Invoice processing 4.0 on S/4HANA

WEIG is an industrial service provider working along the cardboard value-added chain. The WEIG Group specialises in gypsum cardboard, has in-house expertise in packaging cardboard and cardboard packaging and provides sustainable solutions for the disposal of secondary raw materials. Everything comes together.

“We wanted to work with someone that we knew supported S/4HANA. And tangro was the right partner,” says Tim Hoffmann from Group Service IT on the decision to use tangro software. “Real-life evidence from a reference customer already using tangro on S/4HANA convinced us of our choice.” The tangro solution for invoice processing is SAP-embedded, so can be integrated directly in the SAP ERP system without any interfaces - and in S/4HANA too. “From an IT standpoint, the fact that tangro is SAP-embedded simplifies things a great deal. A slight adjustment was needed at just one point then the basic software could run on our S/4HANA system. Everything happened quickly and smoothly,” says Tim Hoffmann enthusiastically. “We felt like the advice we were being given was good. tangro has extensive experience in processing incoming documents for SAP and knows what is worth doing and what isn’t.” 

WEIG receives around 45,000 invoices a year, half by e-mail and half by post. Around 80 percent of the invoices received by WEIG are recognised fully automatically with tangro IM. The system therefore meets one of the most important requirements of the specialist departments, as Alexander Paucar-Bahrs from the Group Service Purchasing explains: “It was important to us that the software used for processing incoming invoices provided the best recognition levels possible and if necessary could post documents fully automatically in the background.” 

Implementing the new workflow solution has also standardised the processes in line with the company structure and streamlined them. Fixed value limits are now in place against which invoice approvals are organised. What’s more, stand-in rules ensure reliable document processing even when staff are absent. The workflows are now also so simple that the specialist department can handle them itself anyway. An automated escalation process further simplifies matters by reminding users when they have invoices still requiring approval. The invoice entry journal, with separate set-up variants, ensures an overview of all incoming documents. 

This process has sped up invoice processing so much that after just a few months of productive use an increase in the number of discount payments can already be seen. “Thanks to real-time processing, we are now able to post invoices faster and make use of discount much more often,” says Alexander Paucar-Bahrs. 

Now up and running, the internal IT department are able to confirm how workflows have been optimised. “There will be less maintenance work required in the long term. There are no longer any interfaces where we have to provide IT support and continually adapt when the supplier changes something, for example. We have one single, central invoice processing system, which has a user structure similar to SAP. So we can assume authorisation roles,” adds Tim Hoffmann. But most importantly tangro has made WEIG ready for the future: “Because invoice verification with tangro runs on S/4HANA, we are using the fastest system available and are prepared for whatever the future has in store.”