Describing SAP Business Network

Jenny is the SAP Business Network administrator for the customer and is responsible for managing supplier relationships. Jenny would like to create trading relationships with the suppliers by sending them a PO. The Quick Enablement rule has to be enabled on the SAP Business Network site for this to work.

SAP Business Network is a cloud marketplace for modern business, creating simple, intelligent exchanges between Millions of Buyers and Suppliers. SAP Business Network is a part of the SAP Business Network.

SAP Business Network enables collaboration of business commerce for direct and indirect goods and services.

On SAP Business Network, buyers can configure profile and business information, as well as transaction rules for suppliers, as follows:

• Default transaction rules can be set up as the expected behavior for all suppliers.
• Group rules can be set up to apply only to specific.
• Country-based rules can be set up to apply to suppliers from specific countries.
• Transaction rules apply to different document types:
  • Purchase Orders
  • Service Sheets
  • Invoices

Additional rules can be applied for Taxes, Currency Precision and rounding, Catalog Validation against UNSPC version, and more.

Following are the steps for Transaction Rules Configuration:

1. Log in to your SAP Business Network Buyer account

   Choose Administration ＞ Configuration ＞ Default Transaction Rules.

2. In each section of the Default transaction rules page, specify rules that either require or allow suppliers to include specific kinds of information on transaction documents.
3. Choose Save.
   

SAP Business Network Transaction Rules

Rules can be set at various levels, as follows:

• Default level impacts all suppliers with whom you transact.
• Group level is usually based on commodity or business process (subset of all rules).
• Country level impacts invoices originating in a certain country (subset of all rules).

"There are three types of transaction rules."

• Require something (for example, Require suppliers to send invoice attachments).
• Allow something (for example, Allow suppliers to send invoices to this account).
• Put a limit on something (for example, Allow invoices to be back-dated the specified number of days).
• The strictest interpretation of the rule wins (Allow – No, Require – Yes).

Best practice to set-up transaction rules are as follows:

• Default rules should stay open if you want to use country rules as well (rule evaluation)

  • Allow type rules set to "Yes" on default level and "No" on country level.
  • Require type rules set to "No" on default level and "Yes" on country level.

• Default rules should NOT be based on specific country requirements.

• Do you need any customizations on the SAP Business Network (PO layout, invoice user interface)?

  • Customizations can only be applied to either default or group level (not country).
    • Customization has the format of a "require rule"? – create a supplier group.
    • Customization has the format of an "allow rule"? – put it on default level.

• Default only

  • Mostly suitable for limited geographical scope where requirements are uniform.

• Default + group

  • Can be applied if you have easily identifiable subsets of suppliers that require different rules.
  • Usually based on a business process rather than geography.

• Default/group + country

  • Fits large geographical scope, supports a phased roll out as new countries can be added as needed.

Country-based invoice rules are as follows:

• SAP Ariba maintains default country-based invoice rules for the countries based on research with our tax advisors and field experience.
• Although recommended, the default settings for the country-based invoice rules may not be appropriate for your organization.
• Consult your tax and/or legal advisors to determine how to configure your invoice rules.

SAP Business Network uses the originating country on the invoice to check if active country-based rules exists and must be applied. To determine the originating country, the system checks the invoice for the following information in the order given below:

1. Tax representative’s VAT ID prefix.
2. Tax representative’s country code.
3. Supplier’s VAT ID prefix.
4. "From" address’ country code.