What is procurement collaboration?

Procurement collaboration refers to the digital exchange of documents related to procurement transactions, including purchase orders, order confirmations, order receipts, service entry sheets, and invoices.

What are the benefits of procurement collaboration?

The key benefits of procurement collaboration include automated procurement and invoice transactions for faster confirmations and approvals, visibility into all orders and invoices in one platform for a holistic view of spend and improved compliance, and access to a community of global suppliers and buyers. In addition, both buyers and suppliers can benefit from lower costs, greater operational efficiencies, and better collaboration.

What are the key capabilities of SAP Business Network Commerce Automation?

With the SAP Business Network Commerce Automation solution, suppliers are notified of new purchase orders in the supplier portal or on the mobile app and can access the document to view details and confirm or reject the order. Suppliers can also flip POs into invoices to ensure accuracy and reduce manual data entry and errors. Invoices are validated against configurable business rules on the network to ensure that documents are error-free and compliant.

What are the benefits of invoice status visibility?

When suppliers have visibility into the status of their invoices, they can resolve issues proactively and avoid calling customers’ accounts payables departments to inquire on invoice status. This frees up both parties to focus on more strategic initiatives or exceptions.

SAP Business Network Commerce Automation

Improve supplier collaboration across procurement and invoicing processes with digital document and information exchange.

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SAP Business Network dashboard overview showing new orders, changed orders, total orders, and other metrics in number and graph form

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What is SAP Business Network Commerce Automation?

SAP Business Network Commerce Automation is a solution that extends your ERP procurement processes to SAP Business Network via cloud-based integration and enables you to transact and exchange information with suppliers.

Collaborate with your trading partners digitally using the same workspace to:

Transact with your suppliers in near real-time.
Gain end-to-end visibility across processes.
Increase efficiency with standardized and automated workflows.
Configure business rules to comply with regulatory requirements and mitigate risks.

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Meet e-invoicing mandates with built-in compliance

Collaborate with your suppliers over SAP Business Network to ensure compliance with mandates in more than 40 countries.

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Key benefits

Improve procurement compliance

Ensure process compliance through supplier collaboration, backed by configurable business rules that automate controls and standardize transactional processes.

Automate spend management processes

Enhance productivity and efficiency while reducing operating costs and rework by automating paper-based and manual procurement and invoicing processes.

Provide end-to-end visibility to your suppliers

Allow your suppliers to track progress and proactively resolve issues to avoid or withstand disruption.

Key features

Supplier collaboration

Connect and collaborate with a global community of suppliers.
Expedite the exchange of transaction information.
Optimize payment terms with early-payment discounts.

Regulatory and business process compliance

Automate document validation.
Ensure compliance with e-invoicing regulations. 
Improve reporting and transaction verification.

Automated procurement workflows

Increase productivity and reduce operating costs.
Easily exchange documents and information. 
Simplify deployment with SAP expertise.

Supplier portal

Eliminate errors when suppliers flip a purchase order into an invoice.
Enable trading partners to maintain their own supplier information. 
Encourage greater efficiency through supplier integration with SAP Business Network. 
Reduce invoice errors and convert invoices to network-compatible formats with integrated AI.

Self-service invoice status portal

Enable suppliers to see invoice and payment status.
Send status update e-mails automatically.
Drive digital adoption among even your long-tail suppliers.

Extensibility and AI for unique business needs

Extend the solution to meet unique business needs with SAP Business Technology Platform.
Accelerate supplier onboarding and improve invoice processing with embedded AI.

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Deploy with SAP NS2's secure cloud model

Protect your data and mitigate risk with additional security controls.

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Resources

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Portfolio recognition and awards

SAP Business Network is recognized for its multi-facted industry leadership based on verified user reviews, ratings, and in-depth customer insights.

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Technical and security information

This product is deployed in the cloud and is available as software as a service (SaaS), so you can access your software from any web browser.

SAP Help Portal

Visit SAP Help Portal to find detailed documentation, guides, and articles to help you implement, configure, and optimize SAP products.

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SAP Business Network deployed through SAP NS2’s secure cloud model

Gain supply chain and procurement process support while operating in an environment dedicated to security, data access, residency, and sovereignty.

Collaborate with trading partners, strengthen operations, and mitigate risk with additional security compliance

By deploying SAP Business Network through SAP NS2's secure cloud model, you can protect your sensitive information with additional security controls to mitigate internal and external risk.

Process and transmit data confidently through the SAP NS2 security model
Reduce TCO and increase time to value through automated solution deployment and security management
Ensure regional security standards are enforced across your trading partner network

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Enhanced security for operations

Process and transmit data through the SAP NS2 security model to mitigate the risk of international data exposure and prevent bad actors from accessing supply chain data.

Innovation backed by region-specific resources

Increase control of your cloud operations through a security model with in-country, credentialed resources who understand innovation and regional data regulations.

Localized protection of critical data

Leverage a heightened security model for end-to-end protection and comply with U.S. regulations to safeguard trading partner supply chain information.

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See what analysts are saying about SAP Business Network

Accelerating supply chain collaboration maturity

IDC’s study shows how business networks replace fragmented collaboration with greater supply chain visibility and resilience.

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The value of SAP Business Network for buyers

IDC explores the business network benefits that drive growth, including reduced costs, enhanced efficiency, and streamlined onboarding.

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FAQ

: Procurement collaboration refers to the digital exchange of documents related to procurement transactions, including purchase orders, order confirmations, order receipts, service entry sheets, and invoices.
: The key benefits of procurement collaboration include automated procurement and invoice transactions for faster confirmations and approvals, visibility into all orders and invoices in one platform for a holistic view of spend and improved compliance, and access to a community of global suppliers and buyers. In addition, both buyers and suppliers can benefit from lower costs, greater operational efficiencies, and better collaboration.
: With the SAP Business Network Commerce Automation solution, suppliers are notified of new purchase orders in the supplier portal or on the mobile app and can access the document to view details and confirm or reject the order. Suppliers can also flip POs into invoices to ensure accuracy and reduce manual data entry and errors. Invoices are validated against configurable business rules on the network to ensure that documents are error-free and compliant.
: When suppliers have visibility into the status of their invoices, they can resolve issues proactively and avoid calling customers’ accounts payables departments to inquire on invoice status. This frees up both parties to focus on more strategic initiatives or exceptions.

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