SAP Sourcing & Procurement | BearingPoint Platform Services

Sourcing and procurement play a vital role in SAP's S/4 HANA system, previously known as Materials Management in SAP ECC. This functionality is a central part of SAP that drives logistics and supply chain operations, encompassing various activities like managing material and vendor data, inventory management, purchasing, goods receiving, planning, and invoice verification.

By implementing optimized sourcing and procurement processes using SAP's best practices, businesses can achieve increased productivity and cost reduction. This ensures there are no material shortages along the supply chain. We prioritize seamless integration with finance, production planning, quality management, external warehouse management, and sales and distribution to effectively support our customers in a personalized manner.

BearingPoint’s team of experts has extensive SAP Sourcing and Procurement knowledge and experience, covering all sub-areas:

Procurement
Manage all procurement activities, ranging from requirement planning and procurement proposals to invoice receipt. This includes Purchase Requisition processing, Purchase Order Processing, Returns Processing, Special Business processes in Operational procurement (Intercompany Stock Transfers), Release Strategy setup, and Central Procurement.
- Optimize procurement activities through integrated processes.
- Manage Conditions and Price Determination.
- Handle the Output forms of Purchasing Documents.
Inventory Management
- Optimize stock movements to achieve efficient warehouse operations, including goods receipts, goods issues, and transfer postings.
- Manage physical inventory activities for goods.
Material Requirement Planning
- Efficiently plan your sourcing and manufacturing processes while ensuring material availability.
- Optimize production and procurement plans.
Invoice Management
- Invoice Verification: Manage activities related to checking for accuracy and posting vendor invoices.
- Perform invoice processing, including invoice verification online, document parking, invoice verification in the background, and Automatic Settlements (such as Evaluated Receipt Settlement (ERS), Consignment and pipeline settlement, Invoicing plan, and Revaluation).
- Automate your Invoice Verification process with EDI.
Invoice Verification via EDI process flow
Supplier Management and Evaluation
- Continuously analyze, evaluate, and monitor your suppliers' performance based on automated, real-time calculations of business documents in your operational procurement and manual questionnaires.
- Utilize the latest S/4 HANA functionalities, which enable you to choose between supplier scores based on hard-facts (e.g., automatically detected criteria like on-time delivery) and regular evaluations, as well as soft-facts.
Sourcing and Contract Management
- Manage Source Assignments: Process and monitor Purchase Requisitions, manage Quota Arrangements, Purchasing Info-records, Source Lists, Requests for Quotations, and Supplier Quotations. Also, handle sourcing projects and sources of supply.
- Manage Purchasing Contracts & Purchase Scheduling Agreements: Set up flexible workflows for Purchase Contracts and Purchase Scheduling Agreements, handle Output Management in Purchase Contracts, monitor Purchase Contract items, perform and monitor mass changes to Purchase Contracts and Purchase Scheduling Agreements, and ensure product compliance.
Procurement Reporting and Analysis
- Make the best purchasing decisions based on complete order history analysis.
- Real-time reporting and monitoring.
- Spend visibility: purchasing spend, spend variance, contract leakage, off-contract spend, invoice price variance, etc.
Workflow and Report Srategies
- Manage business processes covered by the Workflow in the context of the Purchase Requisition, Purchase Order, and Internal Order Workflow. Additionally, oversee stock movements related to the Reallocation Workflow and the Stand-alone approval process of Empty Shell Workflows (approved digital forms).
- Perform maintenance of the WF Launchpad and handle open work items for specific agents.

Empower Your Supply Chain

Enhance Your SAP Sourcing and Procurement with BearingPoint's Expert Team

Leverage our extensive knowledge and experience in SAP Sourcing and Procurement. Our experts cover all sub-areas, enabling us to guide you toward more efficient processes. Maximize the potential of your IT landscape with our assistance.

Discover how our AMS Team can support your Sourcing and Procurement activities at every stage of your SAP project :

HYPERCARE

➡️ Seamlessly transition from our Implementation Team.
➡️ Effortlessly migrate crucial data, including material master data, Supplier Business Partners, purchasing info-records, source list, and initial stock.
➡️ Ensure smooth operations with comprehensive system monitoring, including Idoc monitoring, batch jobs monitoring, and runtime errors monitoring.
➡️ Provide extensive user training and support, collaborating closely with Business key users to address any daily challenges they may face.
➡️ Swiftly resolve system issues in the MM (Materials Management) area, such as incorrect material master data setup, supplier master data setup errors, material movement posting errors, release strategy and approval workflow errors, automatic price determination errors, and stock-related issues.
➡️ Conduct thorough analysis and diagnosis of Workflow work items with errors.
➡️ Enhance and refine functionalities to meet your specific needs.

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

➡️ Monitor and resolve failed Idocs efficiently.
➡️ Analyze and provide solutions for any issues with MM reports, including queries, standard reports, and custom reports.
➡️ Identify and resolve errors reported by business users in MM activities, such as incorrect material master data setup and posting of material movements.
➡️ Analyze balance discrepancies in purchasing document flows.
➡️ Manage open work items for specific agents and restart approval workflows.
➡️ Administer and maintain custom workflow launchpad, including approval levels and structure adjustments.
➡️ Analyze and resolve system runtime errors.
➡️ Resolve issues with failed batch jobs.
➡️ Offer expert debugging skills for efficient problem-solving.

CHANGE REQUESTS

➡️ Improve standard MM reports and create custom reports and queries.
➡️ Enhance standard SAP MM functionalities, such as adding custom fields and activating user exits.
➡️ Customize standard MM tables by adding custom fields.
➡️ Create new MM processes in SAP, including new document types, delivery types, and movement types.
➡️ Design and implement interfaces between SAP and other systems, including electronic data interchange (EDI) with vendors.
➡️ Perform mass updates of master data, including material master and supplier master data.
➡️ Customize PR and PO release strategy and transfer classes and characteristics via Idocs.
➡️ Automate the removal of workflow errors and customize workflow settings.
➡️ Add additional functions to approval workflows, such as user options to skip approvals and customized reports for approvers.
➡️ Adjust the internal order approval workflow to accommodate the new budget allocation process.
➡️ Facilitate company reorganization and carve-out processes.
➡️ Perform system conversion from ECC to the S4 Hana platform.

BearingPoint Platform Services SAP

Contact our experts today and see how we can help you streamline your Sourcing and Procurement processes for greater success.

Get In Touch

Schedule a workshop with our team to shape your future AMS organization

The future AMS organization will not only take care about your operating system but will support business through digital advisory and even change business strategies with digital innovation.

Book a workshop