Have you tried Invoice Feature in Ariba Guided Buying ?

[jms_9]

Invoicing is a crucial step in P2P process where an invoice is given by seller to buyer as a promise to pay in exchange for goods or services delivered. Invoice is basically a document containing item description, price per item, quantity of items, gross amount, taxes applicable, also when and how to pay etc. Invoice serves as a proof of exchange for both parties. Ariba Guided Buying is a capability integrated with Ariba Buying and Invoicing which provides casual and functional buyers with an easy-to-use interface for day-to-day procurement activities.

Ariba Guided Buying enables casual users & functional buyers to ease purchasing process. Since it’s inception it was always viewed as just a buying functionality offered by SAP Ariba. Having said so, customers were looking for a mean to perform basic invoicing functionalities in Ariba Guided Buying, so that users don’t necessarily have to visit classic UI; eventually to keep only one link for buying which directs to Ariba Guided Buying.

It was always on the cards to avail invoicing functionality on Guided Buying. With advent of SAP Ariba 2105 release, SAP has released a new feature that allows customers to approve and edit invoice in Ariba Guided Buying.

With Guided Buying functionality one can edit and approve PO or non-PO based invoices without navigating to SAP Buying and Invoicing solution. If a casual user has access to Guided Buying, one can check the invoice received under Your Request tab on home page of Guided Buying and if user has any Invoice waiting for his/her approval one can check under Your approval tab.

Let’s go through detailed steps to enable the feature to edit and approve invoices in Ariba Guided Buying.

Prerequisite:

• One needs to be part of “Customer Administrator” group to enable this feature.


• To edit invoice user must belong to “Invoice Manager” or “Invoice Agent” group.

Follow below steps to enable invoice edit & approval in Guided Buying:

1. Log in to Ariba Buying & Invoicing solution.


2. Click on Manager >>> Core Administration

 

3. Click on Intelligent Configuration Manager >>> Intelligent Configuration Manager

 

4. Click on Manage Configurations

              

 

5. Click on Continue

6. Click on Buying and Invoicing >>> Parameters

 

 

7. Search the parameter “GuidedBuy.EnableEditAndApproveInvoicesInGuidedBuying” and set the New value to Yes and then click on “Update package”

 

8. Add the details about package like “Package name”; Description (optional); Attachments (optional) and then click on “Submit package”.

Note: Under Advanced options tick the checkbox if you want changes to be done in test system only and not in production site

9. Once package is submitted it goes through approval flow as below and once approved one can deploy the latest package in production system

 

10. Log in to Ariba Guided Buying and click on Admin option available on home page

11. Click on Parameters à Manage parameters to configure parameters related to Guided Buying

 

12. Search for the parameter “PARAM_ENABLE_EDIT_AND_APPROVAL_OF_INVOICES” and set it as “true”.

Post completion of the above series of steps users belonging to group can edit and approve the PO based invoices in Guided Buying. However, one can create non-PO based invoices as well where buyer can pay supplier without creation of Purchase Order (PO). By enabling this feature, users can create standard non-PO invoices like one that can be done in SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing.

For Non-PO based invoice enablement one can follow below steps:

1. Follow similar steps for PO based invoice from Step 1 to Step 11


2. In the Admin mode of Guided Buying under Parameters search “PARAM_ENABLE_NON_PO_INVOICE” and set it as true.

With these detailed steps I encourage readers to configure and try your hands on invoicing functionality in Ariba Guided Buying. It is worth considering approval of invoicing in Ariba Guided Buying at the time of solutioning which can save countless hours in requisitioners work life.

 

Thanks for Valuable Insights from vinay.yeole.sap

Reference –

Guided Invoicing – Manage your invoices in Guided Buying! | SAP Blogs