Over the course of the continuous integration between companies and tax authorities, the topic of official document numbering (ODN) is becoming more and more important.

Authorities are increasingly acting based on a single identifier that runs through the entire business process, for example, from customer invoicing to payment and tax reporting.

Is your company also faced with this and do they have different requirements from several countries?

For this reason, I would like to introduce you to the new framework for official document numbers.

The new framework is already available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition. It will be extended and in the future is considered to be available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, and SAP S/4HANA as an on-premise version.

What is an official document number?

ODN is the number that companies must assign to certain business documents, issued to customers and to tax authorities, adhering to specific rules determined by the legal authorities in a prescribed format.

• This format consists of numbers, letters, and some business fields.

The ODN is assigned additionally to the number already assigned by accounting applications.

It can be either assigned by government authorities, or a built-in system according to specific rules defined by government authorities:

Examples where an ODN can be applicable:

• Customer invoice
• Customer credit memo/debit memo
• Supplier invoices
• Purchase orders/return purchase orders
• Settlement management
• Delivery note

Why does SAP introduce a new framework, while for some countries, there are already ODN tools existing?

The ODN framework provided as part of localization as a self-service currently focuses on countries/regions where no standard ODN solution is available.

This is applicable to SAP-delivered local versions and customer local versions.

Furthermore, SAP wants to establish a harmonized solution that is available across countries and processes, providing users with a seamless user experience.

We also know that handling ODNs having a longer number is not that easy, therefore one of the development targets was the ability to handle longer ODN references with max. 200 characters possible.

Concerning about the clear extensibility focus for several countries, the new framework contains the flexibility to define rules to address country or business-specific ODN variations. For example, it is possible to add multiple Document Identifications/References for the same document using the framework.

How can the new framework be defined?

Configuration steps:

SAP created several configuration apps to define and characterize the ODN you need for your business.

By using the Official Document Number Determination app, you can determine the rules for how the system generates an ODN that corresponds to an Official Document Number Type. It also enables you to create custom fields based on your business or legal requirements.

You can read more about it on SAP Help Portal: Official Document Number Type Definition and Characterization | SAP Help Portal

Supported Business Processes

The Official Document Numbering solution is enabled for the following business processes:

Interested? Please see the full documentation for the Customer Invoice in Sales Billing and Supplier Invoice in Sourcing and Procurement in the links above.

I hope that I was able to bring your attention to this new feature, which I believe will be of interest to you.
Stay tuned for more information.

Thanks,

See you next time!

Christian Seelinger