This blog post provides an overview of key innovations in the 2111 Release of SAP Business Network Solutions.
On November 12 , 2021, we released exciting new SAP Business Network innovations for our customers .We continue the vision based on the foundation laid down in the 2105 release back in May.
Let me share some of the key highlights from the SAP Business Network 2111 Release:-
Trading Partner Portal Innovations: Introduction of Activity Feed
The new Activity feed widget displays real-time transaction activity and offers suppliers a way to quickly navigate to their transactions. The capability allows suppliers for Easy action from feed item. Suppliers can filter content of the activity feed and personalize the data based on business documents that would need their attention.
Trading Partner Portal Innovations: PDF invoicing Experience for Suppliers
The PDF invoice conversion functionality is available to suppliers as the PDF Invoice conversions and Pending PDF invoice conversions tiles on the Workbench. Suppliers that are using PDF invoicing functionality now have visibility into the progress of the PDF invoice conversion process. PDF invoice functionality for Review as Drafts has also been added with a new tile in the Workbench
SAP Supplier Financing
SAP Ariba Supplier Financing leverages the digital footprints created on Ariba Network to reduce friction for MSMEs (Micro, Small and Mid-Sized Enterprises) in pursuit of financial health. It’s a self-service solution that enables small businesses that seek suitable working capital financing by simply consenting to access their data. They are then provided with a list of pre-qualified offers at competitive terms from multiple online funders/lenders.
Now Any supplier in the U.S. will now have access to SAP Supplier Financing.
Logistics Business Network :Integration with IBP Supply Chain Control Tower for tracking of Freight Orders and Freight Units
This new innovation provides integrated experience for planners in IBP to use Logistics Business Network. The capability provides users
- Navigate seamlessly from the SAP Supply Chain Control Tower solution to SAP Logistics Business Network to gain real-time insights into freight movements, such as freight orders or freight units in execution
- Improved near-term business planning based on real-time logistics execution insights
- Increased transparency on movement of goods at low implementation costs
- Enhanced supply chain collaboration with direct execution visibility during planning
Service Procurement :Support for automatic generation of invoices from approved service entry sheets
This feature enables automatic generation of invoices from approved service entry sheets in Ariba Network in the Service Procurement with Ariba Network and SAP Fieldglass (4R2) integration scenario. Invoices are generated only for those service entry sheets that are associated with purchase order line items containing planned lean-service items and have tax information.
Auto-flip removes a manual step of creating invoices from service entry sheets, thus increasing productivity and reducing manual labor. It also reduces the time lag between service entry sheet and invoice, thereby adding to suppliers’ cash flows.
Service Procurement :Support for creation of invoices against enhanced-limit material items
This feature enables supplier users to create invoices against enhanced-limit material items in purchase orders without the necessity of ship notices or goods receipts, in the Automation of Source-to-Pay with Ariba Network (42K) integration scenario. The enhanced-limit material items in Ariba Network correspond to product type group Material (1) items in SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
Buyers are now able to order supplies and materials with specified limits for a designated period. Suppliers can now record consumption of unplanned limits for materials during the creation of invoices.
Discount Management :Early payment offer updates after acceptance
Network may optionally recalculate the payment date and discount amount on a pro-rated sliding scale if an accepted early payment offer has not received a matching remittance by the due date. Ariba network also sends a payment proposal request update with a new payment date and amount if the accepted early payment offer is late. Payment date, discount amount, and settlement amount continuously update until matching remittance received or payment date = net due date
The Key benefits of this capability includes
- Reduction in complexity and operational cost to recover from an exception
- Suppliers are paid a fair amount according to the agreed upon sliding scale, whilst buyers can realize discounts which might otherwise be paid on the net due date without any discount.
- Easy automated approach to recover from last minute exceptions
E-Invoicing: Tax invoicing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Ariba Network now supports electronic tax invoicing solution in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). This includes receiving, validating, transforming, and transmitting tax invoices between supplier and buyer organizations through Ariba Network. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia tax authority, known as the Saudi Arabian Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA), mandates legal compliance on all the commercial transactions between suppliers and buyers.
Electronic invoicing in KSA is rolled-out in two phases. The first phase is effective December 4, 2021. The following guidelines must be followed by the taxpayers in the first phase:
- All domestic taxpayers must generate, amend and store electronic invoices and related documents such as, credit and debit notes.
- Documents must be in structured file formats. For example, XML.
- Uncontrolled access, modifying invoices and logs, and multiple invoice sequences are prohibited.
Supply Chain Collaboration: Where is my Order with Ariba Network and Global Track and Trace for Supply Chain Transparency
This new innovation provides buyers the ability to receive tracking information in Ariba Network for ship notices, using SAP Logistics Business Network, global track and trace option. The user can navigate between Ariba Network and corresponding information in the global track and trace option, for every ship notice in Ariba Network. The feature also enables Ariba Network Buyers and Planners to receive tracking events information based on Advance Shipment Notices.
This capability provides fulfillment planners to have more efficient collaboration with carriers, and suppliers communicating in real-time on pick-up time, delivery time, and potential delays. Reduction in compliance cost with insights on supplier / carrier risk score, on time delivery score, and other KPIs.
Supply Chain Collaboration: MRP exceptions collaboration for purchase orders with change requests from S/4 HANA
It is imperative for companies to have real-time, end-to-end visibility and control across their supply networks, ensuring that fluctuating customer demands are met and revenues maximized. SAP Supply Chain Collaboration provides planning collaboration between buyers and suppliers, to easily convey or collaborate based on the exceptions generated in Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) which might significantly affect existing or planned orders.
For suppliers, this feature provides a new tile, Order change requests, for the supplier Workbench. This tile reports the number of open change requests, shows request details, and provides filters to customize which information the tile reports. This information helps suppliers collaborate with their buyers on changes to purchase order quantity and date, based on Material Requirements Planning (MRP). In addition, suppliers can use the tile to respond to these purchase-order change requests. Buyer can send the confirmation of the change request responses of the supplier.
Buyers can view change-request information in the details pages of purchase orders, line items, and schedule lines. New transaction rules enable buyers to refine how their suppliers can respond to change requests.
Supply Chain Collaboration: Electronic signatures for quality inspections using DocuSign
This feature allows buyers administrators to require that their suppliers electronically sign
quality inspection results before submitting. Electronic signatures help guarantee the truthfulness of information displayed in documents and are often required by regulatory entities.
Digital signature is used across different industries to guarantee the truthfulness, veracity, and authenticity of the information displayed in a document, but most importantly the digital signature is a key element to regulatory entities.
Asset Network Collaboration : Collaborative Maintenance & Service
- Acknowledge Work Order operations
- Enable service providers to accept or reject work order information shared by the operator
- Service Providers can optionally provide comment while accepting / rejecting an operation.
- Operators can view the acknowledgement status maintained by service providers or contractors
- Maintain documents for Notifications
- Enable Operators & Service Providers to view, attach new documents and make changes to the document assignments for a given notification
- Organizations who have edit privileges can maintain documents for a given notification header
- Events are raised whenever there are changes to the document assignments for a given notification header
- Maintain documents for Work Orders
- Enable Operators & Service Providers to view, attach new documents and make changes to the document assignments for a given work order and operation
- Organizations who have edit privileges can maintain documents for a given work order header & operation
- Events are raised whenever there are changes to the document assignments for a given work order header & operation
The above summarizes the key innovations for 2111,We hope you enjoy the new capabilities in this release .Thanks for reading the blog post and Stay tuned!
To learn more about SAP Business Network visithttp://sap.com/businessnetwork
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