Clean Core Analysis

SAP has introduced Clean Core quality gates during S/4HANA migrations - especially for RISE and public cloud customers. That means your custom code must be optimized for the cloud as part of the transition. smartShift helps you meet these requirements by eliminating unused code, improving performance and security, and aligning with ABAP Cloud standards. Addressing this now sets your business up for a more agile, cost-effective, and future-ready SAP environment.

Even stable systems can accumulate technical debt. Over time, custom code piles up - much of it unused, duplicated, or undocumented. This hidden complexity increases costs, slows down innovation, and makes future upgrades more difficult. Clean Core helps you regain control by identifying what’s actually needed, modernizing your codebase, and aligning with SAP’s long-term development model.

You’re not alone. Many teams struggle to cut through the noise. Clean Core is SAP’s initiative to keep your custom code isolated, modular, and cloud-compliant. The goal is a system that’s easier to upgrade, extend, and secure. At smartShift, we turn that vision into action with a proven Clean Core Analysis that shows exactly where you stand and how to move forward.

A short-term fix often leads to long-term pain. Fixing only “P1” issues might get you through migration - but it won’t give you a Clean Core. That approach leaves technical debt behind, increases post-go-live risk, and creates upgrade challenges later. smartShift ensures your code is fully optimized for S/4HANA from the start - addressing security, performance, stability, and cloud compliance across your entire codebase.

SAP Joule is a helpful assistant - but it’s not built for mass code transformation. It supports manual review and cleanup, which adds time, cost, and testing risk. smartShift automates the entire process at scale - with over 99.99% accuracy, fixed pricing, and guaranteed results. It’s the fastest, safest path to Clean Core.

Both assessments help you identify unused code, but Clean Core Analysis goes deeper. While Custom Code Analysis offers a high-level view, Clean Core Analysis breaks it down by application area, object type, and usage patterns. This gives your team the actionable insight needed for informed decisions about modernization and decommissioning. 

It’s an ongoing process, not a one-time project. SAP keeps releasing updates and new features, so companies need to keep their systems clean over time. That means reviewing custom code regularly, retiring what’s no longer needed, and using standard SAP features whenever possible. This helps your system stay flexible and ready for future upgrades.

Yes, you can still customize but in a smarter way. Clean Core means keeping the core system stable while building customizations in approved ways, like through SAP BTP or side-by-side extensions. This way you can meet your business needs without creating messy code that slows down upgrades later.

Waiting too long makes things harder and more expensive. The longer you put it off, the more technical debt piles up. That can lead to: 

• Slower, costlier migrations to S/4HANA
• Higher chance of upgrade delays or failures
• Missing out on new SAP features
• Extra time wasted on outdated code. In short, the sooner you start, the smoother and cheaper it will be.

Absolutely. A Clean Core Analysis identifies redundant, unused, or risky custom code and provides a roadmap to streamline your SAP system before moving to S/4HANA. By modernizing and retiring unnecessary modifications early, you reduce project risk, cut migration timelines, and create a more stable foundation for transformation. This step is critical to ensure a smoother, lower-cost migration with fewer disruptions.