This blog provides an overview of key innovations in the 2311 Release of SAP Business Network Solutions.

On November 2023, we released exciting new SAP Business Network innovations for our customers

SAP Business Network for Procurement

SAP Business Network Catalog

The new  SAP Business Network Catalog functionality allows suppliers to easily maintain a master catalog of all their products. All the buyers on SAP Business Network can easily search and view these products and send a request for information which results in possible new business for buyers and suppliers. Suppliers will have all the tools needed to upload, publish and maintain their catalogs,  inclusive of approvals and editing flows.  Suppliers will now be able to find new buyers for their products and hence open up new business opportunities through the network.

Buyers can access network catalog products using the product search solution on SAP Business Network trading partner portal homepage giving them visibility into the rich Supplier data including the Catalog data to better identify and qualify the suppleirs.

Trading Partner Announcements

Modern supply chain  requires trading partners to be able to  quickly communicate about important events. The new Buyer announcement feature empowers buyers to communicate important information, changes, or news to suppliers by publishing announcements on SAP Business Network. Buyers will be able to send timely announcements to their suppliers using modern, content authoring tool. Once the buyer creates the relevant announcement based on supplier segmentation they will be  visible  to  suppliers on the  trading partner portal quickly grabbing their attention.

Intelligent invoice conversion

Intelligent Invoice conversion is a new functionality that expedites invoice automation for suppliers on the SAP Business network by using Invoice conversion templates that transform supplier invoice files in Network electronic invoices. The functionality includes machine learning which reads simple invoice data automatically as well as an intuitive document user interface that suppliers can use to build and review annotation rules for extracting complex invoice data, all built into a guided self service onboarding.

The key benefits include

1. Self service onboarding:Self service guided onboarding provided in the supplier’s test account.
2. Efficient document extraction:Invoice data is extracted using machine learning and manually setup annotation rules
3. Invoice enrichment : PO based invoices are enriched with PO data similar to the Online PO flip in addition to extracted supplier invoice data.
4. Business rule validations : Invoices are validated against the buyer’s business transaction rules
5. Submission methods : Suppliers can configure their upload their invoices to be saved as drafts for review and submitted manually or auto-submitted for a touchless automation.
6. Buyer customization support : Buyers customization fields are available for annotation to create buyer specific templates.
7. Invoice status visibility : Suppliers have complete visibility into the conversion process and status

Purchase Order reconfirmation

The new re-confirmation capability lets suppliers use the Items to confirm list to revise eligible confirmed line items and reconfirm them.

Suppliers generally confirm a purchase order shortly after receiving it, based on the theoretical capacity. If later the supplier experiences a production delay, the supplier could use the Items to confirm list page to update confirmations in a more efficient way. This will increase the dependableness of the confirmation data and thus improve the reliability of the supply chain  in general.

Items to  service

The new Items to service feature simplifies supplier creation of service entry sheets. Now suppliers can use the Items to service tile to quickly select the service line items and create the service sheet.Prior to this capability, suppliers needed to unselect line items that would not be part of the service sheet line-by-line, which was time consuming when the purchase order was large.

Now suppliers can use the Items to service tile to quickly select line items and create the service sheet.

Early-payment offers through Taulia payables solutions

Taulia Payables Solutions which are Buyer led solutions enables the supplier to receive cash earlier. Payables solutions take two primary forms:

• Supply Chain Finance: The supplier is paid early using funding from a third party. The buyer then pays the funder upon the original maturity of the invoice.
• Dynamic Discounting: Early payment is made directly by the buyer to the supplier allowing the buyer to obtain a discount on the invoice. Supplier similarly obtain critical liquidity. Buyers and supplier may obtain access to Taulia’s applications through single sign on.

Key Benefits are for Buyers and suppliers to have access to liquidity helps companies to bolster continuity, meet debt obligations and avoid interruptions to long-term capital investments.

SAP Business Network for Supply chain 

Summary invoices

As a supplier accounts receivable organization,  it is important to maintain a healthy cash flow and get my invoices paid as soon as possible. Similarly,  buyer organization’s accounts payables teams want to keep the invoice reconciliation process running efficiently.

The new summary invoice functionality caters to the needs of both by speeding up the invoice cycle time, and lowering the number of invoices the suppliers have to create and buyers to process. This functionality allows suppliers to create a  single summary invoice that references multiple purchase orders and ship notices.  The suppliers will be able to create such invoices in the new Orders to summary invoice tile in the SAP Business Network workbench.

• Orders that can be invoiced together  (based on Customer, Company Code, Currency etc.) will be displayed grouped together for the supplier to select and flip into a single invoice.
• Suppliers want to invoice for items that were shipped, without first having to restrict to what purchase orders those items were requested
• Buyers want to reconcile invoice items based on what shipments were sent.

SAP Business Network for Logistics

Manage disputes improvements

We have introduced functionalities to make the dispute management process more efficient.

In the ‘Manage Disputes’ app, shippers can now select up to 10 dispute documents raised based on carrier invoices from the ‘For Review’ worklist and choose ‘Confirm and Submit’ or ‘Reject and Submit’. Moreover, you can now add comments to disputes, which can be viewed and edited by other users internally within your organization. A new column ‘Comments’ has been added on the worklist page and the same information is displayed on the header area in the object page.

Additional Email Notifications

For shippers, the following new notifications have been added with regards to contracting:

• Confirm Freight Order
• Reject Freight Order

The system sends an email notification to the shipper when the carrier confirms or rejects a freight order or a freight order.

In addition, shippers can now subscribe to the following new email notifications in the ‘Define User Settings’ app:

• Invoice Submission Pending
• Invoice with API Error
• Pending Invoice Submitted

Contracting: Attachments enabled for APIs

For shippers, there is a new ‘Consumer API to Send Attachments’. Shippers can use this outbound service to receive attachments on a freight booking confirmation in their Transportation Management on SAP S/4 HANA, based on the information provided by SAP Business Network for Logistics.

For carriers, The Consumer API for Freight Subcontracting and the Consumer API for Freight Tendering have been enhanced, so attachments can be shared.

SAP Business Network for Asset Collaboration

Lookup application for functional locations

The new  QR-enabled lookup application for functional locations allows easy identification of functional locations directly in the shopfloor

As a Maintenance Technician at Asset Operator or Service Provider (i.e. buyers), you can  now scan a QR code attached to a functional location so that you can uniquely and precisely identify the functional location and navigate to the functional location page with all relevant master data and documentation

Request templates

The new Request template functionality enables efficient and fast creation of requests for technical objects. This feature gives the ability to define the required information for technical objects, such as equipment and models, to be provided by the processor of an object request by using the new object “request template”

Warehouse clerks and maintenance technicians can then consume request templates by creating and submitting an equipment and model request

This enables the standardization of information requirements across the company and multiple providers for the technical objects equipment and models.

These are the key innovations for 2311. Please review the readiness content for further details.  

Please visit https://www.sap.com/businessnetwork to learn more about SAP Business Network.  

To learn more about SAP Business Network for Logistics visit SAP – Business Network for Logistics.

For further questions and feedback related to the blog, please check the Q&A area and feel free to post your questions in the link with the tag SAP Business Network for Procurement or SAP Business Network for Logistics or SAP Business Network for Asset Management.