Many organizations still rely on manual, email-driven sales order processing. Business users receive customer documents, extract key details, validate information, and create orders in SAP S/4HANA. While manageable at low volumes, this approach becomes time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to scale as document complexity and volume increase.
Reimagining the Process with SAP BTP
This solution transforms the traditional process into an intelligent, end-to-end workflow using:
- SAP Build Process Automation for orchestration
- SAP Document AI for document understanding
- SAP CAP (Cloud Application Programming Model) for validation, enrichment, and user interaction
The result is a centralized, application-driven experience that minimizes manual effort while maintaining business control.
Solution Overview
The automated workflow replaces fragmented manual steps with a streamlined process:
- Incoming emails are monitored via SAP Build Process Automation
- Attachments are sent to SAP Document AI for data extraction
- Document AI extracts relevant sales order fields using a custom schema
- A CAP application retrieves and processes the extracted data
- Additional validation and enrichment is performed (e.g., master data checks, missing fields, amount validation)
- Business users review and approve data in a centralized interface before posting to SAP S/4HANA
Architecture Highlights
The solution is built on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP):
- SAP Build Process Automation → event-driven orchestration
- SAP Document AI → document extraction
- SAP CAP → business logic, validation, enrichment, UI
- SAP S/4HANA → system of record
- Connectivity & Destinations → secure integration via APIs
This architecture enables scalable automation with human-in-the-loop control.
Why This Approach Matters
Document extraction alone is not enough. True automation requires business context, validation, and enrichment.
The CAP layer bridges this gap by:
- Combining extracted data with SAP master data
- Applying business rules and validations
- Providing a controlled user review interface
This ensures accuracy while reducing manual effort.
Key Advantages
- Reduced manual handoffs
- Improved validation and enrichment control
- Enhanced user experience through a centralized interface
- Seamless integration with SAP S/4HANA
- Scalable and future-ready architecture
Business Impact
This solution addresses the core challenge of converting unstructured documents into structured SAP transactions.
Customer results include:
- ~30% increase in order-processing capacity
- ~90% reduction in manual effort per transaction
- Improved accuracy and reduced rework
- Faster month-end and quarter-end close
- Cleaner audit trail and compliance
Conclusion
By consolidating extraction, validation, enrichment, and user review into a single workflow, organizations can move from manual processing to intelligent automation – improving efficiency while maintaining control.
If you have any further questions, please leave a comment below or send your inquiries to the email CoE_AI_PlanningSpendExec@global.corp.sap. We will be happy to get back to you.
