As digitalisation and e-commerce are more popular than ever, the call for automated and digital document flows – think delivery notes, invoices, VAT reporting, etc. – is getting louder. It’s coming from private businesses, but also from local governments, who want more insight into corporate transactions to better combat potential fraud. In short, there’s a growing need for more transparent, detailed and real-time documentation. To achieve that goal, digital is the only way to go.

What is SAP Document Compliance?

To that end, SAP launched SAP Document Compliance: an e-document processing tool that enables real-time communication between suppliers, customers and governmental institutions. As each country has specific legal requirements, SAP has provided standard templates by country to ensure that you are legally compliant in every location where you conduct business. This way, you no longer have to worry about country-specific compliance requirements: SAP Document Compliance has you covered around the globe!

The business benefits of SAP Document Compliance

Real-time communication: instead of losing time because of email or even post, simply send and receive the transactional and legal documents you need in real time. All involved parties – yourself, your customer and, if required, governmental institutions – are up to date – instantly.

Compliance with legal requirements around the globe: for international organisations, staying on top of the legal requirements of each individual country can be tough. With SAP Document Compliance, all transactional documents are automatically up to code for the specific government at hand.

Automatic updates via SAP notes: if compliance laws are altered or updated, SAP covers the changes in SAP notes and automatically updates your system. This way, your document flows remain legally compliant no matter what.

Detailed reporting: by automating legal document flows and billing, you gain access to more detailed analytics, which lead to new insights that directly benefit your business.

How does SAP Document Compliance work?

SAP Document Compliance transforms transactional data created in your SAP backend system into predefined, standardised exchange formats. It then transfers that data electronically to the local government’s systems, such as legal or tax authorities, as well as to your business partner – either a customer or a supplier.

It’s important to note this isn’t a one-way street. Your clients and suppliers, and even local governments, can also send data and documents back to you, which are then transformed into data that is stored into your SAP ERP system, thus completing the circle.

What do you need?

To implement SAP Document Compliance, you need:

SAP ECC or S/4HANA, which functions as your ERP system and houses the data you wish to share.
SAP Cloud Platform Integration (CPI) as a communication platform between your ERP, your partner (customers, suppliers and/or the government) and SAP Document Compliance.
the SAP eDocument Framework add-on deployed on your ECC or S/4 system.

Why Flexso?

What makes Flexso the perfect partner to implement SAP Document Compliance and take care of your legal compliance concerns? The holy trinity of:

SAP expertise – we’ve been an SAP Gold Partner since 2004.
The combination of functional ERP and technical integration knowledge.
Our experience in international projects for clients like Arcelor Mittal, Etex and Borealis.