SAP took over the FinTech provider Toulia from Silicon Valley three years ago. Today SAP TAULIA offers huge savings potential through better liquidity. SAP expert Thomas Mehlkopf explains how this works.
The acquisition of the FinTech company Tulia has been completed since the beginning of 2022. It offers solutions for Working Capital Management (WCM) and Supply Chain Financing (SCF) as well as a network for buyers, suppliers and financial institutions (for details for this for the box below). The company has recently been operating as SAP TAULIA.
Thomas Mehlkopf is Global Chief Revenue Officer Treasury and Working Capital Management at SAP. His main task is to successfully market and introduce the solutions to customers in these areas.
A good three years ago, it was announced to integrate the TAULIA products into the SAP solution portfolio. How far are we here?
Since the acquisition, we have driven three major topics according to the SAP Business Suite: firstly, the integration of TAULIA into the SAP Business Network. This means that suppliers and customers who are both SAP TAULIA customers can receive payments at an early stage and have their own customer invoices about the SAP Business Network finance.
Second, we have the integration into the SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud worked. Taulia has been integrated into the public cloud since February 2025 both for receivables financing and Payables Financing. This is particularly relevant for medium -sized companies that want to grow and need liquidity at an early stage. The focus is currently on the markets in the USA, Canada, UK, Dach and Singapore, with the aim of providing this functionality promptly in other countries.
Third, SAP TAULIA is embedded with the Virtual Card solution in SAP Ariba, which enables customers to pay suppliers early, even before they have made an invoice, which is referred to as the “Pay On Purchase Order”. This ensures the liquidity of the suppliers and thus the execution of the order.
At the time, you had emphasized that Toulia offers growth opportunities for SAP and customers. How successful is SAP TAULIA?
SAP TAULIA already has some customers who finance billion dollars from the platform and thus improve their own liquidity and the liquidity of their suppliers. The goal of my team is to increase their number and further scaling. Here we are on the right track. In the past three years, the volume that we can finance over the platform has grown from 500 billion to 800 billion euros annually.
Customers benefit from this: A large company from the oil and gas industry has saved almost 700,000 euros within one month of the go-live. If we calculate this to twelve months, we are saved for this company at almost 8 million euros per year. The business case for customers is definitely available.
A first AI application case was presented at the Sapphire customer conference. Can you explain the benefit for companies?
The Ai -use Case refers to our “Insight to Action” approach. It helps to plan and improve liquidity. Toulia has long used artificial intelligence to predict the behavior of suppliers in terms of early payments.
There is an app on the SAP Business Technology Platform that enables transparency through free capital flow. Based on this transparency, the AI application will give the customer tips on how to further improve his free cash flow and play through various scenarios to show his influence on it. This is a big issue, especially for finances, especially in uncertain times.
What other innovations are there?
In addition to the innovation mentioned above, another important thing is that SAP TAULIA is now part of the transformation packages, both in the public cloud (Finance Base and Finance Premium) and in the Cloud ERP package. This enables us to quickly show customers the positive business case for their transformation by using SAP TAULIA to improve the cash flow and generate savings.
Crises, tariffs, unsafe supply chains: Why are SAP TAULIA’s solutions so important for the liquidity of companies?
Cash is still King, especially in times of crisis. An article in the Handelsblatt recently reported that the net debt of the 40 DAX groups rose by 8 percent to 227 billion euros. This shows that financing is a big topic, especially since interest rates have increased significantly since Corona.
Many companies have financed themselves during the low interest rate phase and now have to refinance to higher interest rates, which exerts enormous pressure on the financial departments. Here SAP TAULIA can help by finance companies.
The topic of tariffs has an impact on the supply chains. In this context, liquidity and scenario management is extremely important. Companies have to ask themselves where they produce in the future, what effects this has on sales and how they can use SAP TAULIA to improve their liquidity.
Which reference customers already benefit from this?
Tulia’s customers include Henkel, Airbus, Nissan, Astrazeneca, Kimberly-Clark and Bridgestone. A customer has enabled early payments to suppliers of over 5 billion euros since the beginning of the program, which has led to an improvement in the cash flow of over 1 billion euros during this period.
Your promise is “to Create the Future of Finance Together”. What does that mean?
It means that SAP and SAP TAULIA want to shape the future of financial system together with their partners and customers. This includes cooperation with banks and implementation partners as well as the integration of SAP TAULIA into various SAP solutions. We offer customers a comprehensive portfolio of treasury and working capital solutions ranging from payments to cash management to financial risk management.
An important aspect on our roadmap is our Treasury and Payment portfolio, which includes topics such as Digital Currencies and Future of Payments. We are working on integrating new technologies such as blockchain and digital currencies in order to offer our customers innovative payment and financial solutions.
Sap Toulia at a glance
On March 9, 2022, the SAP completed the acquisition of Toulia, a market-leading fintech company in the fields of working capital management (WCM) and supply chain financing (SCF). It offers a network for buyers, suppliers and financial institutions.
Working Capital Management aims to secure and optimize the solvency of a company. It helps you to effectively use your circulation and maintain a sufficient cash flow in order to meet short -term goals and obligations.
By effective management of the operating capital (working capital), companies can release cash that would otherwise be bound in their balance sheets. In this way you can reduce the need for external loans, expand your business, finance mergers or take over or invest in research and development.
Compared to other methods of liquidity procurement, working capital management is particularly advantageous for companies, since it is directly connected to the claims or liabilities between buyers and suppliers. Smaller suppliers in particular benefit from attractive interest rates to prevent a financing gap. Partner banks that provide the supplier with loans at the conditions of the large company enable this. This strengthens the buyer supplier relationship and generates financial advantages for both partners.
