Introducing SAP Business Network Transaction Rules

SAP Business Network transaction rules are an important part of your SAP Business Network account. Understanding the transaction rules is key to successful document transmission via SAP Business Network. To learn more about the transaction rules, watch this introduction video or review the content below.

The transaction rules within your SAP Business Network account will prevent or allow trading partners to submit or to perform various actions within their documents. These transaction rules act as a filter in the process of receiving the trading partner’s documents.

The SAP Business Network transaction rules will validate the information provided within the Invoice, and the trading partner will receive an error if this information does not pass validation.

To access your transaction rules page, follow the steps below. Note that only the user role with assigned permission to manage transaction rules will have access to the transaction rules page. Please contact your SAP Business Network Buyer Account Administrator to request access.

SAP recommends testing SAP Business Network transaction rules through end-to-end scenarios.

1. In your SAP Business Network Buyer Account home page, click on your initials at the top right corner of the screen and then on "Manage Profile".
   
2. In the "Configuration Page", you will see one link to the "Default transaction rules " and another for "Country-based Invoice Rules". Select the appropriate one.
   
3. The interface will then show a list of pre-defined rules, that allow you to configure multiple scenarios of transactions. To modify a transaction rule, just check the rule, or populate the required field. Then click on "save".
   

Three different Levels of transaction rules can co-exist. Buyers can define and combine them to comply with various business or technical requirements. Review the steps below to learn more about the levels of rules.

1. The Default Configuration Rules

   The default configuration rules apply to all trading partners. It contains all the existing Rules and covers many types of documents, such as purchase orders (PO), invoices, order confirmations (OC), advanced shipping notices (ASN), and service entry sheets (SES).

   These rules should not prevent the supplier from submitting their documents and should be the least restrictive for most trading partners.

2. The Country Specific Rules

   The country-based invoice rules address local rules related to trading partner’s invoicing and tax. The country rules are a sub-group of the default transaction rules, that focuses only on invoices. The country-based invoice rules are based on trading partners’ country location, not on buyers’ country locations.

   These rules should be more restrictive than the default configuration rules.

3. The Supplier Group Rules

   The supplier groups rules can be set to override the default transaction rules for a pre-defined group of trading partners. This is particularly useful if you have different scenarios for documents other than invoices.

   A trading partner’s company can only be a member of one supplier group at a time and will need to be manually added, once a trading relationship is established. For this reason, SAP recommends not creating unnecessary or excessive numbers of groups, but organizing them by clearly defined business cases that are applicable for the trading partner company within one country.

   To add (or remove) a trading partner to a supplier group: Log into SAP Business Network Buyer Account and click on the tab "Supplier Enablement", select option "Active Relationships".

   Full view on all trading partners with an active Trading Relationship is displayed (dropdown: "Current Suppliers"). Select the trading partners you want to assign to a supplier group and select the button "Actions", choose "Assign Supplier Group" or "Remove from Supplier Group".

   Select the supplier group to assign (or remove) the selected trading partner and confirm with "OK".

When deciding how to configure the SAP Business Network transaction rules , it is important to consider and involve various roles within your organization.

• SAP Business Network Account Administrator – The SAP Business Network Account Administrator will need to be involved, since they will likely be the person to make the updates to the rules.
• Technical – Your technical or IT team will need to be consulted to ensure that rules set up within SAP Business Network are compatible with your backend systems, otherwise document failure could occur.
• Procurement – Members from your procurement department should be involved, especially when setting up order confirmation and advanced ship notice rules, since they should have input on the workflows and policies dealing with rejected and backordered items, changes in pricing or updated parts, and shipping and delivery policies.
• Accounts Payable – The SAP team should be involved, particularly with invoicing rules, since they should have input on backdating, discounting, and tax rules.
• Regional Tax and Legal Advisors – Additional input may be needed if e-invoice is in scope regionally, since this team would have knowledge of local requirements and tax regulations.

If you have questions while setting up the transaction rules , you may reach out to your SAP Business Network representative for questions about rule functionality and recommendations.