Material certificates, technical drawings, service requests, delivery notes… Documents constantly flow in and out of your organization, carrying with them important information for your business. But will you easily find them when you need them the most? How can you make sure that none is misplaced, overlooked, or accessed by unauthorized agents?
Why do you need to have your business documents linked to the SAP system?
The ability to efficiently manage and store business documents in SAP has always been important for smooth operations. However, in the age of real-time analysis and data-driven decisions, the proper management of information is not “important” but “essential”.
Business documents are a vital source of information. They provide evidence and context for transactions, agreements, and support compliance with regulations.
For instance, having access to complete documentation during an audit can make the difference between a smooth review process and a prolonged investigation. Similarly, when dealing with inquiries, having the right documents readily available can enhance customer satisfaction and trust. This does not only apply to regulatory entities, buyers, or users, but to all stakeholders such as suppliers, employees, etc.
In the context of ERP systems like SAP ECC or SAP S/4HANA, understanding and improving the process to store business documents has a significant impact on operational efficiency and regulatory compliance. If you want to achieve the best run, you need to ensure completeness, integrity, and authorized accessibility to business documents.
The challenges of manually storing business documents in SAP
Despite their importance, many organizations still rely on manual processes to store business documents in SAP. This often results in a tedious and error-prone procedure, filled with inconvenient steps that hurt the overall document management strategy.
Consider the following workflow:
1. Keeping track of missing documents in SAP
As you outline and implement your business blueprint, you will identify the corresponding document flow, as well as compliance requirements. During operations, you need to ensure that the required documentation is complete and easily accessible from the SAP system. In other words, you need to properly store business documents in SAP and link them to the corresponding business object.
This can introduce complexity and effort, since each business object requires diverse document types at specific times during the process. Therefore, you may have to proof the attachment list of business objects several times.
2. Scanning documents
Depending on the level of digitization of your organization and its environment, you may still rely on paper-based documents. Therefore, a scanning solution such as desktop scanners or multifunction devices is often required. Nowadays, most solutions allow users to scan documents directly into a shared folder or dedicated email inbox. Setting this up involves defining authorizations and other security measures to protect the digitized information.
If you are implementing centralized scanning instead of distributed scanning, you will need to move your documents in physical form to the corresponding location before digitizing them.
3. Processing before storing
After scanning, you must search for the document in the configured provisional repository (folder or inbox). Some scanning tools include capabilities like deleting blank pages or even barcode and optical character recognition. However, if you require more advanced functionalities – e.g., stamps, watermarks, text extraction from specific zones of the document, etc. – you may have to save a local copy of the file so that you can send it to a document processing suite.
Establishing a naming convention for documents is also recommended. In this case, you may need to rename the resulting file before your store the business document in SAP.
4. Store the business document in SAP
The commonly thought as “final step” is to upload the document to the correct business object in the SAP system. Navigating SAP using transaction codes and object numbers each time a new document is digitized can be time-consuming, leading to frustration. It can also cause mistakes such as uploading to the wrong object.
Alternatively, you can organize documents by document type – e.g., all delivery notes –, business object type – e.g., all documents that belong to purchase orders –, or by object number – all documents that belong to PO 4500012345 –. Still, you may accidentally upload the document as a generic GOS attachment instead of a business document.
5. Delete intermediate copies
This step is often overlooked and yet, it is critical for the protection of data. During the digitization and storing process, one or more copies of the document were generated. The first lies in the shared folder or email inbox. Next, you may have created a local copy of it for processing or renaming. The document processing suite creates a new version of the scanned document, etc.
If part of your compliance requirement is to eliminate intermediate copies of certain document types, you will have to ensure that no provisional file is left behind after storing in SAP.
Each of these steps not only introduces potential errors but also creates opportunities for users to forget critical documents altogether. This oversight can significantly impact operations, leading to wasted resources spent searching for missing documentation. Furthermore, failure to comply with documentation requirements can result in lost trust from suppliers and customers, and in severe cases, sanctions from regulatory entities.
The advantages of automation for document management
Given the challenges associated with manual document management, it is easy to recognize the benefits of automation solutions. Organizations can greatly benefit from implementing tools that simplify and optimize document management in the SAP system. Ideally, such a tool should be fully compatible with SAP technology and services for a seamless integration into the system.
The BECONEX Send2SAP portfolio, for example, makes the process to digitize and store business documents in SAP more efficient. In correspondence with the previously exposed challenges, Send2SAP brings the following benefits:
1. Placeholders to ensure the completeness of information
The CaptureQueue application, part of the Send2SAP portfolio, allows users to create scanning tasks linked to specific business objects. These tasks serve as placeholder for missing documents, significantly minimizing the risk of forgetting to upload essential documentation to SAP.
Open scanning tasks can be visualized and selected from a dropdown at the capture device. Once scanned, the document will be automatically linked to the business object to which the task was linked.
2. Real-time communication, distributed scanning, and increased collaboration
All Send2SAP solutions enable secure and bidirectional communication between the scanner and the SAP system. Thanks to this communication, it is possible to use the device’s screen to perform a preconfigured search or a manual meta search in SAP in real time. This allows users to find and select the target business object directly at the capture device. Similarly to when using scanning tasks, scanned documents are automatically linked to the selected business object.
Another advantage of using scanning tasks is that these can be delegated to users and teams inside the organization. That way, any collaborator who owns business documents can contribute to the completeness of information. This better distributes the workload, by enabling both SAP and non-SAP users to store business documents in the SAP system.
Finally, Send2SAP is compatible with a wide range of capture devices and sources. This includes multifunction devices, desktop scanners, smartphones, tablets, web browsers, the local file system, etc. Therefore, it is well suited to implement distributed scanning – almost any device or storage location can be used to send documents to SAP. Together with delegated scanning, distributed scanning increases collaboration in document management tasks.
3. Automatic document processing in the background
Once a document is scanned, users can consider the process as finished; the solution automatically takes care of all subsequent steps in the background. This includes document preprocessing capabilities such as removing blank pages and speckles, fixing skewed pages, etc. It also comprises information extraction through optical character recognition of entire pages or preconfigured zones, and barcode recognition.
Send2SAP can also be used in combination with software for digital quality and integrity. This type of tool helps you implement more complex workflows that involve reviewing and sealing documents before storing them.
4. Maximum flexibility to store business documents in SAP
The next step is the storing of the scanned business document in SAP. This happens automatically as soon as the processing steps are completed. Thanks to its compatibility with ArchiveLink technology and the Document Management Service (DMS) from SAP, Send2SAP covers many storing scenarios. For example, digitized documents can be stored as business documents or as original application files of a document info record.
In the case of business documents, the linking can be done through barcode matching or using SAP Business Workflows. You can also select the target business object at the capture device, which is equivalent to the manual storing scenario. Regarding original files, Send2SAP allows you to automatically create a new document info record for the scanned document. Alternatively, you can update an existing document info record, either by creating a new version, by adding a new original file, or by updating the linked original file, etc.
Send2SAP also offers new storing scenarios, such as delegated scanning with CaptureQueue, but also secure late storing with Document Buffer. Of course, this applies to any SAP module, bringing the benefits of the solution to all divisions in the organization.
5. Delete intermediate copies
Finally, you can stop worrying about vulnerable intermediate versions of your document. Given that Send2SAP is an end-to-end solution – from the capture device all the way to the business object and content server for SAP – it helps you ensure that no copies are created in parallel locations (like the shared folder or email inbox). Once the processing and storing is finished, no local version of the document is left behind.
Next steps to optimize the document storing and management in SAP
Efficiently storing business documents in SAP is vital for ensuring the completeness of information and maintaining operational effectiveness. The risks that come with manual document management processes can negatively impact your organization, slowing down operations, wasting resources, and hurting compliance.
By implementing an automated solution like Send2SAP and CaptureQueue, you can optimize your document management processes. This will allow you to reduce errors and enhance compliance.
Are you ready to transform your document management strategy? Contact us today to request a demo of the CaptureQueue solution for delegated scanning and take the first step towards a more efficient SAP document management system.