I received an electronic supplier invoice, what now?

[eleonora_vidal]

You have implemented the supplier invoice feature of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance in SAP S/4HANA or SAP ERP. As a result, you can now see the electronic document in the Manage Electronic Documents app or in the eDocument Cockpit. The obvious question is: what happens now?

At first, not much: the invoice you received per web service, either via integration of SAP Integration Suite or SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition, is forwarded to the application in the business system where you can see in the eDocument Created status.

Example of eDocument Created in the eDocument Cockpit

 

Example of eDocument Created in the Manage Electronic Documents app

What many don't know is that you can do much more. For many countries for which we support supplier invoices we also offer a generic Business and Add-In (BAdI), which enables you to integrate any incoming automation systems.

When you implement the BAdI, you are able, directly from the Manage Electronic Documents app or the eDocument Cockpit, to connect to the incoming automation system of your choice. From there, in turn, you can continue with the next steps of an incoming invoice end-to-end process, such as checking the received invoice against your purchase order and triggering the invoice payment. The exact steps you can perform will depend on the capabilities offered by the solution you have implemented.

Incoming Automation System - Implementation Steps

1. Implement the BAdI:

Regardless of whether you are using the Manage Electronic Documents app or the eDocument Cockpit, you implement the eDocument Incoming Automation (EDOC_INCOM_CONNECTOR) BAdI. For the Manage Electronic Documents app, you need to additionally implement the Navigation to Target Documents (EDOC_FIORI_TARGET_DOC) BAdI.

Detailed information on the implementation of these BAdIs you find directly in the system. Call the BAdIs using SE20 and check the documentation as displayed in the screenshot.

BAdI documentation in the system

2. Define settings in customizing

After implementing the BAdIs, you must connect your system to this implementation. First, you define the incoming automation you have implemented and after that you assign this solution to the supplier invoice process in the Manage Electronic Documents app or eDocument Cockpit.

For that, you use the following customizing views:

• Define Incoming Automation Solution (EDOINCOMSOLDEFV)

• Assign Incoming Automation Solution to Process  (EDOINCOMSOLV)

Country Availability

Currently, this is the list of countries for which you can implement an incoming automation system in SAP S/4HANA:

Australia	Germany	Norway
Austria	Ireland	Poland (B2B), Poland (B2G)
Belgium	Italy	Romania
Colombia	Japan	Singapore
Denmark	Luxembourg	Sweden
Finland	Netherlands	Switzerland
France	New Zealand

and in SAP ERP:

Australia	Germany	Norway
Austria	Ireland	Poland (B2B),Poland (B2G),
Belgium	Italy	Romania
Colombia	Japan	Singapore
Denmark	Luxembourg	Sweden
Finland	Netherlands	Switzerland
France	New Zealand

Example with SAP Invoice Management by OpenText

In this blog post, we would like to demonstrate the end-to-end scenario integrating SAP Document and Reporting Compliance and SAP Invoice Management by OpenText (aka Vendor Invoice Management, or VIM).

Note: SAP Invoice Management by OpenText supports different electronic invoice formats. See the SAP Note 3417665 for more information.

Once you have integrated both solutions, two new features become available in your business system:

Create Incoming Invoice

A pushbutton is enabled in the main header of the incoming process in the Manage Electronic Documents app and eDocument Cockpit. With this button you trigger the creation of an incoming invoice in the integrated solution:

Create Incoming Invoice in the eDocument Cockpit

Create Incoming Invoice in the Manage Electronic Documents app

By the way, did you know you can automate this action for all your incoming invoices? You can use the eDocument Background Processing (EDOC_BACKGROUND transaction) to schedule a job for this automation. You just need to select the incoming process for the country/region AND the Automatic Process (INCOM_AUTO) action: 

When you use this function, the following happens:

1. SAP Invoice Management by OpenText records the incoming invoice and processes it as follows:
   
   
   1. First, the system archives the invoice.
   
   
   1. Then, it parses and maps the XML header and line items using predefined mappings.
   
   
   1. It creates the invoice in human-readable format (PDF).
   
   
   

1. It applies a set of intelligent features to eliminate manual processing, for example:
   
   
   1. Determine tax codes based on the tax percentages of the invoice.
   
   
   1. Predict and suggest cost assignments for invoices without purchase orders.
   
   
   1. Fix matching problems for invoices related to one or multiple purchase orders.
   
   
   

1. Once the invoice is ready to be posted, the system runs a set of business checks to ensure data completeness, consistency, and compliance. It also checks if approvals are required and other posting pre-conditions are met. If any issue is found, the system finds the responsible user based on user-roles assignment.

Once your system is in production, you can automate the above steps using background jobs.

Note for implementation: During the integration with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, you can define at which point in the process you want to request the acceptance message from the business system. The screenshot below shows the available acceptance options.

Activation of Integration with SAP Invoice Management

Users may reject invoices as part of the invoice exception processing. In that case, SAP Document and Reporting Compliance informs the sender about the rejection.

Target Document

A menu option under Target Document under Goto... is enabled to connect an eDocument and its respective incoming invoice in the integrated solution.

Target Document in the eDocument Cockpit

Target Document in the Manage Electronic Documents app

Once you integrate your business system with SAP Invoice Management,  this function displays the selected invoice in VIM Analytics. This application allows you to check the process status or access related objects, such as purchase orders or the procurement or finance invoices. From VIM Analytics you can also navigate back to the corresponding eDocument. This feature allows users to identify root causes whenever there is an issue.

Learn more about SAP Invoice Management by OpenText in the Help Portal.

 

I hope this blog post was useful for you! You can leave a comment here or continue browsing our community for more blog posts on SAP Document and Reporting Compliance topics.

Looking forward to seeing you here again!