The issue of guide gross sales order processing
The gross sales order processing workflow is integral to the general order to money course of. In most medium to giant B2B companies gross sales orders are nonetheless entered/created manually by inside gross sales reps. That is the case even for big organisations that use SAP as their system of document (ERP) and course of giant volumes of orders.
Gross sales reps in these organisations obtain buy orders with unstructured information despatched in by consumers by way of electronic mail, fax or cellphone. They then parse this information to create gross sales order requests or gross sales orders in SAP for each manually. This guide technique of gross sales order processing is extraordinarily inefficient, error-prone and time consuming.
On this article we’ll discover a great workflow for SAP gross sales order automation, focus on some key challenges, and suggest an alternate resolution to automate gross sales orders in SAP utilizing Nanonets.
Key takeaways
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1. Create bigger quantity of Gross sales orders in much less time decreasing human errors.
2. Inbuilt communication workflow with gross sales order course of to replace stakeholders.
3. Assist gross sales reps scale up & cut back repetitive effort of getting into the S/4HANA system to take care of gross sales order request and gross sales order entries.
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Focus on the key challenges in establishing this workflow on SAP.
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Think about an alternate resolution to robotically create gross sales orders in SAP utilizing Nanonets.
Trying to automate your guide gross sales order processing workflows in SAP? Learn how Nanonets will help your gross sales groups keep away from guide information entry and concentrate on delivering worth to clients.
Automating gross sales order processing in SAP
SAP presents an answer combining RPA (5LT bot) and ML-based information extraction (app ID F4920) to automate the gross sales order creation workflow finish to finish:
1. Automate PO import into SAP with the 5LT bot
- Incoming order particulars and/or buy orders are primarily shared by way of electronic mail. The 5LT bot continously scans unread electronic mail topic strains for particular or related key phrases that may point out an incoming order.
- The bot then downloads the hooked up order file or PO from the actual electronic mail and uploads it into SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
2. Parse POs with the Create Gross sales Orders – Computerized Extraction app (F4920) and create a Gross sales Order Request
- For every new PO the Create Gross sales Orders – Computerized Extraction app on SAP S/4HANA Cloud then creates a brand new Gross sales Order Request, triggers the info extraction and attaches the PO (PDF or picture) within the SOR (Gross sales Order Request).
- The system flags lacking particulars that forestall an computerized SOR creation which may then be added or validated manually.
- The 5LT bot enters the small print pertaining to the created SORs into an Excel file and saves it domestically.
3. Automate Gross sales Order creation from validated SORs with the 5LT bot
- The 5LT bot fetches gross sales order request quantity(s) and carry out information validations to confirm information completeness.If required, it performs a Grasp Knowledge Matching to to replace the SOR.
- The bot then makes use of the Excel file created within the step above to transform all validated SORs into recent gross sales orders in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
- Lastly, the bot emails all stakeholders with a standing report and associated attachments.
Challenges within the native SAP gross sales order automation resolution
Whereas the answer coated above will get the job completed, it has its fair proportion of challenges. After talking to a bunch of companies utilizing the SAP ecosystem and getting insights from SAP energy customers on Reddit, listed below are a few of they issues that customers face whereas establishing SAP gross sales order automation workflows as proven earlier.
Incomplete import of order information from emails
Order information despatched in as emails or POs is usually unstructured and even complicated in some circumstances. And the RPA bot may not all the time seize these particulars precisely.
- Along with the hooked up POs, very important order particulars are sometimes shared within the electronic mail physique and even within the electronic mail topic line.
Inconsistent buyer information that does not match the vendor’s information
Getting clients to share constant and correct info in POs or emails is a problem. And this usually journeys up the info extraction course of and the gross sales order creation workflow.
- Matching buyer IDs to the suitable materials/merchandise IDs is a frequent problem – e.g. clients will ship you an order for merchandise XYZ however in your system the merchandise is recorded as merchandise ABC.
- The identical is the case with pricing particulars, supply dates, and different very important order particulars that do not match within the vendor’s and the client’s ERPs.
- Neither the automated information extraction nor the SAP bot will help 100% on this state of affairs and guide intervention is unavoidable.
Pricing & lack of know-how
The pricing internet of this SAP tech may be prohibitive for some companies and fairly difficult to setup and preserve.
- Price is a big issue right here and pricing particulars are sometimes opaque, complicated or simply not accessible until you communicate to a marketing consultant or gross sales exec. If it is cheaper to rent N individuals to do it manually than to pay for a license, automation would undoubtedly be out of the image.
- Companies usually lack inside sources to usually preserve the SAP tech stack. Whereas there are lots of SAP consultants out there, value and lack of direct visibility and management may be of concern.
SAP gross sales order automation utilizing Nanonets
Whereas the SAP tech stack for automating gross sales order processing is powerful, best and broadly utilized by companies within the SAP ecosystem, it has some clear drawbacks that we coated within the earlier part. We’ll now take a look at how a workflow involving Nanonets can streamline the challenges talked about beforehand within the SAP gross sales order automation course of.
Nanonets is an clever automation AI for all enterprise processes that may automate complicated enterprise processes and draw actionable insights from unstructured information throughout a number of sources. Here is a case research on how SaltPay makes use of Nanonets to combine with SAP to handle vendor invoices.
Nanonets can match seamlessly into your current SAP setup to automate gross sales order processing finish to finish. Most significantly pricing for Nanonets is fairly easy and clear. And it’s a lot simpler to arrange and preserve workflows on Nanonets.
Here is how a great SAP gross sales order automation workflow powered by Nanonets would appear like:
1. Precisely import and seize ALL order information from buyer emails
Acquire/ahead all incoming emails to a devoted Nanonets inbox. The AI can then extract all related order information from electronic mail our bodies, topics, sender data, attachments, or signatures.
Establishing electronic mail imports is fairly easy with Nanonets. Simply choose the suitable information extractor mannequin (PO extractor) and arrange the import workflow utilizing the workflow builder.
2. Validate and approve the extracted/captured order information
Nanonets AI can examine order information reminiscent of buyer id, merchandise codes, amount, deal with, supply particulars and many others. in opposition to grasp information to flag inconsistencies that have to be reviewed.
Nanonets can fetch grasp information from SAP by way of API connectors, match the info and flag inconsistencies for evaluate. The AI can alternately do a fuzzy match to choose the very best match from the grasp information straight. If the grasp information resides in an exterior database or Excel sheet this course of is much more easy with Nanonets.
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Nanonets has clients that retailer grasp information in SAP straight and in addition people who retailer grasp information in an exterior DB or Excel/csv that’s stored updated.
You can even arrange rule-based approval workflows based mostly on order worth, clients or every other logic.
3. Push gross sales order into SAP
The validated information within the earlier step can then be posted or pushed by Nanonets into SAP S/4HANA Cloud by way of API. Nanonets can moreover connect supporting paperwork to the SO in SAP to function a reference.
Nanonets can both create gross sales order requests or straight create gross sales orders.