AP Quick Wins Alongside Your ERP Migration

In many organizations, IT and finance operate on parallel tracks. IT teams concentrate on technical system requirements, data management, and integration challenges. At the same time, finance departments seek to automate invoice processing, approval workflows, and regulatory compliance.

S/4HANA migration is an opportunity to connect the technical and operational dots. Balancing the weight of complex, multi-million-dollar IT investment alongside the opportunity to make accounts payable (AP) more efficient and finance more strategic—and fast.

Modern finance transformation requires AP automation at its core. While ERP migration handles the technical infrastructure, AP automation transforms how finance operates day-to-day—from invoice processing and cash flow management to compliance and strategic decision-making.

90 Days and Counting

S/4HANA projects stretch across 18-36 months, often longer. While AP automation delivers value in 90 days, with full deployment in six months.

AP automation gets to work quickly. Automated invoice capture eliminates backlogs. Smart routing makes complex approvals efficient. Exception handling cuts workloads—and keeps learning and improving with AI trained on 2.3 billion invoices and counting.

Heidelberg Materials figured out early that they didn’t have to wait for S/4HANA. They moved to Invoice Lifecycle Management (ILM) alongside their ERP rollout. Taking AP complexity out of the way for faster, cleaner, smarter ERP implementation.

“Exception handling is now automated. Tasks go to the right people—procurement or operations—not AP. That shift saves time and improves outcomes,” says Anand Singh, International Deputy Head of Transformation and Integration at Heidelberg Materials.

It’s less about where you start, it’s when, because waiting costs money. Whether you start pre-, mid- or post-migration, the value equation works the same way. Huntsman Corporation started AP automation early before their ERP rollout and generated US$9 million in productivity savings.

ILM Multiplier Effect

ILM means more than faster processing. The end-to-end platform compounds S/4HANA investments—for example, by reducing integration costs. Basware is proven across 650+ customers and over 230 million invoices processed yearly, so when S/4HANA goes live, connectivity is pre-built, tested, and fully operational. As a result, clean data flows directly into your ERP clean core.

Then there’s the compliance countdown with invoicing mandates rolling out globally. ILM builds compliance into workflows, so it adapts to new regulations at pace, while ERPs have to wait on updates. Just like that, AP helps cut cost (for example, early payment discounts), complexity, and customizations from your S/4HANA journey.

In fact, the ILM platform is built for SAP and automates invoice processes across every ERP for consistent performance. “While we could configure SAP to do what Basware does, we’d never get it to be as good,” says Bill Martin at Mauser Packaging Solutions.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

There’s no perfect time. AP automation works at any stage of your S/4HANA journey, delivering value in 90 days.

Think parallel transformation. Running AP automation in parallel benefits IT and finance. While IT builds the enterprise architecture of tomorrow, finance delivers measurable AP value, results, and ROI today.

Measure wins in months, not years. AP automation delivers ROI that reaches 158% helping AP teams play a more strategic role while supporting and de-risking your ERP transformation.