If your company has invested in systems applications and products (SAP) software, you’ve probably noticed two important things: 1) SAP makes some work much easier, and 2) there are still gaps in your procure-to-pay (P2P) processes.
Purchasing can be difficult with SAP systems, and that can lead to rogue spending, holes in spend visibility, risky purchases, and extra manual work. But there are ways to fill in the gaps in your P2P processes, carve out time for more strategic work, and digitally enable more suppliers. This is how to boost the ROI of your SAP investment in one easy move.
What’s Missing with SAP?
When you layer SAP programs with traditional P2P processes, it can spark problems. Here are some common challenges that spring out of SAP systems:
Rogue Spending
Too often, employees will complete purchases on their own with unapproved suppliers. Because of this, you miss out on the contracts you’ve negotiated and important spend information escapes your SAP system, becoming invisible to procurement.
Limited Spend Management
When purchasers and suppliers work outside your SAP system, you can’t see where employees are spending. That means you can’t control spending, negotiate better deals, or see strategic sourcing opportunities.
Invoicing Messes and Delayed Payments
It’s likely that only select members of your organization use SAP. That means your SAP specialists waste time tracking down information from people who aren’t using the system, and you spend even more time moving data into your SAP system. That leads to input errors and slows down payments.
At the same time, AP may also have to track down people to make decisions on individual invoices. Everything from coding and exception resolution to approvals and other invoice management duties can force AP to have to roam the office hallways for the right person and then record that decision, along with all the relevant audit trail, in the SAP system.
Unpredictable Services Spending
Services spending can be difficult to predict, and the scope of a service often changes, which means costs change. That forces employees to manually update documents throughout your SAP system. Every manual update carries the risk of human error, mismatches, and budget overruns, and wasted time.
Confused Users and Extra Training
SAP requires extra training, and it may only be worth it for a handful of employees to complete those sessions. As a result of the training effort, fewer employees use the system, and the people who understand SAP best are often left doing extra work.
How P2P Solutions Increase ROI
SAP owners can upgrade their system by adopting a digital P2P solution. Advanced P2P solutions integrate onto your existing SAP system, weave together all of your digital information, and make digital purchases easy. They include a digital marketplace, in which employees can easily see approved suppliers and purchase items in a matter of clicks.
At the same time, this technology funnels all of your SAP and other digital information into a single repository, making it easy for procurement to see and manage spend within their P2P solution. Additionally,P2P solutions don’t require any extra training and integrate easily with SAP.
How P2P Solutions Fill in the Gaps and Improve SAP
P2P solutions make it easier to capture, see, and use more digital data within your SAP program. That strengthens your SAP investment in two ways:
- P2P solutions improve your general P2P processes.
- P2P solutions make your SAP program more efficient.
How P2P Solutions Improve Your Full Operation
Here’s how digital solutions improve your P2P processes, save time, and increase productivity:
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- Eliminate rogue spending: Advanced P2P solutions make it easy for employees to see approved suppliers and purchase through a digital marketplace. Because these programs are easy to use, employees adopt the technology quickly. In turn, you can eliminate rogue spending and ensure employees buy through approved suppliers and within agreed-upon contracts.
- Increase spend under management: When employees purchase through a single digital marketplace, you can capture more spend data. That means you increase spend under management, ensure compliance, and access the spending data you need to make smarter decisions.
- Easily manage invoices and POs: Automated P2P solutions use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to simplify invoice and PO management. This technology can create POs, complete three-way matching, and capture invoice data from your suppliers’ PDF attachments. Additionally, machine learning can refine itself over time, making it possible to sharpen workflows and drive productivity.
- Simplify services spend management: Advanced P2P solutions will lay out a clear marketplace with service options, rates, and a provider’s availability. They also tie together all of your digital information, so when the end user or supplier updates a detail about the job, it will automatically refresh details on all of your documents for the latest information on status and cost—saving hours of time.
How P2P Solutions Fill in the Gaps in Your SAP System
Here’s how this technology strengthens your SAP investment:
- Improve ease of use: Advanced P2P solutions don’t require any extra training and are easy to use. That means employees adopt the technology quickly—a recipe for more compliant, more manageable spending.
- Increase digital connection: The digital marketplace encourages both suppliers and your employees to complete transactions digitally. That means information streams into your SAP system, it’s easier to control, and you can identify opportunities for supplier discounts or other spending upgrades. With SAP, and any ERP, your team may also be spending hours trying to track down information from people who work outside SAP. You then have to record it in your program. P2P solutions draw in that information from the start and match documents for you—carving out more time for strategic work.
- Simplify change management: If you’re upgrading to SAP S/4HANA, you’re probably dreading the change management that comes along with the upgrade. SAP-compatible P2P solutions make it easy to move information and transfer to your new SAP S/4HANA system, without any extra training.
Learn to Uplift Your Teams with AP Automation and Digital Procurement
Adopting a digital P2P solution can drive up the value of your SAP investment and empower your procurement teams. And there are more ways technology can free up your workforce—and increase productivity. Read our free guide, “Digital Procurement and AP Automation: 5 Things You Should Be Doing Right Now” to see the fastest ways to accomplish more, with less.
