VIM and SAP Transportation Management at Nouryon
Introduction
Martin Nooteboom - Senior SAP Invoice Management Consultant
While implementing SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM), our customer Nouryon encountered the challenge of integrating their existing invoice processing solution (SAP Vendor Invoice Management or SAP VIM) with the processing of transportation invoices specific to SAP TM. Recognizing Avelon's expertise in SAP VIM and our ability to provide innovative solutions for non-standard challenges, Nouryon asked us to develop a solution for processing transportation invoices in SAP VIM and interfacing them to SAP TM, where it will handle dispute management, freight settlement and invoice posting.
SAP Transportation Management
SAP TM, a software solution offered by SAP, is designed to optimize and streamline transportation operations and logistics processes within an organization. SAP TM's primary objective is to help businesses in efficiently managing their transportation and logistics operations, encompassing activities such as transportation planning, execution and monitoring. It offers features for the management and optimization of diverse transportation activities, including carrier selection, route planning, load consolidation, freight cost calculation and tracking and tracing.
Some key features and capabilities of SAP TM include:
Transportation Planning
Carrier Collaboration
Freight Procurement
Execution and Shipment Tracking
Freight Settlement and Invoicing
Process overview
According to the standard process, invoices come in through SAP BNL (SAP Business Network for Logistics). However, specific requirements pertain to invoices that come in through the current invoicing method and subsequently go through SAP VIM. The solution is required for invoices that carriers send directly to Nouryon.
The diagram below shows this invoice process for SAP TM where we have the SAP VIM process marked in the red square:
The SAP VIM solution
To streamline the process of receiving SAP TM invoices through SAP VIM, the following modifications have been made:
Add recognition of the Freight Booking (FB) and Freight Order (FO) numbers.
Determine the correct VIM process based on the recognized FB or FO number.
A mapping of the line item text to SAP TM charge types is created.
Standard business rules are used to check the important header information supplemented with some specific business rules.
Create the SAP TM invoice as XML and set the SAP VIM document to a specific status ending the SAP VIM process.
In addition, further adjustments have been made to ensure accurate updating of the SAP VIM document once the invoice is posted in SAP TM. The logistics and finance invoice numbers are added to the VIM Analytics and the status of the SAP VIM document is set to “POSTED”. Moreover, the invoice image is attached to both the logistics and finance invoice document.
The flowchart below illustrates the comprehensive process for the solution, with the section enclosed in the red square representing the SAP VIM solution.
Key take aways
The invoices in SAP TM are received through SAP BNL. In this process there is a two-way communication option available to ensure the accuracy of the invoice before it is sent to SAP TM. However, as we do not have this option with SAP VIM, we need to make sure the accurate creation of the invoice, as any discrepancies could lead to invoice rejection in the interface.
As always, it is essential to have clear requirements and specifications upfront whenever possible. After configuring the process using charge types, it was discovered that conditions needed to be mentioned in the invoice XML, resulting in a double translation from line item text to charge type to condition. A single step would have been more efficient.
XML creation can be accomplished through various methods. If a suitable XSD of the required XML output (or input) is available, SAP provides tools for generating the necessary structures and transformation, which makes the creation of the XML file in ABAP a lot easier.
More information
For any additional inquiries or information regarding this topic, or for questions related to SAP Workflow, Fiori, or SAP Master Data Governance, please reach out to Martijn Wever. Further details on Vendor Invoice Management and VIM Beyond Finance can be accessed through this link.
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