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mySAP ERP Brief

ELECTRONIC INVOICING
WITH mySAP™ ERP
Invoice delivery, payment, Make Collaborative E-Commerce a Reality
and settlement processes are Processing invoices involves numerous steps for your customers
and for you. Your company must print and mail the invoices,
costly to most businesses,
and your customers must manually enter the data in their
consuming employee produc- accounts payable system, verify the invoices, and then make pay-
tivity and tying up large ments. The total cost of this process may be more than you
amounts of working capital. think. Mailing an invoice can cost you up to US$15. And for your
In addition, most companies customers, invoice processing can be even more expensive.
Electronic invoicing is designed to eliminate the inefficiencies of
do not maximize the benefits
packaging and mailing paper invoices to customers. In addition,
of their customer or supplier it supplements your collaborative business and electronic
relationship management payment strategies.
efforts and fail to link finance
With SAP® Biller Direct you can eliminate many manual proces-
directly to sales, support,
ses and cut your invoicing costs by up to 70%. SAP Biller Direct
marketing, or supply chain
is a key part of your SAP Financial Supply Chain Management
processes. mySAP™ ERP deliv- deployment strategy.
ers a complete e-invoicing
solution with the SAP® Biller Handle All Your Bill Presentment and
Payment Processes
Direct application, which
Today’s electronic bill presentment and payment applications
enables customers and suppli- show only invoice data to customers. However, that’s just one
ers to submit invoices, make part of the billing process. With SAP Biller Direct, invoice
payments, manage accounts, recipients can view account balances, examine unpaid invoices,
and settle and reconcile monitor credits, and apply credit to pay off open receivables.
In addition, customers can manage account information, such
transactions – via the Internet.
as addresses or bank accounts, without having to burden your
accounts receivable department. This service works securely
and is approved via the internal service request functionality of
all SAP solutions. SAP Biller Direct is a complete communication
and transactional application that enables you to deliver higher
quality invoicing and settlement services to your customers.
SAP Biller Direct provides a complete e-invoicing solution. With SAP Biller Direct is powered by the SAP NetWeaver™ platform,
it, your customers can handle partial payments, open items, and providing a flexible Java front end as a presentation layer that
credits. More importantly, it gives them the ability to manage can be integrated easily into SAP Enterprise Portal or any existing
their own accounts, view invoicing history, and execute payments portal infrastructure using single-sign-on tickets. The customer
with either credit cards or direct debit. Additional functions or bill recipient needs only a Web browser to use the wealth of
allow your customers to: functionality provided by SAP Biller Direct. The biller, on the
• Download bills in different formats other hand, doesn’t have to change existing business processes
• Assign payments to open items and can use SAP Biller Direct as a powerful and stable Web front
• View information on balances and items that remain open or end. Communication between the ABAP™ and Java worlds is
have been cleared, including balance confirmation via the Web ensured by using the Java Connector middleware. SAP Biller
• Access information on payment advice notes Direct is available today as part of mySAP ERP or it can be
implemented as an add-on to the last two releases of of SAP R/3®
SAP Biller Direct is delivered with mySAP™ ERP. It works in con- software.
cert with all SAP industry solutions and has been engineered to
serve as the Web-based invoicing engine of SAP Financial Supply SAP Biller Direct supports both business-to-consumer and
Chain Management – a set of applications that address your business-to-business transactions and supplements your existing
cash-to-cash cycle from invoicing, dispute management, collec- SAP accounts receivable solution. The application completes
tions, and credit management; to in-house banking, cash, and your customer relationship management efforts by providing a
treasury management. Web-based capability to handle invoicing, account inquiry, and
settlement processes. For many enterprises, these financial
SAP offers a unique advantage to customers. With a single set of processes are needed to “close the loop” in their online sales
applications, you can manage the entire financial supply chain and customer support strategies.
without the need to develop custom applications or integrate
third-party software solutions. More importantly, your financial
supply chain can be completely integrated with financial report-
ing and in-house cash and treasury management processes to
improve your ability to manage working capital.
Improve the Performance of Accounts Payable As shown in the figure below, SAP Biller Direct solves both sides
with SAP Biller Direct of the e-invoicing challenge. It can be applied to support buy-side
Accounts payable departments in all industries are often and sell-side e-invoicing and payment strategies.
overburdened with vendor inquiries regarding payment status.
As a result, productivity is lost, workloads are taxed, and accounts SAP® BILLER DIRECT

payable performance metrics can deteriorate. To achieve excel- Customers Suppliers

lence in the accounts payable area, many organizations are seek- Customers SELL-SIDE BUY-SIDE Suppliers
Payments Payments
ing a Web-based solution to present payment status to their Customers Suppliers
ACCOUNT ACCOUNT
suppliers and vendors. RECEIVABLE PAYABLE
Customers Suppliers
Invoices Invoices
Customers Suppliers

Customers YOUR ENTERPRISE FINANCIAL SUPPLY CHAIN Suppliers

Figure 2: Buy-Side and Sell-Side E-Invoicing with SAP Biller Direct

Buy-side e-invoicing with SAP Biller Direct frees your accounts


payable department from having to manage supplier questions
about payment status, whether they come in by phone, e-mail,
or fax. With SAP Biller Direct, suppliers can view payment infor-
mation online, examine invoice and payment history, view
available supplier credits, and manage multiple accounts.

Buy-side e-invoicing with SAP Biller Direct can be deployed in


two ways. The first option is to implement it as a portal business
Figure 1: Customer Interface of SAP Biller Direct package, using iView software within SAP Enterprise Portal.
In this way, it can be integrated easily in the supplier portal or
Buy-Side E-Invoicing with SAP Biller Direct added to any other SAP portal. The second option is to deploy
SAP Biller Direct now offers support for buy-side e-invoicing. SAP Biller Direct as a stand-alone application on a J2EE basis,
This capability enables your suppliers to view accounts payable which provides a Web-based HTMLB user interface. (HTMLB, a
information via the Web. It also allows your suppliers to perform Java tag library developed by SAP, allows you to create browser-
Web-based, self-service account inquires and examine payment independent GUI elements.)
status. SAP offers a unique advantage to companies seeking a
buy-side e-invoicing solution because SAP Biller Direct is designed
as an integrated component of your accounts payable software
and supplier portals.
www.sap.com /contactsap

Regardless of the implementation, your vendors do not need Powered by SAP NetWeaver
to install any SAP software to use the buy-side e-invoicing capab- mySAP ERP is powered by the SAP NetWeaver platform, the
ilities of SAP Biller Direct. All functions are accessible via a open integration and application platform that enables change.
standard Web browser and can be integrated into your existing SAP NetWeaver helps companies align IT with their business. It
supplier portal. allows companies to obtain more business value from existing IT
investments and to deploy a services-oriented architecture. SAP
Buy-side e-invoicing with SAP Biller Direct can dramatically NetWeaver reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) and complexi-
improve supplier relationships by providing a powerful, ty across the entire IT landscape.
information-rich, self-service tool for viewing payment and
invoice status. In addition, it can boost the productivity and SAP NetWeaver powers mySAP Business Suite, SAP xApps™
effectiveness of your accounts payable department by minimiz- packaged composite applications, and partner solutions. It
ing vendor inquires, allowing your resources to focus on strate- provides the best way to integrate all systems running SAP or
gic tasks that drive greater value for your organization. non-SAP software. SAP NetWeaver unifies integration technol-
ogies into a single platform and is preintegrated with business
Discover Financial Supply Chain Management with applications, reducing the need for custom integration.
mySAP ERP
SAP Biller Direct is part of SAP Financial Supply Chain Manage-
ment (SAP FSCM). As one of the new functional areas of
mySAP ERP, SAP FSCM optimizes the financial and information
flows within a company and among business partners. In addi-
tion to electronic invoicing and payment, SAP FSCM also
includes applications for collections management in SAP Collec-
tions Management, efficient resolution of payment deductions
in SAP Dispute Management, the automation of credit decisions
in SAP Credit Management, the management of liquidity posi-
tions in SAP Cash and Liquidity Management, the configuration
of payment factories in SAP In-House Cash, and the manage-
ment of financial positions and market risks in SAP Treasury
and Risk Management.

For more information about SAP Biller Direct, SAP FSCM, and
mySAP ERP, please contact your SAP representative today or visit
our Web site at www.sap.com/financials

50 070 287 (04/10)


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