Integrating SAP Ariba Contracts into Procurement Processes

The SAP Ariba Supplier Management solution portfolio consists of SAP Ariba Lifecycle and Performance (SLP) and SAP Ariba Supplier Risk. The SAP Ariba Supplier Management portfolio helps you proactively and strategically manage supplier lifecycles, performance, and risk within the context of your source-to-pay process. With SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance, buyers can manage suppliers based on specific parameters by using a single, up-to-date supplier record with information maintained by suppliers. SAP Ariba Supplier Risk helps buyers make smarter, safer risk decisions by making due diligence part of the procurement process.

In landscapes where customers have SAP Ariba Contracts and SAP Ariba Lifecycle and Performance, all supplier data and information is handled in SLP. Essentially, the supplier information displayed within the contract workspace is stored in the supplier 360 profile in the SLP module and is shared with SAP Ariba Contracts through native integration.

Customers who purchase the SAP Ariba Risk module can measure the risk of working with a supplier via engagement risk assessments. You can link an engagement risk assessment project to procurement contract requests and workspaces. The Engagement Request Details area in Contract Attributes shows the Status and Risk Rating for the supplier based on the risk project.

The SAP Ariba Sourcing solution helps organizations realize sustainable savings across spend categories through strategy development and execution, supplier discovery, and savings tracking. SAP Ariba Sourcing has recently introduced the guided sourcing capability for SAP Ariba Sourcing to modernize the user experience with the option to view projects in the classic view.

If your site has SAP Ariba Sourcing, you can integrate contract workspaces with guided sourcing and:

• View contracts that are about to expire in guided sourcing - You can use this information to plan and create events for items in the expiring contracts. If you have a procurement contract workspace with a line items document, you can create a sourcing project as a follow-on project and add items from the line items document to the follow-on sourcing project.
  
• Create contracts from awarded events - This enables you to include pricing information from the event in the contract.

Please play the video to learn how SAP Ariba Sourcing, SAP Ariba Contracts, and SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing can be used together in the Source to Pay process.

SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing provides functionality for operational contract creation, via the Ariba Contract Compliance tool. Through release and no-release contracts customers can enter set up procurement agreements for items and services, recording any associated recurring or fixed fees.

If SAP Ariba Contracts is integrated with your SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing application, you start the creation of your contract within SAP Ariba Contracts.

Once the contract creation and authoring is finalized, and the contract is signed, the pricing terms, stored in the Contract Terms document in the workspace, can be sent to the Ariba Procurement solution to be leveraged for buying.

Contract Management with SAP Ariba Contracts enables buyers to perform strategic sourcing activities and to integrate prices from SAP Ariba Contracts into operational systems, like, SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

In SAP Ariba Contracts, buyers can create contracts with either of the following document categories: outline agreements or scheduling agreements. You can create outline agreements with document types, MK (quantity contract) and WK (value contracts), and scheduling agreements with document types: LP (scheduling agreement without release) and LPA (scheduling agreement with release).

In SAP Ariba Contracts, buyers can negotiate prices for goods and lean services to be procured, and they can sign a legally binding contract with a supplier. You can also create a hierarchy of line items to arrange and group related line items in a hierarchical structure. In source determination in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, contracts can then be assigned in the source list as fixed sources of supply. Pricing details are passed on from SAP Ariba Contracts to the operational system, so that operational purchasers can use these prices to buy goods or services as required. The contracts that buyers create in SAP Ariba Contracts can contain the advanced pricing conditions and quantity scales.

Target groups for this process are purchasing managers as well as strategic buyers and operational purchasers.

Play the video to understand the SAP Ariba Contracts and SAP S/4HANA process flow.

Users of SAP Ariba Contracts can use the workflow integration between SAP Ariba Contracts and SAP Fieldglass such that their contract management and service procurement process is done in SAP Fieldglass while the contract workspace and contract terms creation occurs in the SAP Ariba Contracts solution.

Order information flows between SAP Fieldglass and the SAP Ariba Contracts solution. SAP Ariba Contracts users can upload contracts and have SAP Fieldglass manage the associated work orders and statements of work (SOWs). Additionally, the tight integration between SAP Fieldglass and SAP Ariba Buying allows SAP Ariba requisition approvers to easily access associated SAP Fieldglass work orders and statements of work (SOWs) directly from the requisition. Relevant invoicing and payment information flows between the solutions via SAP Business Network.

Please review the list of prerequisites to integrate SAP Ariba Contracts and SAP Fieldglass under the integration guide.

Play the video to understand the SAP Ariba Contracts and SAP Fieldglass process flow.

Buyers using SAP Ariba Contracts, SAP Ariba Contracts integrated with SAP Ariba Sourcing, or SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite can choose to integrate their SAP Ariba Contracts instance with Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) for SAP Ariba solutions to leverage the intelligent and flexible contract authoring capabilities offered by ICI. The intelligent contract authoring capabilities offered by ICI include self-service contract management, rule-based contract authoring, dynamic assembly of clauses and documents, and advanced negotiation and collaboration features.

The tasks that are delegated to ICI include:

• Assembly of contractual documents like the Main Agreement, contract addendums, and other standard project documents
• Clause and template management
• Review and negotiation of the Main Agreement document with the involved participants
• Signature and approval of the stipulated contract terms and conditions

Play the video to understand the SAP Ariba Contracts and Icertis Contract Intelligence process flow.