XRechnung, ZUGFeRD and Peppol – All you wanted to know about the electronic invoice in Germany – What does SAP actually offer (part 4/4)

Knowing the context of the electronic invoice, and what XRechnung and ZUGFeRD stand for, let us now turn to SAP’s offering.

While SAP offered a consulting solution for sending ZUGFeRD invoices already in 2013, Peppol and e-mail delivery are now available as a standard product: SAP Document Compliance, cloud edition (formerly known as SAP Document Compliance, invoicing option for Peppol). SAP users with subsidiaries abroad already know SAP Document Compliance as an “on-premise edition” or under its former name “eDocuments”. In combination with SAP Cloud Platform Integration, SAP Document Compliance enables the end-to-end connection of governments or business partners in more than 20 countries.

The reason for a cloud edition is that certain services such as Peppol can only be offered by certified providers. In this case, SAP has to manage the service and can only offer it as a cloud business application.

Illustration: Implementation options depend on country scenarios and/or on whether SAP can/must act as a provider.

The cloud edition of SAP Document Compliance includes the usage rights for the required mapping tool (SAP Application Interface Framework, AIF) and for the on-premise connector. Business users benefit from a single user interface across all scenarios. Whether Peppol, email delivery, inbound or outbound invoices or non-Peppol scenarios such as FatturaPA in Italy, SII in Spain, invoice registration in Hungary or payment registration in Mexico, the cockpit looks just the same. This makes SAP Document Compliance a great solution for e.g. smaller billing teams and shared service centers.

The invoicing option for Peppol does not only cover Germany. Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden are already there. Denmark and Austria are released to pilots. Singapore is in preparation [1].

The option also covers incoming invoices and has a standard interface to SAP Invoice Management by OpenText in Germany. Belgium and the Netherlands and Italy also do. Other countries are planned to follow by OpenText for all Peppol countries and other invoice approval addons can be connected in projects.

What exactly does the solution include for Germany?

• Billing from SAP modules SD, FI, IS-U (Utilities) and Convergent Invoicing (CI):
  • via the Peppol infrastructure in XRechnung (UBL) syntax for billing e.g. local authorities (using the so-called Leitweg-IDs) and business partners (using e.g. VAT-IDs)
  • via the Peppol infrastructure with the so-called Peppol mandatory profile (BIS BiIlling 3.0) for cross-border billing from Germany to foreign authorities and business partners
  • via email as PDF including UN/CEFACT XML. The SAP solution follows KoSIT-XRechnung specifications as prescribed for German public entities. As mentioned above (part 3), ZUGFeRD 2.1 meanwhile supports an XRechnung variant (version 2.1 Comfort XRechnung).
• Invoice reception via the Peppol infrastructure of XRechnung and BIS Billing 3.0 invoices, including a standard interface with SAP Invoice Management by OpenText.

Since March 2020, a Transport based Correction Instructions (TCI) package is available for the installation of SAP Document Compliance and the basis Peppol notes. This simplifies the initial implementations for greenfield customers (see note 2861425 for details).

Illustration: End-to-end Peppol process and the roles of self-service Peppol apps

In addition to SAP Consulting, many SAP Partners have already implemented SAP Document Compliance worldwide and can support both initial and delta implementations in Germany and other Peppol countries.

The product documentation can be found at help.sap.com:

• Peppol Service Guide
• Installing and Configuring the SAP Cloud Platform Cloud Connector
• SAP S / 4HANA customizing for eDocuments or SAP ECC eDocument for Germany

You can obtain sales information on “SAP Document Compliance, cloud edition” from your usual SAP contact person (Account Executive or SAP Reseller).

Today, horses and carriages are mostly used for sport and hobby. When it comes to electronic invoicing, let us also move with our time.

The series is drawn from the German blog XRechnung, ZUGFeRD und Peppol – Alles, was Sie über die elektronische Rechnung wissen wollen (und vielleicht mehr). For details on the German Peppol ID, see the blog LeitwegID – All you wanted to know about the identification of public organizations for electronic invoicing in Germany. For more information on SAP Document Compliance, see the related Community page.

[1] This is current state of planning and may be changed by SAP at any time without notice and for any reason.