Highlights for Sourcing & Procurement in SAP S/4HANA 2020

In the following blog, I will summarize the highlights that come for the LoB Sourcing & Procurement.

SAP S/4HANA Sourcing and Procurement Certification Preparation Guide

For quick access, just click on the below topic areas:

• Operational Procurement
  
• Procurement Analytics
  
• Invoice and Payables Management
  
• Central Procurement*
  
• Sourcing & Contract Management
  
• Integration*

Operational Procurement

Requirements Processing

Delivery address and improved message handling in self-service requisitioning

Capabilities:

• Maintenance of the delivery address of purchase requisition item, based on whether the address type is “plant” or “user entry”
  
• Ability to enter the delivery address manually if the address type is “user entry”
  
• Automatic updating of the delivery address with the plant address if the address type is “plant”

Benefits:

• Improved flexibility by allowing the user to toggle between address types as required
  
• Enhanced usability with the delivery address automatically updated based on updates to “plant” address types

Fig. 1: Delivery address selection by plant or user entry.

Obtain better business insights through enhanced approval details, storage location and commitments in professional purchase requisitions

Capabilities:

• Enhanced approval details in purchase requisitions to simulate the approval process and display results in the header for overall release
  
• Enable purchasers to specify the storage location within a plant in a purchase requisition item, using an app or an OData API
  
• Maintain the delivery address of the purchase requisition item based on the storage location
  
• Display the table of commitments for purchase requisition items that have commitment-relevant account assignments; table display of one line for each combination of purchase requisition item and account assignment line
  
• Display residual commitment if the commitment has been reduced; for example, by a purchase order

Benefits:

• Simulate the approval process during creation of purchase requisitions
  
• Display approval details in the header object page if the overall release is applicable
  
• Improved process efficiency through availability of the storage location where the materials or services must be delivered
  
• Reduced time and efforts through maintenance of a precise delivery location within a plant
  
• Improved efficiency by aiding in the budget control process
  
• Increased transparency by displaying the budget reserved in anticipation of a consumption event

Fig. 2: Option to display commitments inside the Purchase Requisition.

Purchase requisition workflows for identifying the manager or skip approval levels, including total valuation price and completion

Capabilities:

• Ability to skip approval steps for purchase requisition in case:
  
  • Approval step marked as optional in the “Manage Workflow for Purchase Requisitions” app
    
  • No agents determined for the approval step
    
  • If approval step skipped, the approval workflow to move to next approval step if relevant
    
• Change account assignment information for purchase requisitions with overall release
  
  • Edit the following fields at the item-details level:
    
    • Account assignment category
      
    • Distribution indicator
      
    • Account assignment details
      
• New approver agent manager of last approver available in the line-item approval process for purchase requisitions
  
• Display of the total valuation price of line items in purchase requisitions awaiting approval in the SAP Fiori app My Inbox

Benefits:

• Streamlined processes and increased control
  
• Reduced delay of approvals
  
• Approvers enabled to:
  
  • Provide accurate accounting information in purchase-requisition line items
    
  • Complete purchase requisitions by changing accounting details during approval
    
• Improved flexibility in configuration of approval agents as users in higher levels of managerial positions can be added as approvers
  
• Eliminates the need of a BADI to add users in higher levels of managerial positions as approvers
  
• Approver has the ability to view the total valuation price of a line item to be approved
  
• Enhanced user experience for approvers of line items in purchase requisitions

Fig. 3: Approvers to provide accurate accounting information in purchase requisition line items.

Fig. 4: Determine “manager of last approver” in local class based item level workflow scenario.

Purchase Order Processing

Unplanned services with reference to a purchase contract

Capabilities:

• Upon creation of a purchase order for unplanned services, a user can assign a contract as a source of supply for a limit item
  
• While confirming the services in a service entry sheet, a user can select a free-text service item from the contract that has been assigned in the purchase order

Benefits:

• Improved predictability even for service limits
  
• Allows only negotiated services (scope and price) to be used during service confirmation for a limit

Fig. 5: Creation of a purchaser order for unplanned services.

Increase process transparency by showing down payment, reminders, and dunning activity in purchase orders

Capabilities:

Close, automated collaboration with suppliers if there is an expectation from the buying side that the planned delivery date might not be achievable (reminders) or in case they are not delivering ordered items as planned (dunning):

• Inclusion of reminders and dunning information in purchase order processing
  
• Report to trigger creation of reminders and dunning letters for output

Benefits:

• Increased transparency
  
• Improved collaboration
  
• More-efficient processes

Increase process efficiency by extending existing purchase contracts for open purchase requisitions

Capabilities:

• Enable the purchaser to add unsourced requisition items to an open purchase order or contracts that contain the same materials

Benefits:

• Creation of a new Purchase Order from scratch
  
• Shorter contract negotiation time through the ability to add an item to an open contract

Procurement Analytics

Increase real-time visibility of automation rates in procurement documents

Capabilities:

• Monitor process automation, which is a key value driver in procurement
  
• Leverage key performance indicators to analyze and monitor the automation rate of a purchasing document like purchase order and supplier invoice

Benefit:

• Increased transparency into the number of documents processed automatically instead of manually

Fig. 6: Purchase Order Automation – Automated vs. manual output.

Increase process transparency into innovation and business value drive during supplier selection and relationship

Capabilities:

• Provide smart system support for customers deciding on the right supplier to deliver goods or services
  
• Provide a holistic view of the supplier while conducting an important manual or automated source review of supply assignment
  
• Maintain scores for user defined criteria of supplier evaluation to measure the supplier holistically

Benefits:

• Increased transparency into the entire supplier lifecycle and relationship
  
• Option to influence supplier performance by individual criteria, that are customer specific and do not exist in SAP S/4HANA

Fig. 7: Supplier evaluation by user defined criteria.

Parts Per Million, measure number of quality notifications & returns rate in relation to goods receipt

Capabilities:

• Real-time calculation of parts per million score by various dimensions, e.g. supplier, material group, purchasing organizations or plant.
  
• Calculate number of items received against number of items returned.
  
• Calculate number of items received against number of items for which quality notifications are created.
  
• Navigate to respective documents from key performance indicators

Benefits:

• Gain immediate insights into quality performance of the suppliers delivering goods
  
• Analyze in real-time the parts per million score to discuss with the suppliers potential activities to improve quality

Fig. 8: Parts per Million by returns and quality notifications.

Monitor missing exchange rates between document and display currency

Capabilities:

• App for the monitoring of purchasing analytics operations that shows purchasing documents with missing exchange rates and allows users to directly maintain the missing exchange rate information

Benefits:

• Pinpoint missing currency conversion data
  
• Eliminate reporting gaps due to missing exchange rates
  
• Improved efficiency as a result of having accurate exchange rates in purchasing documents

Fig. 9: Monitor Purchasing Analytics Operations.

Invoice and Payables Management

Display additional information in the My Inbox app for supplier invoices

Capabilities:

• Display detailed information about the invoice items of an invoice when the invoice is available as a work item in My Inbox.
  
• Details can include information about the purchase order, the accounting object, the material, the quantity, the amount and the tax code.
  
• Administrators need to configure the authorization for displaying invoice items for respective users.

Benefit:

• Helps task receivers to make a confident decision on how to proceed with an invoice

Fig. 10: My Inbox displaying additional information.

Support for prepayments in the Manage Supplier Invoices ap

Capabilities:

• Support of for prepayments using the app Manage Supplier Invoices
  
• Use prepayment for suppliers with whom you have built up good business relations over a longer period of time

Benefit:

• Enable the management of prepayments using the Manage Supplier Invoices app
  

Enablement of APIs to support direct material postings

Capabilities:

• Enablement of the OData API “API_SUPPLIERINVOICE_PROCESS” to create direct material postings that can be triggered by external systems

Benefit:

• Improved customer satisfaction as manual error handling is reduced

Ability to consume various procurement APIs

Capabilities:

• Publishing of various APIs to allow customers to extend core processes in SAP S/4HANA for procurement
  
• Provision of APIs to cover the E2E business processes “source-to-contract” and “procure-to-invoice”
  
• APIs that include SOAP, OData, and core data services (CDS) technology

Benefit:

• Allow customers to extend core processes in SAP S/4HANA for procurement by various APIs

Central Procurement*

Increase real-time visibility into central procurement analytics in SAP Analytics Cloud

Capabilities:

• Central procurement analytics providing insights into consumption of central purchase contracts
  
• Dashboards for central procurement analytics in the SAP Analytics Cloud solution in addition to analytics functionality directly embedded in SAP S/4HANA

Benefit:

• Increased transparency
  
• Analyze central purchase contract consumption centrally across all connected systems

Fig. 11: Dashboard inside SAP Analytics Cloud*.

Enhancements in the Central Procurement Operations Monitor app

Capabilities:

• View the compatibility between hub and connected systems
  
• Inspect the status of the connected systems
  
• Check the compatibility of drivers for central procurement business scenarios
  
• Display errors while performing actions in case systems are not compatible

Benefits:

• Save unnecessary development efforts by verifying the compatibility between connected systems upfront
  
• Gain real-time transparency about the status of the connected systems
  
• Overview of the compatibility of hub and connected systems in a single place
  
• Ability to check on the respective actions in central purchasing in case compatibility is not met between connected systems
  
• Intuitive monitoring and ability to take necessary action to maintain compatibility between systems

Fig. 12: Central Procurement Operations Monitor app.

Additional functionality in the Manage Purchase Requisitions Centrally app

Capabilities:

• Display extensible fields in centrally managed applications
  
• Support extraction of extended field information from a connected system into a hub system for purchase requisitions (PRs) and purchase orders (POs)
  
• Display these extended fields in the object pages and list pages of respective centrally managed applications
  
• Enable approvers to:
  Change a purchase requisition (PR) or PR item before approving it
  
  • Navigate to the PR from the respective connected system

Benefits:

• Display of extended field information in the hub system to reduce efforts in navigating to connected systems
  
• In hub systems, ready availability of information on the extensible field on the connected system’s Purchase Requisitions and Purchase Orders
  
• Help for searching out the purchasing documents based on the extensible fields
  
• Availability of the updated Purchase Requisition for approval based on the defined configuration of the workflow

Fig. 13: Display of extended field information.

Enhancements in the Manage Purchase Orders Centrally app

Capabilities:

• Refresh centrally managed purchase orders
  
• Search and display purchase order attributes, using the Unified Key Mapping switch
  
• View notes that are maintained and extracted from the connected systems to the hub system for the selected purchase order
  
• Extend the app according to your business needs by adding your own fields to the standard set of fields

Benefits:

• To refresh the purchase order in hub system on the need basis immediately after making changes in connected system
  
• List down purchase orders capability using the MDG capabilities
  
• View the extracted notes information in the centrally managed purchase orders
  
• View the extend fields on the UI which has been extracted from connected systems

Employee self-service confirmation with Confirm Receipt of Goods-New

Capabilities:

• New application to post employee confirmations
  
• Support of central requisitioning scenarios
  
• Application support for both complete and partial confirmations

Benefits:

• Supports employee confirmations with an improved look and feel
  
• Hide confirmed Purchase Requisitions in the central-requisitioning scenario
  
• Easier Purchase Reauisition search based on document numbers along with plant and company code

Fig. 14: Confirm Receipt of Goods-New app

Sourcing & Contract Management

Enterprise Contract Management

Improve processing time for new contract creation by providing of document variables for legal content assembly templates*

Capabilities:

• Support the definition of variables based on legal transaction attributes
  
• Expose variables to the SAP Cloud Platform Legal Content Assembly* service
  
• Insert variables into legal templates in SAP Cloud Platform Legal Content Assembly* and automatically pull attribute values from transactions in SAP S/4HANA for legal content into assembled legal documents

Benefits:

• Highlight important business data in legal documents in SAP Legal Content Assembly* through document variables

Fig. 15: SAP Legal Content Assembly* template with variables.

Deliver flexible integration of central purchase contract with SAP S/4HANA for Enterprise Contract Management*

Capabilities:

• Integration with SAP S/4HANA for enterprise contract management based on the existing SAP S/4HANA software solution, which enables users to capture legal obligations from the central contract scope.

Benefits:

• Improved user experience
  
• Support for companies to collect all legal obligations centrally in a single application

Fig. 16: New object type: Central Purchase Contract.

Flexible Workflow Extension for SAP S/4HANA for Enterprise Contract Management*

Capabilities:

• Option to define custom step in workflow
  
• Option to determine custom agents

Benefits:

• Flexibility to introduce custom logic in workflow process
  
• Ability to define custom step for specific business purposes
  
• Ability to determine custom agents using enhanced Responsibility Management feature

Fig. 17: New possibility to define a custom step in a workflow.

Create categories from custom data source with SAP S/4HANA for Enterprise Contract Management*

Capabilities:

• Ability to configure category model required to generate categories.
  
• Helps to reduce total cost of development by enabling category generation

Benefits:

• Generate categories from customer data sources

Fig. 18: Choose from different Catagory Tables.

Integration*

Lean service integration with SAP Ariba Network and the guided buying capability (2NV/3EN)

Capabilities:

• Creating lean service requisitions in the guided buying capability for SAP Ariba solutions
  
• Processing follow-on documents for lean services, such as purchase orders, service entry sheets, and supplier invoices in SAP S/4HANA
  
• If central procurement is integrated, creating follow-on documents in the systems connected to SAP S/4HANA, which acts as a hub system
  
• Sending service purchase orders to suppliers on SAP Ariba Network
  
• Receiving and approving service entry sheets and invoices for lean service items in SAP S/4HANA from your suppliers on Ariba Network

Benefits:

• Guidance for employees requesting planned services
  
• Electronic exchange of purchasing documents for lean services with suppliers on SAP Ariba Network

Send comments providing reasons for rejecting service entry sheets in the “My Inbox” app to SAP Ariba solutions or an external business-to-business system

Capabilities:

• Status “reject” for service entry sheets that were rejected in the My Inbox app
  
• Delivery of comments from My Inbox to SAP Ariba Network when a service entry sheet is rejected
  
• Possibility to configure whether such comments should be transferred to SAP Ariba Network

Benefits:

• Improvement over the past process when a service entry sheet was created from a supplier in SAP Ariba Network and transferred to SAP S/4HANA and the creator of the service entry sheet was not informed that the service entry sheet was rejected by the approver or why
  
• Configurability of the information transferred to externals
  
• External accessibility of service entry sheet information in My Inbox