Sourcing & Procurement in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2011

Hi and welcome,

in the following blog I will cover the main deliveries that come with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud release 2011 in Sourcing & Procurement. Click on the below highlight video for the top 3 innovations:

Operational Procurement

• Inclusion of materials in service entry sheets
• Default user settings for the “Purchase Order Price Type” field
• Add material and service limit items via Purchase Requisition OData API and consider in workflow
• Copying of line items within self-service Purchase Requisitions

Procurement Analytics

• Provision of supplier evaluation score output to suppliers

Invoice and Payables Management

• Mass Change of Posting Date for preliminary invoices
• Display of supplier name and address in the Manage Supplier Invoices app
• Allow users to maintain recurring supplier invoices with certain recurrence pattern and rules

Central Procurement

• Enhanced versioning in central contracts*
• Material group item type in central purchase contracts*
• Renewal actions in hierarchy central purchase contracts*

Integration

• Quick enablement of suppliers on SAP Ariba Network (42K)*

Enterprise Contract Management

• Document Classification with Enterprise Contract Management*
• View Legal Documents in Legal Transactions with Neutral Relationships*
• Filter Legal Transaction Based on Linked Object*

Procurement planning

• New app to support project management for direct material sourcing*

Operational Procurement

Inclusion of materials in service entry sheets

Let’s increase the flexibility by handling services and materials together throughout the whole procurement process. With this release users can now record consumable materials in service entry sheets. Consumable materials are items of product type group Material (01) that were used during the execution of a service and that were planned together with a service in the reference Purchase Order. That way we group materials’ information in the Purchase Order together with the service for which it was consumed.

Let’s go through this with an example: let’s assume you are planning an event that requires support of an external service provider in form of an event agency. In addition, you want the service provider’s employees to give away promotional gifts at the event. After the event, it is known how many of the promotional gifts have been given away. The external service hours and the consumed materials need to be maintained. It is now possible to maintain consumable materials together with the service execution inside the service entry sheet. Offering one place to maintain all spent resources brings two cost-saving benefits: first, less time spent – there is no need to maintain multiple documents to enter all the relevant information anymore. Second, a complete overview of all spent resources during approval which leads to faster decision making. This greatly improves transparency on consumption of materials during services delivery.

Demo 1: From the creation of a Purchase Order incl. materials and services to the maintenance of the same in the Service Entry Sheet.

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Default user settings for the “Purchase Order Price Type” field

For better a better automation of the ‘Purchase Requisition to Purchase Order’ conversion process we allow to define a default price type for users. Configuration Experts can define defaults for the Purchase Order price type using the SAP Fiori app or the API for Default Settings for Users. The default Purchase Order price type can take one of the values: ‘Do not adopt’, ‘As gross price’ or ‘As net price’. More information can be found here.

Fig. 1: Purchase Requisition showing the Purchase Order Price Type selection field.

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Add material and service limit items via Purchase Requisition OData API and consider in workflow

We continuously enhance our APIs. This release we add more parameters to the Purchase Requisition OData API to allow limit item specifications. On the one hand, one can define the amount expected to be spent on the limit item, on the other hand, the overall maximum amount that can be spent can be defined, e.g. from an external system. Further enhancements come for the workflow for limit items. If the start condition of the workflow is based on the net amount or total net amount, the expected value of the limit item is considered. More information here.

Fig. 2: Enhanced Purchase Requisition workflow for limit items.

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Copying of line items within self-service Purchase Requisitions

It is now way easier to duplicate line items in self-service Purchase requisitions. Make use of the copy function to duplicate line items and their properties inside the cart overview. This usability improvement holds also for Central Purchase Requisitions.

Fig. 3: Easily duplicate line items in self-service Purchase Requisitions.

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Procurement Analytics

Provision of supplier evaluation score output to suppliers

Monitoring the performance of suppliers is an important task of a strategic buyer. In SAP S/4HANA the performance of suppliers is measured across multiple criteria in different real-time key performance indicators. Buying companies want to share and expose the calculated scores to their suppliers. This can now be done via a, flexible to configure, form by print out or email. This creates much more transparency between the buying and supplying company. Check out the new app ‘Supplier Evaluation Score Output‘ for more information and watch the demo below.

Demo 2: How to create the Supplier Evaluation Output Score and send it.

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Invoice and Payables Management

Mass Change of Posting Date for preliminary invoices

What do you think of a reduced effort in making manual changes to posting dates in preliminary supplier invoices? Wouldn’t that be nice?

So let’s go for it: We make it possible to change the posting date of multiple supplier invoices with status ‘Parked’ or ‘Parked as Completed’ at once. Even the tax determination date can be changed at once. Users can review the list of selected supplier invoices or directly change the supplier invoices with one click. See the documentation for more information.

Fig. 4: New app to change the posting date of multiple supplier invoices.

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Display of supplier name and address in the Manage Supplier Invoices app

The ‘Manage Supplier Invoices’-app enables easier identification of suppliers without additional user navigation. Looking at a supplier invoice we add an invoicing party contact card that provides a quick overview of all relevant contact data such as company data and contact details. It is also possible to navigate to the supplier object page for detailed information. Check the documentation here.

Fig. 5: Contact card for viewing invoicing party data.

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Allow users to maintain recurring supplier invoices with certain recurrence pattern and rules

We now allow users to maintain recurring supplier invoices with certain recurrence pattern and rules. This will increase efficiency by providing users with a better way to maintain the invoices that need to be paid at regular intervals using the new SAP Fiori App ‘Manage Recurring Supplier Invoice‘.

For more information, check out Uli’s blog for Finance here.

Fig. 6: New ‘Manage Recurring Supplier Invoice’-app.

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Central Procurement

Enhanced versioning in central contracts*

With release 2005, mid of the year 2020, we introduced versioning capabilities for central purchase contracts. We add the possibility to easily understand and find changes done between two versions of a contract. This is especially useful for tracking the changes in pricing information over the period. Users can select two versions of a central purchase contract from the version history facet and click compare for a detailed comparison. Watch the demo below to understand what we deliver:

Demo 3: How to compare two versions of one Central Purchase Contract.

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Material group item type in central purchase contracts*

We now allow to create central purchase value contracts with item category for material group (W) in order to procure items for the same material group but with different prices. Item category material group (W) allows you to enter a material group without entering the value or quantity of the contract item. This helps for instance, when the exact type of material is known only at the time a specific material is ordered. More information on the ‘Manage Central Purchase Contracts’ can be found here.

Fig. 7: Create central value contract for item category material group (W).

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Renewal actions in hierarchy central purchase contracts*

Last release we introduced the Central Purchase Contract Hierarchy. We improve step by step and add this time the capability to renew contracts to help business users to extend the validity of expiring or expired contracts. This ensures that the procurement of materials and services continues without disruption. A purchaser can renew an existing central purchase contract by choosing the renew button on the list page in order to change the validity end date. The advance option helps to make additional changes before renewing the contract.

Demo 4: How to use the renewal capabilities of Central Puchase Contracts.

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Integration

Quick enablement of suppliers on SAP Ariba Network (42K)*

What if you want to order material or services at a specific supplier, but that supplier is not yet a member of SAP Ariba Network?

Not an issue anymore! We make it easier to bring that supplier to the network! Just order what you need in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and send the Purchase Order to SAP Ariba. If the requested supplier does not have an existing account in SAP Ariba Network, the supplier will receive your order per email including an invitation to start their registration process. That way, buyer and supplier benefit from a faster onboarding process – fully integrated into SAP’s intelligent enterprise procurement solution. Find more information on the ‘Automation of Source-to-Pay with Ariba Network’ process here and watch the demonstration below. Please be aware that this innovation is available as soon as SAP Ariba 2011 is released.

Demo 5: From creation of a Purchase Order in SAP S/4HANA Cloud to a supplier’s SAP Ariba Network invitation email and lastly access to the Purchase Order.

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Enterprise Contract Management

Document Classification with Enterprise Contract Management*

Organization need to store, track and manage legal contract electronically. Each organization has very different types of document content and classification criteria. They would like to group these contracts based on certain criteria like importance, confidentiality, risk level or Line of Business. This grouping can be used for reporting and analytical purpose. Document classification helps the user to classify legal contracts with the relevant category. Key users can define the category purpose to classify a document into legal document category or legal transaction category. The legal counsel can then classify documents with unique labels like Important, Critical, To Be Approved and so on.

Fig. 8: Classify legal documents based on categories.

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View Legal Documents in Legal Transactions with Neutral Relationships*

With this release, the user is able to see the legal documents of related legal transactions in a specific legal transaction that has a neutral relationship with all other legal transactions. This helps users to drive faster business decisions. Please find here more information about Legal Transactions.

Fig. 9: View legal documents of related legal transactions, when the transactions are in a neutral relationship.

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Filter Legal Transaction Based on Linked Object*

Not to forget. We enhanced the usability for the legal counsel and make it possible to search legal transactions based on linked object type, ID and trigger object in the ‘Manage Legal Transactions‘-app. Saves time and neurons.

Fig. 10: Search for legal transactions based on linked object type, ID, and trigger object.

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SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning

New app to support project management for direct material sourcing*

In order to support the strategic purchasing department in the effective management of relevant planning activities for procured parts we recently developed a stand-alone project management application, SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning. The product is at the very beginning, please be aware that the integration into SAP S/4HANA Central Procurement – Sourcing is part of future product versions. Still, we want to raise your awareness and explain the main concept.

Procurement planning optimizes direct material sourcing by offering project management capabilities for new product launches. It allows users to setup a project structure to which parts can flexibly be assigned to after they have been loaded from any suitable external system. Planning capabilities include milestones and activity planning at both the project and individual part levels. They also include the planning of investments, such as tooling costs for selected parts. Furthermore, Procurement Planning offers the ability to transfer bundles of parts, which are groups of items based on purchasing needs, to a sourcing application.

Thereby we want to address two common challenges:

• How to achieve efficient bundling of items for sourcing and purchasing across product areas, brands, locations etc. in an early stage?
• How to bring the product and the procurement view together to ensure end-to-end transparency and facilitate collaboration between different Lines of Business?

Stay tuned for more updates on SAP S/4HANA for procurement planning. More information can be found here.

Fig. 11: Procurement Planning Project with its subprojects.

Fig. 12: Procurement Planning Subproject with its assigned items.

Fig. 13: Detailed item scheduling chart with milestones, events and tasks.

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I hope you like what we do ? For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info: http://www.sap.com/s4-cloudrelease
• Sven Denecken’s SAP S/4HANA Cloud release blog
• The Link Collection for Sourcing & Procurement here
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here
• SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here
• Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
• Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community: register here

Follow us via @SAP and #S4HANA, or myself via LinkedIn / Twitters

* Not part of SAP S/4HANA shipment; requires additional products