SAP Document and Reporting Compliance: Cloud or On-Premise? Not an “either or” option, but a streamlined solution for electronic compliance!

[erika_buson]

Tax authorities have been continuously increasing the number and complexity of legal mandates. They are now taking digitalization to the next level, introducing potentially disruptive changes that make the adoption of new technologies essential for enterprises to remain compliant. As a result, you will find your business needing to send electronic documents in real-time, verifying consistency between your system of records and authorities’ platforms and submitting returns, all electronically.

Beside the fact that this forces compliance to be embedded into business processes and prevents the opportunity to have ‘after the fact’ corrections, tax authorities now have visibility over transactions before your tax department has even seen the outcomes. This also introduces the need of a seamless integration to local platforms worldwide. Thus, it is fundamental to have a sustainable IT landscape and be prepared to rapidly respond to all new requirements that are emerging across the globe.

SAP Document and Reporting Compliance can help your business overcome these challenges and fulfill local compliance mandates, such as electronic documents and statutory reporting, by creating a scalable foundation to respond to emerging regulations without putting business continuity at risk.

To learn more about SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, check out this blog and this information sheet.

 

A new version of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition is now available!

In December 2022, SAP has released a new version of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition. This is not a solution replacement moving SAP Document and Reporting Compliance to the cloud in its entirety. Instead, it is a scalable cloud service that allows to connect your business systems (SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP S/4HANA, SAP ERP, SAP Business Network, Concur Expense and more) to local authorities and platforms to automate compliance within your business processes.

This new cloud service is complementary to your business systems (including SAP Document and Reporting Compliance framework in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP S/4HANA and SAP ERP), and it acts as a streamlined hub to centralize compliance across your enterprise, eliminating the need to implement local solutions for each country or scenario or business system.

Fig. 1: SAP Document and Reporting Compliance

 

All the business systems and scenarios supported with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition can be found here.

Updating SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition to the latest version does not disrupt the regulations already supported with the combination of SAP Integration Suite and SAP Document and Reporting Compliance for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP S/4HANA and SAP ERP: existing scenarios continue to be maintained and the solution continues to run without disruptions.

For each country scenario, you can check if the integration to local authorities and platforms is enabled with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition or SAP Integration Suite in SAP Help using the column ‘Supported Submission Type’:

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition


• SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition and SAP S/4HANA


• SAP ERP.

For a given country scenario, you can’t choose between SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition and SAP Integration Suite (customer-managed tenant), they are not interchangeable. Only one solution is supported per country / scenario so no migration of existing regulations can be initiated at this stage.

And, if you have the previous version of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition you can migrate to the latest one free of charge, check details here. Don’t lose time, it is very easy to migrate to the new solution, and this gives you the foundation you need to respond to the new regulations such e-invoices in Poland (KSeF), e-invoices and e-reporting in France, and more.

 

Cloud or On-Premise? No dilemmas!

If you have been wondering if you should consider SAP Document and Reporting Compliance ‘on-premise’ or ‘cloud’, the good news is that you don’t have to make a choice. SAP Document and Reporting Compliance consists of two parts:

• One in the business systems to make compliance a seamless step within your business processes, with no data redundancy and no data replication. This follows the deployment of your applications, hence it’s On-Premise if your ERP is On-Premise, cloud otherwise.


• One on SAP Business Technology Platform (always ‘Cloud’) to scale and simplify electronic integration to local authorities and platforms. As mentioned above, this can be SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition or the customer-managed SAP Integration Suite tenants depending on the country/scenario (again, not interchangeable for the same scenario).

Both components complement each other to give you a comprehensive solution to manage electronic compliance end-to-end.

Fig. 2: Native Compliance in your Business Systems and Seamless Integration with Local Authorities and Platforms

 

Are you now wondering what ‘SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, on-premise edition’ exactly is?

1. In the past, integrations to enable the electronic exchange of business documents with Tax Authorities were enabled by providing integration flows on SAP Business Accelerator Hub that can be deployed on your instance of SAP Integration Suite. We refer to this as PaaS or SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, on-premise edition as this is the name of the (historic) license that provides you with the legal content required to remain compliant. Yes, it is called ‘on-premise’, but it’s not on-premise in its totality as it requires SAP Integration Suite that is a suite in the cloud.

To be even more precise, SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, on-premise is the name of the license for SAP ERP. It was also offered to enable electronic documents with SAP S/4HANA until October 2021, but it is now part of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance for SAP S/4HANA providing a comprehensive offer for electronic documents and statutory reporting.

2. In the more recent years, SAP started to offer the integration as a service to minimize the implementation effort on your side and ongoing maintenance. It doesn’t run on your instance of SAP Integration Suite so SAP can take care of upgrades and maintain connections to external platforms on your behalf. This is SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition - SAP’s strategic offering for the latest requirements to streamline integrations with local authorities and platforms.

As explained above, SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition doesn’t replace the functionalities provided within the business systems (e.g. SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP ERP, etc.). In fact, in both cases, the electronic documents and statutory reports are enabled leveraging the same applications in the business systems, allowing you to embed compliance within your processes with one user-experience and one process standardized worldwide, irrespective of how the integration to local authorities and platforms is enabled.

As a result, you can further streamline your integration with local authorities and platforms without a negative impact to your running landscape:

• If you have been adopting SAP Document and Reporting Compliance to respond to existing regulations across countries, you can continue to leverage it and scale further to respond to the new mandates standardizing your processes worldwide.


• If you are considering to adopt SAP Document and Reporting Compliance to respond to the many emerging regulations requiring integration with local authorities’ platforms, you can take advantage of the latest offering to build a foundation to automate compliance in the digital world.

 

Are you using SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA? You can simplify compliance further!

As of today, the electronic submission of statutory reports is still enabled with a dedicated cloud service (SAP Document and Reporting Compliance service), but, if you are live or implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud or SAP S/4HANA, there is one more good news for you: further simplification is on its way and SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition will be extended to replace SAP Document and Reporting Compliance service and become the sole solution enabling all integrations provided as a public cloud service, both electronic documents and statutory reports (except for  NFe in Brazil – for now!).

 

In summary, depending on the country/scenario, you can manage your electronic documents and statutory reports in the business systems, such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP S/4HANA, SAP ERP, SAP Business Network, etc., and handle the communication to local authorities and platforms either via SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition or SAP Integration Suite. A comprehensive solution to scale compliance worldwide.

 

For more detailed insights on SAP Document and Reporting Compliance and the cloud edition, see:

• SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition – Online Help Documentation


• SAP Document and Reporting Compliance for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition and SAP S/4HANA – Onlin...


• SAP Document and Reporting Compliance for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition – Online Help Documentat...


• SAP Document and Reporting Compliance for SAP ERP


• Overview video: Integration with Peppol network with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud ed...


• Overview video: How can SAP Document and Reporting Compliance support you in meeting the new KSeF re...


• Overview video: Exchange invoices over the Peppol network using the Cloud Edition and Concur Invoice


• Overview video: Discover the New eOrdering Process of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance

[PhilipChen]

Thanks for sharing, like for Poland, if customer ONLY look for eInvoicing for Poland, is license of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition enough? Any other license item for the SAP ERP part?

[erika_buson]

Philip - correct. Feel free to ping if further questions.

Thank you. Erika

[martinlitalin]

Nice write-up, Erika!

[Summitt12]

Great Blog, thanks for sharing

if a New Zeland based customer on S4 Private cloud, is ONLY looking for e-Invoicing for supplier invoices

And already using Integration suite in BTP, Is SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition mandatory or Integration can be done using the CPI?

Thanks & Reagrds

[erika_buson]

For supplier invoices in NZ, we support integration with Peppol network through SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition so, yes, it’s required. As mentioned, they are not interchangeable.

You can check ‘supported submission type’ per country/scenario here for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, provate edition.

[Summitt12]

Thanks Erika

Appreciate your reply

[edscsf]

Poland solution for SAP Document And Reporting Cmpliance works with On premise edition?

[erika_buson]

Erick - the integration is enabled with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition so the corresponding license is required. It works with SAP S/4HANA (On-Premise) and SAP ERP (min SP in the overview note 3279206).

Thank you. Erika

[krishg]

Erika, Thanks for the blog.

 

If I understand correctly, depending on the country scenarios we could end up requiring both SAP Integration suite and SAP cloud DRC.

 

I was hoping that that SAP DRC cloud edition means that if the client does not have SAP integration suite in their landscape, they don't need to get one specifically for the DRC scenarios. I presume that is not true. Seems like cost will be more for the customers without benefit.

[erika_buson]

Krish - for countries that are currently supported with SAP Integration Suite, it continues to be required. For new countries that we support with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition we indeed eliminate the need of buying and maintaining SAP Integration Suite, reducing ongoing effort for patches and keeping the connection up running (SAP maintains connection with tax authorities). This (integration as a service) also reduces the implementation effort so it's easier to respond to new mandates that leave less and less time for implementation.

We continue to look at simplification opportunities, while keeping running country solutions to prevent disruption.

Hope this clarifies. Erika

[krishg]

Only one solution is supported per country / scenario so no migration of existing regulations can be initiated at this stage

 

Does this mean that a customer  may need to subscribe to both integration suite and cloud edition if they require e-invoicing for countries that are supported only on one platform? Let us say Portugal (which requires integration suite) and  Poland (which requires cloud editiion). Would there be additional cost for subscription  to cloud edition for such customers that already have integration suite?

[erika_buson]

Krish - yes, it is a cloud service so it needs its subscription. Please note that licenses are volume based so no invoices are double-counted.

Thank you - Erika

[krishg]

Erika, Thanks for your explanations and patience.

Assuming that basic subscription for DRC cloud edition is $300 per month  per 1000 invoices , that is an additional amount we will always pay even if we have an integration suite (where depending on your license type the volume may not be factor). It makes great sense for customers that does not have SAP integration suite in their landscape, but probably not much of benefit for ones that do. Granted that this may not be significant cost for most of the big customers, but this hardly qualifies as simplification.

[nsafi5]

Hello Erika,

 

My customer is on ECC and needs to implement SAP document and reporting compliance cloud edition for the Polish KseF as per note 3279206. Is for the Polish KseF only a license enough for SAP document and reporting compliance cloud edition or is an additional license needed for SAP BTP integration suite?

The customer at the moment has no SAP BTP.

 

The customer needs to implement both B2B as well as B2G scenario.

 

I appreciate your feedback.

 

Thanks.

[erika_buson]

Nadim - yes, SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition is sufficient for handling e-invoicing.

Thank you - Erika

[nsafi5]

Thanks for the quick feedback Erika.

 

So I understand there is no need for the SAP integration suite, but we still need to have licenses for SAP BTP itself on top of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition? Or there is also no need for a license for SAP BTP?

Thanks,

 

Nadim

 

[erika_buson]

Nadim - also no need as it's a SaaS offering. If the customer doesn't have a BTP global account already, it gets created automatically.

Thank you. Erika

[nsafi5]

Thank you!

[former_member600867]

Thank you, Erika, for this article.

 

Currently we are running different SAP systems in our company. How this integration works in such a scenario? Could we connect different SAPs (some S/4HANA other stil ECC 6) to one instance of SAP Document and Reporting Complience Cloud edition (many to one), or we need for each SAP separate instance (one to one)?

Is it possible to integrate SAP Document and Reporting Complience Cloud edition with non SAP systems?

 

Thank you.

 

Tomas

[erika_buson]

Tomas - it’s possible to connect one instance of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition to multiple SAP systems, SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA.

We don’t support direct connection to non-SAP systems, however we are working on an innovation to enable the processing of e-invoices for non-SAP systems starting with France and Poland.

https://roadmaps.sap.com/board?BC=6EAE8B27FCC11ED892E91F270C7200CC&q=data&range=FIRST-LAST#;INNO=57E...

 

Thank you
Erika

[Dworzak]

Hello Erika,

 

in Fig. 2 SAP Business One is also mentioned.

Will DRC also be available for SAP Business One?

 

Kind regards

Ingo

[erika_buson]

Hi Ingo - yes, we offer also an integration with SAP Business One. Here you can see the scenarios currently supported: https://me.sap.com/notes/2915144.

Thank you. Erika

[marcelinho33944]

Hi Erika,

we want to connect a S/4HANA On Prem release 1909 with DRC for the implementation of E-Document Poland and Romania.

Question: 1) Is it sufficient to have release 1909 or do we need to upgrade the system first?

 

Thank you and best regards,

Marcel

[erika_buson]

Marcel - yes, both are supported with 1909. You can check the overview SAP notes you find here (link for 1909 release): https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/3b2c091e13434f9ab2fb53d147ba5e9f/097165e9c1074038847...

Thank you. Erika

 

[anusurbab]

Hello Erika,

​To process e-documents in India, typically a third-party provider is required (GSP). The e-documents are then sent from the SAP S/4HANA Cloud public edition system to the third-party and the third-party is passing them on to the tax authorities.

If we are going with DRC, is Integration Suite still required to connect with third party or DRC comes with preset integration with certified GSPs?

 

[erika_buson]

Hi Suresh - at this stage, SAP Integration Suite is required. You can check here, column 'supported submission type'.

Thank you. Erika

[chris_75]

Hi Erika,

thx for this wonderful post. We have a few customer which are on the "old" GRC Nfe for Brazil including an on premise PI/PO as middleware - licencing is clear for that.

Where can I find pricing information regarding SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, outbound invoicing option for Brazil - as I have read, there is a kind of consumption/messages based costs.

Thanks for any hint or link to get those information.

Best regards

Christian

[erika_buson]

Christian - it is correct, the price is volume based. I would recommend to reach out to the Account Executive.

Also, please note that maintenance of 'old' GRC NFe will terminate in 2025. https://blogs.sap.com/2023/04/13/sap-electronic-invoicing-for-brazil-sap-nfe-end-of-maintenance/

Thank you. Erika

[mandal-sap]

Will there be a trial solution for SAP DRC ?

[erika_buson]

Erik - Not at this stage, but SAP offers POC options. I would recommend to get in touch with the Account Executive.

Thank you. Erika

[mandal-sap]

Thank you very much for your reply, Erika.

Shouldn't SAP DRC be part of the SAP Integration Suite since this is absolutely integration?

Regards Erik

[erika_buson]

Erik - SAP Integration Suite is a platform on which customers can deploy integration flow. As described in the blog, we are now providing such B2G integrations as a service to minimize the effort (both setup and legal changes) for customers.

Thank you. Erika

[marcelinho3394]

Hi Erika,

our customer is using a S/4HANA onPrem system and wants to licence SAP DRC Cloud.

 

Will there be additional licenses required for SAP BTP and/or SAP DRC Cloud to be able to submit the statutory reports in UK to HMRC?

Thank you and best regards,
Marcel

[erika_buson]

Hi Marcel - SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition is a separate subscription required in addition to SAP S/4HANA. No additional BTP pre-requisites, but there are features in SAP S/4HANA itself required for UK VAT Return. I would recommend to reach out to the account executive.

Thank you. Erika

[369493]

Hi Erika,

Thanks for this blog. We are currently in ECC 6.0 (EHP 😎 and we will be migrating to S4Hana in next couple of years. Starting July 2024, as KSeF is obligatory in Poland, we are exploring the option to activate the EDOC BTE in our ECC system and use the 'EDocument solution' (EDOC_COCKPIT) in ECC to create XMLs. We intend to use third party interface solutions to connect with KSeF and therefore hope that we will not be using the SAP DRC Cloud or the Integration Suite. Can we create Edocuments and generate XML without having to use the SAP DRC Cloud or the Integration Suite? If yes, then could you also please clarify if there will be no additional license fee for activating the EDOC BTE in ECC?

Thanks,

Prasad

[erika_buson]

Prasad - SAP Document and Reporting Compliance is a comprehensive solution enabling the end-to-end process and it needs to be licensed. The above can't be achieved free of charge in SAP ERP, it requires SAP Document and Reporting Compliance license. Also, please not we advise to not use half solution as it can create challenges during legal changes and upgrades (we only test the full solution).

Thank you. Erika

[369493]

Thanks Erika for your clarification. I believe the comprehensive solution for our case for Poland KSeF will be SAP Document & Reporting Compliance Cloud Solution. If there is any other option could you please let us know that as well. Also could you also give me some indication about the License fee?

Thanks

Prasad

[erika_buson]

Prasad - please reach out to your Account Executive and he/she will be able to provide you with a quote.

Thank you. Erika

[gauravbhuva]

Dear Erica,

Happy New Year and Thank you for the comprehensive blog!

We are trying to identify the countries where SAP DRC supports E2E integration with respective government authorities for the purposes of E-invoicing & VAT/GST compliances. In this respect we were able to extract the list of countries supported within DRC with the supported task types from here - https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_CLOUD/71af4585db6d4904b1724730f3776c9b/097165e9c1074038847625e5...

However the same doesn't specify amongst the supported countries (eg. Australia, Saudi Arabia) where SAP supports electronic submission, for which countries does SAP DRC support E2E integration i.e last mile connectivity with government authorities.

Kind Regards,

Gaurav.

[erika_buson]

Hi Gaurav - thank you for reaching out. You can use the column 'Supported submission type' to see if we support integration. You can filter using 'note' to find the countries that require last-mile providers.

Thank you. Erika

[gauravbhuva]

Hi Erica,

Thank you for the quick response.

I tried to check for note details in the list of compliance tasks for the supported countries in SAP DRC but couldn't find it in that link.

Can you elaborate how to use filter using 'note' to find the countries that require last-mile providers?

Best Regards,

Gaurav.

[matthias_b2]

Hi Gaurav,

search with "note" in the Supported Submission Type column. It will only show the web service submission that require a last mile provider.

[hnitsch]

Dear Erica,

the future requirement for VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) can be implemented with the SAP solution Document and Reporting compliance (DRC) or is another solution required?

thanks in advance

best regards

Holger

[FranzE]

Hi @erika_buson,

thanks for your excellent blog post, it is a very good summary and is great to see SAP is moving towards offering a true SaaS Solution for this, at least from a customer point of view, cumbersome topic.

Based on the "target country" I understood that either Cloud Integration Suite or Document Compliance License is required.

In case I have a country where neither nor is supported (e.g. Austria or Portugal) and it says "Electronic format provided" in the Supported Submission Type, my understanding is, that it is the customers obligation to send/upload the documents to the authorities.

Is this functionality covered by the S/4HANA license or is still an additional license required?

For example in Portugal you have to report "Mapas Fiscals". There was an ABAP report RPFIAAPT_MAPAS_FISCAIS available in ECC and S/4HANA, as per SNOTE 2785874 - "PT Fiscal Maps: RPFIAAPT_MAPAS_FISCAIS replaced by new ACR report" it was replaced by ACR. Is it still required to buy an additional license? If yes, can you provide the material number?

Thanks for your support and insights!

[erika_buson]

@FranzE thank you for pointing out. The blog actually focuses on electronic documents processing for which, in the past, we were enabling the electronic exchange via SAP Integration Suite. Of course, with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, we support also statutory reporting:

• For reports with e-submission, we are migrating the same to SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition (same cloud service)
• For reports without e-submission, we either provide the technical format if available or the data required for manual submission. This is explained just above the overview table.

For full features of SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, license is indeed required.

Thank you. Erika

[erika_buson]

@hnitsch Hi Holger - apologies the delay, I missed your question. The impact of ViDA can be summarized in three main pillars, details are available in this regulatory change announcement: https://app.main.regulatory-change-manager.cloud.sap/index.html#/detail/GSREQCROSS-4528.

For e-invoicing and e-reporting, once details will be available, roadmap for SAP Document and Reporting Compliance will be published accordingly. This is indeed SAP's strategic solution for these requirements.

Thank you. Erika

[victorchatman]

Hi @erika_buson, This is a great blog. We have a customer who needs e-invoicing for Costa Rica for an  SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition implementation. As Costa Rica is a country not currently supported with scope item 5XU, can we use the extensibility framework to create e-invoicing scenarios for countries such as Costa Rica that do not have localization content available OOTB? 

Kind regards, Victor

[erika_buson]

@victor_victor  Thank you 😀 Absolutely, we indeed offer extensibility to scale to countries for which SAP doesn't offer a country version.

SAP Help documentation: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/95a7320cd4054d4e9fed6b5b70f3d004/9689be53bccf4d7d8ca... 

Thank you

Erika