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Author's profile photo Ganesh Namasivaya

Overview of SAP Document Compliance (fka eDocument) solution

It is a legal requirement in many countries that companies must issue business documents electronically to business partners and/or legal authorities such as Delivery Notes, Invoices, Credit Memo, Debit Memo, Tax Certificates etc. In addition, some countries require companies to send data of their VAT(Value Added Tax) register books to Tax Authorities (e.g. Spain SII), Ledgers (e.g. Chile). In this blog, I would like to give an overview of the eDocument solution and its solution components, Solution Landscape, Solution Architecture and other salient features of the eDocument Framework.

To meet above mentioned legal compliance requirements in countries where companies are obliged to generate documents electronically, SAP offers eDocument solution. SAP eDocument solution is used to create eDocuments, that is, to transform transactional data created in SAP ECC or S/4HANA system into predefined exchange formats and transfer it electronically to external systems such as to the systems of legal or Tax Authorities. Some countries require companies to exchange data in a specific data exchange format, in most cases it is an XML file with a predefined structure and fields.

Depending on the country and scenarios, eDocument is created for certain type of source document. Below are some examples of source documents

Creation of eDocuments can be broadly classified into two scenarios:

  1. Outgoing (e.g. Customer Invoice, Payment Receipt, Delivery Note)
  2. Incoming (e.g. Vendor Invoice, Invoice Receipt, Goods Receipt)

A typical processing of an outgoing eDocument consists of the following steps:

  1. Generation of source documents (e.g. SD Billing document, Customer Invoice in FI etc.)
  2. Generation of eDocuments
  3. Transmission of eDocuments to external systems
  4. Monitoring eDocument processing status
  5. Update of eDocument status in cockpit based on data coming from external systems

As depicted in the solution architecture, the solution components of eDocument solution are

  • eDocument Framework
  • Country specific solution
  • SAP Document Compliance, on-premise edition
  • SAP Cloud Platform Integration. In case of EU countries leveraging PEPPOL, the communication platform will be SAP Document Compliance, invoicing option for PEPPOL

To implement eDocument Framework, refer to the attachment in  SAP Note 2134248 – eDocument Framework – Installation Overview

SAP Document Compliance, on premise edition. This is technically AIF add-on which has limited runtime usage right for the Application Interface Framework (AIF) and is used to map transactional data to required XML format. AIF additionally provides below key features

  • One approach for multiple countries and eDocument types
  • Business monitoring in ERP
  • Structured display of eDocument data
  • Start follow up actions (e.g. re-submit, verify authorization)
  • Display/download exchanged XML files
  • Navigate to source documents (e.g. Delivery Note, SD Invoice, FI Invoice)
  • Flexible Mapping and Process Management
  • Proxies to connect to SAP CPI containing complete data structures for the country-specific formats

Note: SAP Document Compliance, on premise edition requires separate license (See Note 2378414)

SAP Cloud Platform Integration (CPI) is used as a communication platform to establish communication with external systems by using web services to send data from SAP ECC or S/4HANA and to receive data from external systems. Depending on the country and scenario, SAP Cloud Platform Integration also formats the data to comply with the Web service parameters, signs the document digitally, and establishes a secure connection using SSL. Other key features of CPI are as below

  • Synchronous and asynchronous message exchanges
  • Support for multiple endpoints (service URLs) on the same integration flow
  • Support for several digital signature formats
  • Secure Keystore keeps certificates and credentials on customer’s own tenant
  • Easy compression, encoding and assembling of XML envelopes to comply with the communication standards required by different laws from different countries

Note: SAP Cloud Platform Integration requires subscription

There is much more to say about the eDocument solution. Check our product page to find videos and more detailed information about the country specific features, installation and troubleshooting.

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      27 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Kiran Kola
      Kiran Kola

      Excellent blog Ganesh! great job

       

      Author's profile photo Pradyumna Kumar Mishra
      Pradyumna Kumar Mishra

      Awesome blog. Really Helpful.

       

      Author's profile photo Tristan Hu
      Tristan Hu

      Good architectural summary! Thanks!

      Author's profile photo Martin Lin
      Martin Lin

       

      Great summary, Ganesh.

      Author's profile photo Andy Silvey
      Andy Silvey

       

      Hi Former Member,

      this is a great very useful blog thanks.

      Quick question, regarding Archiving for eDocuments,

      the archiving happens on-premise from the SAP backend source system

      or the archiving happens in the eDocuments in the SAP Cloud Platform ?

      Best regards,

      Andy Silvey

      Author's profile photo Jelena Perfiljeva
      Jelena Perfiljeva

      Andy, did OP have a name when you posted? "Formerized" folks won't get notified of the comments, unfortunately. Might want to post this as a question.

       

      Author's profile photo Andy Silvey
      Andy Silvey

      Hi Jelena,

      thanks for the tip 🙂

      I shall get with the program and post a question.

      Andy.

      Author's profile photo Fernando Salazar
      Fernando Salazar

      Excellent document!

      Very helpful. Thanks for sharing.

       

      Thanks

      Fernando

      Author's profile photo Arun Sitaraman
      Arun Sitaraman

      Thank you for a very useful blog!

      Best,
      Arun

      Author's profile photo Antonio Cianciarulo
      Antonio Cianciarulo

      Perfect blog! Very useful!

      Cheers

      Toni

      Author's profile photo Ahmad Shujah
      Ahmad Shujah

      Good morning,

      Right now I am trying to impliment edocument solution in our System, some how am not able to understand HowTo. Have been reading Tons of SAP Notes but still not able to understand the procedure.

       

      Is there someone who can pls. help me to understand and guide me through steps needed to use this option.

       

      Your help is highly appreciated..

       

      Thank you in advance

      Shujah

      Author's profile photo Ajay Chillarige
      Ajay Chillarige

      Hi Ganesh,

      It was a very useful Blog. Thank you for your support in advance.

      Thanks and Regards,

      Ajay Chillarige

       

      Author's profile photo Project Team Project Team
      Project Team Project Team

       

      Hi,

      The mapping between Sap document and XML how is done ? It is requested to map Sap table field and XML and where has to be inserted ?

      Thanks.

      Josy.

      Author's profile photo Marco Haas
      Marco Haas

      Abstract: Very good blog.

      Author's profile photo Nanda Pandit-Champsi
      Nanda Pandit-Champsi

       

      Thanks for sharing. Great info.

      Author's profile photo Pradeep Mani
      Pradeep Mani

      Is this applicable India GST compliance too??

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Ganesh,

      "This is technically AIF add-on which has limited runtime usage right for the Application Interface Framework (AIF) and is used to map transactional data to required XML format. AIF additionally provides below key features"

       

      Is there any AIF coding involved or just the OSS notes will take care of everything in a landscape where there are no extra customizations required.

      Thanks,

      Prasenjit

      Author's profile photo Ganesh Namasivaya
      Ganesh Namasivaya
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Prasenjit,

      No AIF coding is needed as OSS notes will take care of the XML generation using the mapping maintained via Value mapping (/AIF/VMAP) and Fix Values (/AIF/CUST).

      Best Regards,

      Ganesh

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi  Ganesh,

       

      Thanks for confirming, yeah we could manage it that way only some values, BC sets and a few BAdIs basically that's it.

       

      Regards,

      Prasenjit

      Author's profile photo Kiran Kumar B
      Kiran Kumar B

      Hi Prasenjit,

       

      Could you please sahre your email ID I would like to know Edocument solution for Sweden

      Author's profile photo Sanjay Kumar
      Sanjay Kumar

      Hello - Is it possible , if you could share what are common issues we face after implementing eDocs

      Author's profile photo Sanjay Kumar
      Sanjay Kumar

      expecting to check more common issues both from technical and from compliance prospective

       

      Author's profile photo J. Escobia
      J. Escobia

      This solution is suitable for Argentina ?

      Author's profile photo Liz Dickinson
      Liz Dickinson

      Do you know if there is a possibility for manual update of status in eDocument cockpit?  We have a solution whereby invoices are being sent via PI to a Germany government portal but we do not receive a return message to enable the status to be updated in the monitor.  Any help gratefully received.

      Author's profile photo Ashish Sarkhel
      Ashish Sarkhel

      Great Blog , Nice work

       

      Author's profile photo Ashish Sarkhel
      Ashish Sarkhel

      Great explanation

      Author's profile photo Jodson Philippe Marcon
      Jodson Philippe Marcon

      I have a question, doesn't DRC currently create MIGO and MIRO automatically, even for these default processes?