Approving Purchase Orders with the SAP Fiori PO Approval App

Purchase order approvers are often people who rarely use SAP, such as sales managers, and the SAP GUI makes approving a PO slow for them. This paper shows how the standard SAP Fiori Approve Purchase Orders app gives approvers a simple, web-based way to approve from a smartphone, tablet or laptop, and why it is a good first Fiori app, on SAP ECC 6.0 as well as S/4HANA.

Key Takeaways

• Nearly every organization approves purchase orders, and many approvers are infrequent SAP users
• The Fiori app lets approvers approve, reject or forward a PO, with optional comments, from any device
• It works on SAP ECC 6.0 with any database, so you don't need to wait for S/4HANA to start using Fiori
• It needs SAP NetWeaver Gateway and a Fiori front-end server, which can be tried out on a test or sandbox system

Why Start with PO Approval

SAP often uses the purchase order approval to showcase Fiori, and for good reason. Nearly all organizations use PO approvals, and the approvers are often people who rarely use SAP, for example sales managers.

Fiori is SAP's user experience interface. It is built on SAP's HTML5 platform and is web-based. Fiori apps are simple to use and run on multiple devices, such as a smartphone, tablet or laptop.

If you're new to Fiori, or just want to test the waters, the PO Approval app is a good place to start. It's simple and quick to implement, and works well on mobile devices. It is also not only for S/4HANA customers: it can be implemented on SAP ECC 6.0, so you don't need to wait until you migrate to S/4HANA to use the Fiori user interface.

The Purchase Order Approval Process

Organizations use purchase order approval (POA) to keep control over purchasing and to ensure compliance. The approval process helps ensure that:

• Appropriate quantities are being ordered
• Controls are in place to avoid unnecessary spend
• Sourcing is from the appropriate and most reliable vendors
• Purchasers take advantage of corporate purchasing contracts and vendor agreements
• Purchasing decisions align with the overall company strategy and philosophy
• Vendors are properly measured, evaluated and held accountable for purchasing agreements
• Purchasing decisions take into account factors such as price, quality and vendor performance

For the POA process to be effective, it has to be simple, intuitive and easy to reach from anywhere. In many organizations using SAP, approvers have to connect to the corporate network from a laptop, log on to the SAP GUI and click through several screens before they can approve a PO.

For infrequent SAP users this is time-consuming and difficult, and it often leads to PO approvals being delayed, or to POs being approved without enough scrutiny. The SAP Fiori purchase order approval app is simple and easy to use, and can save time and money and improve purchasing decisions.

How the Fiori App Works

When a purchase order is created, SAP determines its release (approval) strategy from the system configuration. The release strategy controls how many levels of approval are required before the PO can be sent to the vendor and any later steps can take place.

Release strategies can be as simple or as complex as you want. We recommend keeping the strategy as simple as possible, while ensuring that all purchases over a certain value are approved by at least one appropriate person.

Business Benefits

• Better control and visibility of what is being purchased before an order is placed with a vendor
• A simple user interface for managers to approve or reject purchase orders
• Approval from multiple devices (smartphone, tablet and laptop), avoiding bottlenecks and delays in the procurement process
• For customers planning to move to SAP S/4HANA, early exposure to SAP Fiori and the ease of use of the new user interface

System Requirements

The SAP Fiori Approve Purchase Orders app is available for SAP ECC 6.0 with any database, and for S/4HANA.

If you don't already have them, you will need to install SAP NetWeaver Gateway and a Fiori front-end server. This is relatively simple. If you just want to try the app out, it can easily be done on a test or sandbox system.