060901_Best Practice Order Management Automation With SAP

8/18/2019 060901_Best Practice Order Management Automation With SAP

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www.esker.com

Esker DeliveryWare White Paper

Best-Practice

Order ManagementAutomation with

SAP® Solutions


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Table of contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

What is order-to-cash? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Conventional order-to-cash process with SAP solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Esker DeliveryWare and your SAP application

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Automating order management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Workflow and process tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Benefits of order-to-cash automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Creating a successful implementations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

About Esker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14


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Introduction

Today companies must tighten their belts to compete in a constantly evolving business world. As businesses evaluate the best way to

trim budgets, several areas come to mind that can be streamlined to produce significant cost savings. One area that can offer significant

economical gains is the order-to-cash cycle. If there’s a single characteristic that distinguishes high-performing companies, it's the effi-ciency of their customer order management processes. Reducing the time it takes to transform a customer order into money in the bank

offers strategic benefits to the company and creates more rewarding customer relationships.

Many companies have implemented leading SAP business applications to help run their daily order-to-cash activities. The addition of SAP

solutions empowers companies to automate many of the business processes that were done by hand less than a decade ago. However,

there is still plenty of opportunity to improve accuracy and efficiency in the order-to-cash cycle through automation of the document man-

agement process.

Recently, the activity of order-to-cash has been gaining the interest of companies desperately seeking measures to speed up their rev-

enue cycle, improve customer satisfaction, and increase profitability. Beyond significant cost savings, companies converting to an auto-

mated order-to-cash system can realize efficiencies throughout the order management process.

This paper describes these benefits and presents a unique order-to-cash solution, exploring automation of the order-to-cash process

within SAP SD. It analyzes the challenges faced by companies today who are still using manual processes, as well as the benefits of

automating processes — including time, labor and cost savings. In doing so, this paper highlights innovative technology for comprehen-

sively automated order management to optimize the order-to-cash cycle.

Above all, this paper is designed to help CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, Order Processing managers and SAP system administrators to learn, plan

and evaluate automation of the order-to-cash cycle to gain added efficiency in today’s competitive business environment.


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What is order-to-cash?

Order-to-cash is a generic term used to encompass the process involved between reception of a sales order and collection of accounts

receivable generated in the sale of the final product. There are several sub-processes within the order-to-cash process, including:

receiving orders, entering sales orders, approving sales orders, fulfilling orders, billing for the orders and receiving payment.

Order-to-cash model

Conventional order-to-cash process with SAP solutions

Using a manual process to orchestrate your order-to-cash operations creates the potential for costly errors. Manual processes are labor-

intensive and time-consuming, requiring valuable resources to manage each part of the process.

For example, manually entering sales orders into SAP SD can take hours. One wrong keystroke, such as inputting 100 units instead of

10 units, could become a nightmare for you and your customer. All activities down the line, including invoicing, will be affected — result-

ing in difficulties collecting cash. The end result is unnecessary errors costing companies both extra time and money.

In a conventional order-to-cash process, two steps need a specific attention, as they represent potential bottlenecks.

Sales order bottlenecks

The sales order is the principal basis for all transactions. The integrity of the sales order is crucial to achieving and maintaining high-level

service throughout the process. If the process begins with inaccurate or ambiguous information, the performance will be hindered. All

activities are affected by the information that is pulled from the sales order.


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SalesApproval Payment

OrderFulfillment


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There are several bottlenecks that are typical in conventional systems of order processing. Most of these have the potential to cause

huge inefficiencies and significant costs within company finances.

`çåîÉåíáçå~ä çêÇÉê éêçÅÉëëáåÖ — affecting your company's operating efficiency:

Delayed cash collection

Expensive execution (costing between $30–$60)

Slow to process

Vulnerable to errors

Low customer satisfaction

Invoicing bottlenecks

On the back end, your SAP application creates an invoice for each sales order. If your company is using a manual process, each of these

invoices must be sorted, reviewed, routed, processed and eventually archived — leading to the reason so many companies spend hours

per day working through the invoicing process. Mistakes are made and time is wasted identifying and resolving problems. There are sev-

eral bottlenecks created by the conventional system of invoice processing.

`çåîÉåíáçå~ä áåîçáÅÉ éêçÅÉëëáåÖ — affecting your company's operating efficiency:

Limited ability to collect cash quickly

Low staff efficiency rates

High costs to maintain machines for printing, faxing, folding, inserting, and postal metering

High costs to produce, store, archive and retrieve physical invoices

As with order processing, these also have the potential to cause huge inefficiencies such as invoice disputes, extended Days Sales

Outstanding (DSO), and customer satisfaction issues, adding significant costs within company finances. Conservative estimates place

costs of manual invoicing between $30 and $60 per invoice.

Labyrinth of touch points

In many companies, order-to-cash processes travel through a maze of departments and manual touch points. From the arrival of the

sales order all the way to cash collection and document archiving, sales representatives and administrators are holding their breath hop-

ing none of the manual touch points cause errors creating incorrect shipments that end up in the customer’s hands, or misplaced orders

resulting in business loss and customer dissatisfaction.


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Conventional paper-based sales order processing

Time and cost associated with a single sales order

How much are you spending?


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For 1 Sales Order Time Taken

9 Documents manually printed

17'

4 Documents manually archived

1 Document manually faxed

1 Document manually mailed


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Esker DeliveryWare and your SAP application

If your company is suffering with high invoice error and dispute rates, long cash cycles, poor auditing and large administrative costs relat-

ed to manual processes, wrong or duplicate shipments — not to mention poor customer satisfaction — there are several solutions on

the market that can automate the order-to-cash process into and out of SAP SD. Only one offers patented DeliveryWare Rules Enginetechnology and a full range of document delivery format capabilities to maximize the value of your SAP applications and effectively reduce

the time between receiving a customer order and collecting payment for the order.

Esker DeliveryWare

Esker DeliveryWare offers a comprehensive solution that streamlines current business processes by eliminating inefficient and untimely

steps making communication more personalized and cost effective — regardless of the information’s source or delivery type. Esker

DeliveryWare minimizes the touch points in order-to-cash process while causing no disruption of current business operations.

Designed to optimize internal and external information flow into and out of SAP applications, Esker DeliveryWare is an end-to-end doc-

ument process automation platform with patented technology. Managing all inbound and outbound document processes through this

central platform simplifies the IT infrastructure, reduces the time and costs associated with document communication and streamlines

critical business processes such as order-to-cash.


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Document Capture DeliveryWare Rules Engine Document Transport

Esker DeliveryWare automatically

captures sales orders and other

documents in any format —

independent of layout and application

or source, without the need for

custom programming.

At the heart of Esker DeliveryWare is

patented technology that automatically

recognizes and extracts data from

electronic documents to determine

formatting, conversion, and routing

conditions and actions that need to

take place, as defined by processing

rules. The optional Order Management

Module provides comprehensive work-

flow and process tracking capabilities.

Esker DeliveryWare distributes

documents automatically, based on

organizations’ specific requirements.

They can be delivered to multiple

recipients in the most complete range

of formats (text, XML, PDF, IDoc,

PCL, PS, TIFF, etc.) and media (postal

mail, fax, print, email, web, file

transfer, archive, wireless message,

etc.)

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Automating order management

Automating the order-to-cash process can yield millions of dollars in savings by lowering the number of touch points involved at each

step of the process. The result is shortened processing cycles, on-time deliveries, reduced printing and mailing costs — as well as

invoices with all required supporting information presented in clear and concise formats that help reduce errors and confusion, and resultsin fewer invoice-related disputes, faster identification and resolution of issues, and faster payment.

Time associated with a single sales order

Automation savings

The bottom line is substantial savings. Esker has helped many customers realize these benefits and will

continue to help identify further areas of improvement.


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For 1 Sales Order Time Taken

1 Document automatically printed

01'2 Documents automatically archived

1 Document automatically faxed

1 Document automatically mailed


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Tight integration with SAP applications

Esker is committed to simplifying document process tasks for SAP customers. SAP-certified Esker DeliveryWare integration is seamless

and does not require any reprogramming or business processes modifications.

Sales orders arriving in various formats (paper, fax, email, electronic file, etc.) are automatically captured, approved and transferred to the

SAP content server or Esker DeliveryWare repository. On top of this, order data such as customer name, part number, quantity and

prices, are automatically made available in the SAP system, replacing manual data entry.

The order object in SD is linked to the stored document allowing the user to retrieve the original document easily when necessary

directly within the SAP user interface.

The process flows through the following steps:

Step 1: Capture

When a sales order arrives, it is automatically handled by Esker DeliveryWare: The document is recognized and converted using

document capture technology, and sales order data is extracted.

Step 2: Notification

If desired, the user can receive a notification that a new sales order has arrived and that it needs to be validated.

By clicking on the link contained in the email notification, the user opens the Esker Document Manager web interface to access the

sales order validation web form.

Step 3: Validation

Using standard BAPIs, the software checks that the customer and part numbers already exist in SAP customer and materialmaster databases. The solution also checks for order duplicates and allow partner function communication details to be pulled out

from the SAP system.

In the event of a mismatch between the document and SAP database entries, the user is able to browse SAP master databases

to match data extracted directly in the web form.

Step 4: Posting data to SAP system

Data is then passed to the PTS (Process Tracking System)* invoice data capture module within the SAP system. This module

creates a process tracking record and attempts to automatically post the sales order if desired. In case of an exception, or for those

cases where auto-posting is not possible or desired, an SAP workflow engine-based best-practice PTS workflow is started for that

tracking record. The workflow goes to the customer order management representative’s workflow inbox, awaiting action. Upon

execution, the SAP Workflow calls up the appropriate transaction code (VA01 by default) for the posting of an order, and the

document image appears alongside the pre-populated data.* SEE FOOTNOTE

If the document is sent to the workflow, the order can be saved — at which point the work item disappears from the user’s

workflow inbox.


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* All references in this document that pertain to PTS, “process tracking” and SAP workflow refer to a solution developed by Dolphin IT-Project and Consulting Corporation. Process Tracking System(PTS) is a trademark of Dolphin IT-Project and Consulting Corporation. All rights reserved.


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If a business or technical condition exists that prohibits posting of the sales order, the sales representative simply cancels instead

of saving and posting. A set of decisions relating to exception handling are presented to the sales representative. Selecting a par-

ticular option triggers the corresponding workflow behind the business process. The work item disappears from the sales represen-

tative’s inbox and is placed in the inbox of the appropriate person to perform necessary actions (for example, updating Customer

Master data). Then the work item is sent back to the sales representative, who can then post the order.

Workflow and process tracking

Incoming sales order documents launch the order-to-cash cycle. Fast response to orders helps businesses increase customer

satisfaction and ensure on-time delivery as well as timely customer payment. Incoming customer orders need to be entered and

confirmed quickly to allow for efficient delivery scheduling. Reliable up-to-date information on the status of new customer orders is cru-

cial for effective sales management and forecasting.

Along with receiving and entering orders, SAP customers seeking to optimize the order-to-cash process face challenges with:

Tracking and managing exceptions Transparency of the order process and the related status of orders

Ability to measure process performance and identify areas for improvement

Esker DeliveryWare offers workflow and process tracking* for best-practice order management, providing capabilities such as dynamic

work item task descriptions, automated routing for exception handling, and detailed reporting — in addition to automated order entry.

Users benefit from integration of data on transactions, documents, and process status for sales reporting and process analysis.

Workflow and process tracking with Esker

DeliveryWare is tightly integrated with SAP

Business Workflow™ technology and uses

SAP ArchiveLink™ to facilitate capture of

process information immediately after a

customer order document has been entered.

The process information and the business

document are instantly available for reporting

and display. SAP Business Workflow

automatically routes the business document to

the responsible customer service representative

for subsequent processing.

Esker DeliveryWare order management allows

for automated exception handling, such as

master data maintenance, rescanning, andrerouting of customer order documents. All

steps and data in the process from order

receipt to order entry are recorded and

continuously updated, creating a detailed audit

trail for each customer order transaction.


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* (PTS) “process tracking“ and SAP workflow refer to a solution developed by Dolphin IT-Project and Consulting Corporation. PTS Process tracking System is a trademark of Dolphin IT-Project andConsulting Corporation. All rights reserved.


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Benefits of order-to-cash automation

Effectively eliminating manual processes, Esker DeliveryWare reduces the time from receipt of sales order to invoice payment. SAP

customers are able to:

Lower order-to-cash processing costs by up to 70%

Improve cash flow and speed up the collection of cash

Reduce stored data costs by electronic archiving

Receive and enter customer orders up to 65% faster

Increase data entry accuracy by up to 99%

Free-up staff time by as much as 65%

Workflow and process tracking with Esker DeliveryWare results in significant benefits both for business management and system

administration, including:

Quick order processing and efficient delivery scheduling

Comprehensive customer order tracking and prioritization

Enhanced quality and effectiveness of customer order management

Structured data for customer profitability and employee performance analysis

Reduced Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)

Less redundant processing of duplicate orders

Electronic capture of approvals

Tracking of delivery or billing block processing


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Sales order case studies

Leading manufacturer of respiratory monitoring devices

The company had customer service representatives (CSRs) manually organizing sales orders, delivering them and keying them into the

SAP system. CSRs walked to a fax machine and picked up as many as 700 incoming faxed sales orders a day, then entered data man-

ually. Labor to perform this task was costing them approximately $100,000 per year. Paper, toner and leases on fax machines were cost-

ing them $38,000 per year. This time-consuming process was slow and cumbersome. Orders were piling up, waiting to be gathered,

collated and handed off to available CSRs. The company implemented Esker DeliveryWare to automate inbound orders into the SAP sys-

tem by using image recognition to process the TIFF image from the fax, putting it through an approval process, and then converting it to

an IDoc for processing into the SAP system. CSRs are eliminated from the process, resulting in total savings of $134,000 per year and

ROI in less than six months.

Leading manufacturer of home appliances


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Before Esker DeliveryWare:

After Esker DeliveryWare:

Company receives ordersmainly through fax and mail

These paper documents arerouted to the appropriate repvia manual processes.

Company rep checks “sold to”and “key account number” info

in the SAP system to see if aduplicate order has beenreceived. Order is then enteredinto the SAP system, includingall line items, via VA01.

The order date may be left out until afirmdelivery date is established. In this case, the

order date will be entered into the SAPsystem when released via a phone call or afaxed release sheet.

Orders are then kept in a file folderor notebookfor later retrieval and

billing as needed.

Orders received by company viafax are automatically captured,recognized and routedto the

order rep — eliminating manual

fax distribution. Orders receivedby mail can be scanned androuted to the order rep.

Esker DeliveryWare OCR capabilitiesreduce or eliminates data entry. Pertinentdatais extracted and rep would validate

that all information iscaptured correctly.

Release sheet is faxed in or Esker DeliveryWarechecks web sitewith the update of deliverydates. Esker DeliveryWare can automate thedelivery date sheetto the SAP sales order. Ifthere are issues thatcan’t be resolvedautomatically, the system can notify the order

rep of problems.

All correspondence keptin theCommon Store/SAPArchive for easy retrieval

Information from document anddocument itself are uploadedinto the SAP system. Salesorder is created if there are noduplicates.


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Creating a successful implementation

To ensure a successful conversion from a conventional order-to-cash process to an automated order management:

1. Search for a solution that offers the highest value.

To get the highest return on your investment, find a solution that will fully integrate your order-to-cash process. It is highly likely that you

have different process requirements from different customers. Make sure that the solution you choose can meet all your own

requirements as well as those of your customers, such as diverse document formats, validation, approval, routing and archiving.

2. Search for a solution that can be integrated quickly.

Measuring the cost of deployment, integration and scalability to meet your needs and your vendor needs is crucial in choosing the

correct solution. Look for a solution that can be implemented quickly and integrate seamlessly within your existing SAP applications.

3. Expertise and knowledge are key to success.

A successful automation of an order-to-cash solution must include both technology and expertise. How long has the company been

implementing these solutions and how many successful installations have they completed? Make sure they have a strong

understanding of the essential tasks involved in enterprise technology implementation and integration.

4. Find solutions that create added value.

The solution must automate every piece of the order-to-cash process. It should leverage your existing infrastructure, thereby increasing

the value of your current enterprise applications such as ERP, CRM, and other systems.


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Conclusion

For companies looking to trim budgets, automating the order-to-cash process can yield significant savings to the bottom line of more

than 70% of costs accumulating from labor, supplies, errors and extended DSO. The order-to-cash process requires orchestrating trans-

actions that span multiple steps, processed at different times by different systems. Improvements in these performance variables suchas a single day's reduction in DSO can yield millions in cash flow.

To achieve these results, it is necessary to carefully assess the available market solutions and find one that meets all the needs in your

specific process. Inefficient business processes cause companies to miss tremendous opportunities for profitability, and can keep them

from emerging as market leaders. Now is the time to automate, and the leading solution is Esker DeliveryWare for:

Integrated data/document capture

Flexible, automated task routing

Consistent exception handling procedures for canceled transactions and blocked orders

Duplicate order checking

Minimized number of key strokes to complete the order entry process

Continuous tracking of process data and status for customer service

Dynamic work item descriptions and titles

Reports on process time and volume, queued orders, exceptions and blocks, delivery dates ... even before the order is entered

in the SAP system

Comprehensive business solution with view of all customer order processes in the SAP system

Quick, turnkey implementation without custom programming

About Esker

Esker is a recognized leader in helping organizations streamline manual, paper-intensive processes and reduce the use of paper by

automating the flow of documents into, within and outside the organization. With patented document delivery automation software (Esker

DeliveryWare) and hosted document delivery services (FlyDoc), Esker offers a total solution to automate every phase and every type of

business information exchange. Customers gain significant and immediate operational efficiencies, cost savings and measurable ROI in

as little as three to six months.

Founded in 1985, Esker operates globally and has over 80,000 customers and millions of licensed users worldwide. Esker has globalheadquarters in Lyon, France and U.S. headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, visit www.esker.com or

www.flydoc.com.


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Contact Information

Australia Sydney

Asia Singapore

Germany Munich

Italy Milan

Spain Madrid

United Kingdom Derby, Derbyshire

Madison, Wisconsin Ô U.S. Headquarters

1212 Deming Way Suite 350 Madison, WI 53717

Toll-free 800.368.5283

Phone 608.828.6000

Fax 608.828.6001

Email [email protected]

www.esker.com

France Ô World Headquarters

10 rue des Emeraudes 69006 Lyon France

Tel +33 (0)4 72 83 46 46

Fax +33 (0)4 72 83 46 40

Email [email protected]

© 2006 Esker S.A. All rights reserved. Esker and the Esker logo are registered trademarks of Esker S.A. in the U.S. and other countries. SAP is the registered trademark of SAP AG in Germany and in several other

countries. Process Tracking System (PTS) is a trademark of Dolphin I T-Project and Consulting Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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