In a Central Finance landscape, after the initial replication, master data maintenance is centralized to ensure consistency and harmonization across all connected systems. The recommended tool for this is SAP Master Data Governance (MDG).

MDG can be deployed in two primary ways:

1. As a separate, dedicated hub system. In this case, master data is maintained in the SAP Master Data Governance system (B).

2. Co-deployed on the same S/4HANA instance as Central Finance. In this scenario, maintenance is performed directly in the Target system (D), which hosts both the Central Finance and MDG applications.

Both are valid and officially supported architectural patterns for ongoing master data maintenance.

A. Source system: Continuing maintenance in the source system after implementing central governance would defeat the purpose of harmonization and create data inconsistencies. Best practice dictates disabling local maintenance in source systems.

C. SAP System Landscape Transformation (SLT): SLT is a real-time data replication tool. It is middleware used to transfer data from source to target systems but has no functionality for master data creation or maintenance.

1. SAP Help Portal

SAP S/4HANA 2023

Central Finance

"Master Data Governance with Central Finance": "You can run SAP Master Data Governance on the same system and client as Central Finance (co-deployment) or you can run SAP Master Data Governance on a separate system (hub deployment)." This document explicitly validates that maintenance can occur in a separate MDG system (B) or within the target Central Finance system itself (D).

2. SAP Help Portal

SAP S/4HANA 2023

Central Finance

"Master Data Harmonization": "Once you have set up a central governance system for your master data

for example

SAP MDG

you should ensure that master data is no longer created or changed in the source systems but in the central system only." This confirms that maintenance is moved away from the source system (A).

3. SAP Help Portal

SAP S/4HANA 2023

Central Finance

"Setting up the System Landscape": This section details the role of the SAP LT Replication Server (SLT) as the technology for data provisioning

confirming it is a replication tool and not a master data maintenance environment (C).