Streamline AP Processes & Payments with SAP Integration

Stampli has enhanced its pre-built integration for SAP, giving users the ability to optimize their accounts payable via Stampli’s AP Automation platform. Stampli has developed next-gen integrations to streamline SAP ECC, R/3, S/4 HANA, and Business Suite. Use the enhanced Stampli platform for an industry-leading seamless integration.

Businesses that don’t fully leverage technology to automate accounts payable face a number of challenges. Using Stampli allows companies to automate the invoice coding process, speed up invoice approvals, and make communication and collaboration simple for all invoice stakeholders.

The Typical State of AP Processing

Many companies operate in an AP environment that is paper-intensive, and inefficient. Here are some of the invoice processing challenges AP teams may encounter:

• Receiving invoices: There is no centralized location to receive invoices, and the data may get lost or sent to the wrong person.
• Matching and coding invoice data: It’s difficult to gather records and to match invoice, purchase order (PO), and shipping receipt data. Without automation, coding takes far more time, and there’s a higher risk of error.
• Keeping invoice stakeholders aligned: The AP team must provide data to the approvers, and the data is transferred by sending hardcopy documents or email attachments. As a result, information may be lost or filed incorrectly. The business does not have a central communication hub where all related questions and answers can be reviewed by stakeholders. Information is siloed, and communication is slow and difficult.  

Added complexity makes invoice management even more challenging. Think about businesses that operate through multiple subsidiaries, or staff dozens of locations. Invoice data may include coding for a particular company division, office location, or business unit. 

Processing more invoice data using an inefficient process leads to more errors and bottlenecks. Vendors are paid late, and managers don’t have accurate data on the number or dollar amount of unpaid invoices.

The SAP pre-built integration with Stampli was enhanced to help anyone who touches invoices at your business – from purchasers to AP staff to approvers – enjoy a streamlined AP processing experience. This allows AP teams to stay organized, in control, efficient, and synchronized. 

Benefits of Stampli + SAP Integration

Businesses that have previously been crushed by never-ending AP paperwork and high communications overhead can now enjoy the paperless efficiency of Stampli AP automation for SAP ECC, R3, S4HANA, and Business Suite. This comes with many company benefits:

• Your SAP data is kept behind the firewall
• Stampli syncs with your SAP data, so that both systems are constantly updated
• Stampli’s AP Automation solution adapts to your processes, and allows the business to scale

AP automation that works directly alongside your SAP processes and transactions

Your SAP data is the single source of truth for your transactions, and we know that data is critical to understanding how the business is performing. It’s even more important that your data stays safe and secure. Data is synced with a bridge and file transfer, with no external Business API access required. This process creates a seamless integration using a bi-directional data sync.

Our pre-built integration with SAP ensures your data stays behind the firewall. The integration is accomplished by a combination of the Stampli Bridge and virtual drive to sync data back and forth between systems.  We ensure that data in both SAP and Stampli is updated in near real-time including:

• Lists such as vendors, GLs, cost center, payment data, and more are synced and updated in near-real time to Stampli.
• Real-time sync of PO and Receiving data. A PO includes live data that is constantly changing, which means that pulling in real-time data is important. The integration syncs PO and receiving data, becoming available in Stampli and can be used with an invoice.
• Automatic sync of invoice and payment data to SAP. Invoice and payment data automatically sync back to SAP as a logistics Invoice, financial Invoice, payment, etc.

Stampli provides a sync of SAP data, including GL, vendors, POs, and custom fields. Replicating all of your SAP data speeds up the coding process, and invoices sync to SAP once they are approved and authorized. 

We ensure that every customer has a tight-knit integration, and our dedicated customer success team will help you every step of the way. 

Flexibility to match your unique processing needs

Whatever your organizational structure looks like, we’re ready for you. You can set up and change approval workflows to meet your needs, including workflows with multiple approvers. 

Stampli’s AP Automation software solution uses Artificial Intelligence technology — Billy the Bot — to automate AP invoice processing and learns an organization’s unique patterns to simplify GL-coding, automate approval notifications, identify duplicates and more. Finally, Stampli will process both POs and non-PO invoices. 

Streamlining communications

Reduce inefficiencies by streamlining communications between anyone involved with your invoices including managers, purchasers, the AP staff, and vendors. Our built-in communication tools make it so there are no more back-and-forths, run-arounds, rabbit-holes, or communication loop-de-loops. Here are some benefits of improved communication:

• Ask and answer questions from teammates or management
• Access relevant details and documents in a single location  
• Notify approvers when action is required on a particular invoice
• Quickly request updates to any invoice field
• One-click access to the status of an invoice

With Stampli’s communication tools, making an invoice decision has never been easier. Users can access all invoice-related supporting documents, and review all communications for a particular invoice.

Full visibility into invoice status & activities with Stampli Insights

Gain full visibility into your accounts payable data with Stampli Insights. Built directly into the most powerful AP Automation platform, AP teams are provided with all the tools to understand their invoice processes, each invoice’s status, employee workloads, and more.

Visualize AP data with Stampli Dashboards

Review holistic views of your AP data with three pre-built Dashboards and interactive widgets. Measure AP data that matters most at a glance or drill down with filters. 

Personalize invoice views with Stampli Reports 

Customize 10 out-of-the-box reports to view precise invoice information. Organize and save report customizations for quick access next time you log on.

Use Advanced Search for ad-hoc queries

Find the exact invoice and payment information on-the-fly with a built-in search engine. Locate invoices or payments based on precise search criteria such as status, vendor, or PO.

With Dashboards, we hope to give AP teams the power to do more with their data and ultimately make their invoice processing even more efficient and effective. 

Pay Vendors via ACH, Check, or Stampli Card with Stampli Direct Pay

Pay your way with maximum flexibility and control. Use your preferred payment method, or our add-on capability, Stampli Direct Pay, for easy payment runs with painless paper check, easy-to-reconcile ACH transactions, or Stampli Card. We empower your team to collect, manage, and own all corporate spend in one place.

Using Stampli Direct Pay

Direct Pay is an optional service with maximum business-to-business (B2B) payment flexibility. Use Stampli to pay vendors by automated clearing house (ACH), paper checks, Stampli Card, or any other payment method outside of Stampli’s AP Automation platform. You choose.

Bank accounts, vendor payment details, vendor credits, and discounts are auto-synced with Stampli. If you post a voided payment in SAP, the data automatically updates in Stampli. Businesses have easy access to all relevant details and supporting documentation for seamless payment approvals.

Stay in control of your vendor relationship, with no middleman interference.

Working with Stampli Card

Use Stampli Card to gain complete control and visibility over your corporate credit card spend with the only card solution integrated into the most powerful AP Automation platform. Stampli Card purchases are automatically synced as a payment receipt in SAP. Use Stampli to manage all corporate credit card transactions and invoices in one place.

When you use Stampli Card with Stampli Direct Pay, vendor invoices are paid instantly, and each payment approval is based on your defined approval workflow to ensure the right people sign off. You can choose to notify vendors of Stampli Card details via a remittance email link, or in Stampli’s Vendor Portal (if you provide access to vendors). Use Stampli Card to control corporate spend before it happens.

Don’t Just Manage Spend, Control It

Stampli’s end-to-end AP platform gives you full control and visibility over all your corporate spending from invoices to cards to  payments—all in one place. Customer delight positions Stampli as the Leader in the G2 Grid® for AP Automation software and #1 in Usability, Support, Implementation, and Results for Summer of 2022.

To find out more about Stampli’s pre-built SAP pre-built integration, send a note to our team here to get the ball rolling. We’d love to tell you more about the Stampli + SAP integration. Or, if you’re still exploring you can learn how Stampli works with SAP here. Take control over invoice and bill processing with smart, intuitive, and actionable AP Automation from Stampli.