Hello Paul,
Good morning,
About your question on the new closing process, there are a few points which I would like to mention which can help you:-
Change 1) The number of steps done in closing per se did not change, so if you see the document given by MJ, the steps would still be same in SAP Financials vs Sfin 2.0 / 1.0. The number of steps also depend on type of organization and its process.
However what did change was the customer ability to run the batch jobs online, ( if you see list by MJ and see the list of batch job specified), This is an improvement in Sfin 2.0 as you can run these batch directly and it is something which saves time
Change 2)-One issue in every close is reconciliation, this can be asset subledger to GL or COPA to FI etc.
These have improved in Sfin as there is now a single table / source for the information
Change 3) - Multiple tool and dashboard to better analyze the process and figures per period.
With CFO dashboard and other tools (Fiori based reports) which can enable you to check and confirm period close data quickly. This helps in ensuring the period end close happens quickly, at-least from reporting side
Change 4)-One other change can be consolidation, in SFIn you have a central journal which you can use to consolidate data from different system and this also helps in improving closing time.
Hope this helps.
Regards
Rishab