Addressing the Structural Gap in SAP Working Capital Governance

The financial statement for many large-scale enterprises running SAP often obscures the critical liquidity challenge of unbilled revenue. While operational targets and revenue milestones may appear on track, a significant volume of earned capital remains trapped within the system. Recent industry data indicates that in industries with a complex Order to Invoice Processes in SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA environments, between 9% and 18% of revenue is routinely caught in unbilled accounts every month. Therefore, for a $5 billion enterprise, this structural inefficiency represents between $450 million and $900 million in stagnant capital. 

The BCT Versus DSO Disconnect 

A common point of confusion for finance leaders is the relationship between Billing Cycle Time (BCT) and Days Sales Outstanding (DSO). Many organizations report low internal BCT metrics, but struggle with high DSO. 

Additionally, DSO is fundamentally affected by the combination of Unbilled Revenue (which increases Billing Cycle Time) and Increased Customer Disputes during the collection phase. This is because the Order-to-Cash (OTC) process is strictly bifurcated: 

• The Billing Cycle (BCT): This phase is 100% within the organization’s control, representing the internal manufacturing of the invoice. 
• The Payment Cycle: This phase is 100% within the customer’s control. 

The Governance Gap in Standard SAP 

The root cause of this trapped capital lies in a fundamental architectural gap. Standard SAP is designed to determine what to bill and to execute the final transaction accurately. However, it is not natively equipped to manage the why behind a delayed invoice. 

Since standard SAP lacks an effective way to manage unbilled items, organizations often “push the problem”—usually quality issues or missing artifacts—to the collections team. By failing to resolve why an item remains unbilled, the collection department is forced to deal with the fallout of defective invoices. 

This highlights a critical operational reality: People often forget that if you invoice on time and send the right invoice package with no defects, 90% of the problem is solved in the first pass.

GetBilled: A Governed System of Action 

To mitigate these inefficiencies, SAP-centric enterprises are moving towards governed SAP Certified solutions like GetBilled that address this by providing a dedicated governance layer that serves two primary roles: 

1. Reducing Unbilled Revenue: By catching missing artifacts like Service Entry Sheets (SES) or POs upstream before they age. 
2. Improving Invoice Quality: By ensuring accuracy at the point of billing, thereby reducing customer disputes and improving overall DSO. 

Strategic Outcomes for Finance Leaders 

By addressing the process architecture through solutions like GetBilled rather than focusing solely on collection efforts, organizations are recording significant gains in working capital. 

• Unbilled Revenue: Reductions of 10–25%. 
• Billing Cycles: Accelerated by 15–30%. 
• Implementation Speed: Deployment of SAP-native governance layers typically occurs within 8–12 weeks without requiring middleware changes. 

The shift from static reporting to proactive intelligence allows the SAP system to function as a strategic tool for cash release rather than a mere system of record. By fixing the quality of the invoice package upstream, enterprises can simultaneously reduce customer disputes and strengthen overall cash flow. 

What This Means for SAPinsiders 

Quantify the governance gap. Standard SAP manages transactions, not delays. By implementing a governance layer to catch missing artifacts such as POs or SESs upstream, enterprises can release 9–18% of revenue that is typically trapped in unbilled receivables. GetBilled is an SAP certified add-on, native to ECC and S/4HANA, that converts the order-to-invoice cycle into a measurable cash conversion capability by providing real-time visibility into what is billable, what is blocked, who owns the delay, why it is delayed, and the cost to the company at every step. 

Accelerate liquidity without disruption. Deploying an SAP-native solution like GetBilled can deliver a rapid impact of 8-12 weeks without the risk of middleware or core system changes, with the potential to achieve an ROI of more than 300% in the first year. Moreover, Finance/Billing/AR/CFO get analytics and dashboards for working capital locked, delay drivers, and unbilled KPI performance, plus AI-powered conversational analytics that answers natural-language questions for faster decisions and tighter forecasting. 

Shift to proactive intelligence. Moving from static reports to AI-powered conversational analytics enables finance leaders to instantly diagnose root causes of high DSO and Billing Cycle Time. With GetBilled, outcomes are tracked and proven through standard KPIs including Billing Cycle Time, unbilled percent, DSO reduction, first-pass yield, and cash-flow improvement, with ROI that is measurable and impact that is quantified.