Architecture Decisions for Supplier Payment Collaboration

[Mohammed_Yaseen]

Summary

When planning target architecture based on business capability assessments, the Supplier Payment Collaboration (Corporate --> Finance --> Payables and Receivables Management --> Supplier Payment Collaboration) capability under the SAP Reference Architecture model lists multiple solution capabilities. This leads to the requirement to understand how these are relevant in terms of capability fulfillment and what is relevant for specific target architecture, mainly in the solution architecture domain.

This article provides an overview of related evaluation and decision criteria related to solutions to support these capabilities.

Business Requirements

The following is the definition of the related capability.

Supplier Payment Collaboration: Ability to collaborate with vendors to streamline and automate the invoice payment process.

Solution Options

The solution options listed in RBA are the following.

1. SAP S/4HANA
2. SAP Business Network (SBN)

Characterization of the Solution Options

1. SAP S/4HANA

The core solution within SAP S/4HANA supporting the capability is the support for Accounts Payable and subsequent payment processing. However, this does not offer direct collaboration capability beyond possibly exchange of payment information via integration; often standardized methods such as EDIFACT REMADV, e-mail payment/remittance advice to vendors.

2. SAP Business Network (SBN)

The SAP Business Network is a hosted service that connects suppliers to buying organizations, allowing them to conduct transactions over the internet. It is licensed and implemented separately from SAP S/4HANA.

The focused solution for Supplier Payment Collaboration lies within the capabilities offered by the SAP Business Network for Procurement (SAP Internal) / SAP Business Network for Procurement (External) for end-to-end collaboration.

Criteria to determine the most suitable target solution

The choice of target solution depends on the business need that will drive the additional investment required in implementing the SAP Business Network. Generally, the decision will be driven by larger collaboration requirements in supply chain capabilities and the decision to propose the use of the SAP Business Network for payment collaboration should be a complementary proposal.

It is also worth considering that target architecture in the finance area that includes the SAP Business Network for payment collaboration lends itself to further optimization from a business perspective by considering solutions for enhancement of working capital management such as SAP Discount Management (formerly SAP Ariba Dynamic Discounting) and Taulia Supply Chain Finance.

Conclusion

Customers that actively seek online collaboration by providing greater invoice and payment status visibility to their suppliers can benefit from the use of SAP Business Network for Procurement capability in addition to standard Accounts Payable within SAP S/4HANA. This is especially true for customers with high volume and complex Invoice to Payment cycles.

When designing the target architecture for the capability of Supplier Payment Collaboration, it is often a good idea to look at other capabilities supporting effective working capital management and identify complementary solutions.

[kartong]

When evaluating the SAP Business Network (SBN) and especially SAP Business Network for Supply Chain Collaboration it is imperative to understand how the business model towards the suppliers are expressed. This is so because the SBN for SCC is based on the business model of Procurement of Service, if your client is working from any other business model like from a manufacturing business model then the SBN for SCC may not be an appropriate solution for them.

[Johan_CJD]

Good day the link to SAP Business Network for Procurement  takes me to sharepoint site i do not have access to 

[Mohammed_Yaseen]

Hi @Johan_CJD,

Thank you for the feedback. The link is SAP internal. I have modified the article to contain a link to the standard help for the topic alongside - SAP Business Network for Procurement | SAP Help Portal. It is under review and should be published again soon.