhance functionality without altering core code.
As outlined in SAP’s ”Clean core extensibility” whitepaper, BTP supports upgrade-safe enhancements through ABAP Cloud, seamless integration via standard APIs, low-code application development with SAP Build and workflow automation, without modifying core ERP logic.
When orchestration platforms tie into BTP services, they can initiate workflows, move data securely and synchronize systems across cloud and on-premises environments. So, they keep the ERP core stable while allowing innovation where it’s needed most.
SAP BTP also supports a wide range of extensions and SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC), from analytics and planning to integration and data orchestration. Solution services like SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), SAP Datasphere and Integration Suite help teams enhance functionality without modifying ERP code.
By automating the flow of data between S/4HANA, BTP services and analytics platforms, you avoid embedding custom logic or reporting scripts in the ERP. This approach keeps core processes standard and ensures upgrades remain predictable — even as your business intelligence needs grow.
Clean core in practice: RISE with SAP
RISE with SAP offers a managed path to SAP Cloud ERP that bundles software, infrastructure and services. Clean core methodology is fundamental to that journey.
Legacy customizations often complicate RISE migrations, introducing extra testing cycles and unplanned delays. Systems designed around clean core principles migrate more easily, adopt future releases sooner and need less remediation and oversight afterward.
Orchestration strengthens this model by automating the cross-system activities that typically require manual oversight, such as:
- Financial close and reporting
- Order management and fulfillment
- Supply chain coordination and demand planning
- Master data synchronization
- Billing and receivables management
➡️ As described in detail by SAP in this community post, RunMyJobs by Redwood is part of the RISE with SAP reference architecture and is, thus, SAP’s recommended solution. RunMyJobs managed services, delivered by the SAP ECS team, offer a compliant and lower-risk approach to modernizing job scheduling within a RISE environment. Rather than relying on OS-level scripts or unmanaged third-party agents installed without oversight and control on application servers, SAP ECS provides managed connectivity and oversight for RunMyJobs. This enables customers to execute OS-level workflows, including file transfers, in a standardized, cloud-compliant way.
Automating key business functions while keeping the core clean
Clean core methodology supports automation without compromise. By managing automation outside the ERP core ABAP code and integrating through APIs and other SAP-approved methods, you maintain system integrity while improving efficiency and accuracy.
Finance automation
Financial closing often involves repetitive manual steps that slow cycle times. Orchestration can handle reconciliations, journal entries and accruals automatically using SAP standard interfaces. Enterprises using Finance Automation by Redwood have reported significant time savings — in some cases up to 90% — across record-to-report processes. It allows you to execute these tasks externally, maintaining upgrade safety and compliance with clean core principles while supporting continuous, touchless close capabilities.
Data excellence and migration preparation
Migration success depends on both clean code and clean data. Archiving, validation and cleansing are essential to maintaining data quality and readiness for future releases.
Automation coordinates these steps end-to-end, optimizing accuracy and consistency throughout migration. It minimizes manual effort and reinforces data governance across the enterprise, supporting the same discipline that defines clean core strategy.
A foundation for future SAP innovation
Clean core is a commitment to long-term stability and adaptability. It simplifies upgrades, accelerates adoption of new SAP capabilities and creates a predictable base for innovation. As enterprises extend their automation and data strategies, BDC adds another layer of value by connecting data across applications and business processes. Together with SAP BTP, BDC helps you achieve end-to-end visibility without compromising clean core integrity.
Clean core extensibility lets organizations evolve through approved frameworks rather than custom modification. This design keeps systems agile and dependable over time.
Enterprises that follow clean core principles gain measurable advantages:
- Lower maintenance costs and effort
- Faster access to new SAP features and releases
- Greater agility to adjust as business priorities shift
- Improved reliability and system uptime
- Readiness for new SAP and third-party technologies
Strategic orchestration for clean core success
Sustaining a clean core across enterprise operations requires discipline and coordination. Modern orchestration platforms supply that structure, aligning automation and governance so processes run consistently while the ERP stays untouched.
Redwood Software has worked with SAP for more than two decades. RunMyJobs by Redwood is the only workload automation solution that is a Premium certified SAP Endorsed App. It uniquely supports SAP’s clean core strategy in cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments by eliminating custom code and workarounds.
By following SAP’s clean core framework and extending it through orchestration, you can keep your S/4HANA environment adaptable, reduce technical debt and ensure every new capability builds on a solid foundation.
Explore how a leading SOAP can future-proof your clean core strategy. Book a demo of RunMyJobs.