Workflow run

Final post

"Clean core" is being quietly redefined, and most Heads of SAP will only notice after the invoices arrive.

Read this week's SAP Insider piece on Avalara pitching AvaTax on BTP as a clean-core tax layer for S/4HANA. Good product. The framing is what caught my attention.

Every ISV is now positioning the same way: clean-core compatible = runs on BTP.

That's one interpretation. It's SAP's preferred interpretation. And it does technically keep the core untouched.

But there's a second interpretation of clean core that gets less airtime.

Two roads:

1. BTP-hosted extensions. Push tax to BTP. Push pricing to BTP. Push planning to BTP. Every operational concern becomes a hosted service with its own integration surface, its own ops burden, its own skill requirement, and its own vendor. The core is clean. The landscape is not.

2. In-SAP operational layer. Adapt inside SAP itself — no core object modifications, standard SAP authorizations, existing governance, no external platform, no new stack. The core stays clean because the operational logic never touches core objects.

Both are clean-core safe. Only one adds another constellation of platforms to your team's ops load.

The question a Head of SAP should be asking, for every operational change the business requests: does this actually require a full BTP extension, or does it need a governed adaptation inside SAP?

The answers aren't the same. Tax compliance across 50 jurisdictions probably does need a dedicated engine. Adding a formula column to VA05N, a workflow to ME2N, or a validation on top of MB52 does not.

The industry is quietly collapsing both cases into "put it on BTP." That's not architecture. That's a default — and defaults are how technical debt accumulates while everyone thinks they're doing it right.

Clean core is a valuable discipline. It shouldn't become a synonym for "buy more BTP."

Comment "GAP" and I'll share the framework we use with SAP teams to sort operational changes into what belongs on BTP vs. inside SAP.

Curious where you'd draw the line, Jon Reed and Joshua Greenbaum.