Do we need SAP VIM for invoices first?

No. VIM Beyond Invoices is a framework in its own right and can be implemented without invoice processing. If you already run VIM you save the installation, the archive connection and the capture infrastructure — and your business users already know the interface.

Why not simply use EDI?

Where customers order via EDI, EDI is the better route — no VIM Beyond needed for that. The value lies in the long remainder: the customers for whom a connection never paid off, and the EDI customers whose order arrives as a PDF again the moment something breaks. In most organisations that remainder is the majority of the documents and the minority of the attention.

How does the customer material number reach our material?

Through the customer material info record, provided it is maintained — and in practice that is the actual work. Where it is missing, additional rules fall back on description, EAN or previous orders, and the rest becomes a work item for the sales office. As a by-product you get a list of master data gaps you did not have before.

What happens on a price deviation?

The ordered price is held against the valid condition. Within your tolerance the order goes through; beyond it a work item is created for the responsible person — with the document image, the condition record and the difference side by side. Whether the customer price or your condition wins is your decision, case by case, not the software’s.

Is the order really created without intervention?

Technically yes — the posting logic in the framework creates the sales order. The usual starting point is still a proposal the sales office confirms; once the hit rate is stable over months, defined customers and document types move to automatic creation. That order is deliberate: trust is built on real documents, not in a presentation.

And the order confirmation to the customer?

That comes out of SAP SD as before — just earlier, because the order is in the system earlier. The other direction, inbound confirmations from your suppliers, is a separate topic with its own solution package.

VIM Beyond Invoices

Your revenue starts as a PDF that someone re-types.

Capture customer purchase orders from mail and PDF, check them against customer, material and pricing master data and create the sales order in SAP — only the genuine doubts reach your sales office. From three projects with the VIM Beyond solution package for sales orders.

20+ projects10+ years in SAP VIMnearly 6 years at OpenText

Book 30-min call View projects →

Where it hurts

The most expensive typo in the building.

No inbound document is as directly money as the customer order — and hardly any is re-keyed as often. That costs you in four places at once:

Re-keying in the sales office
Customer number, materials, quantities, prices, requested date — line by line into VA01. At a few hundred orders a month that is a full position, and nobody ever books it as a project because it is spread across the day.
One transposed digit becomes a return
A mis-keyed quantity or a swapped material ships as a delivery, comes back as a complaint and is booked as a credit note. The mistake takes seconds; clearing it takes weeks.
The order sits in a mailbox, not in the system
While the order is a mail attachment there is no status: sales cannot tell whether it has been entered, the customer gets their confirmation late, and during holiday season nobody finds it at all.
Customer material numbers and special prices
Customers order under their own material number and at the price in their framework agreement. Whoever knows that by heart is experienced — and eventually retires. Whoever does not either enters it wrong or asks.

What we build

01
The sales order solution package
OpenText ships a solution package for sales orders inside the VIM Beyond framework — until 2022 as the Business Center Solution Accelerator. We set it up and extend it where your order processing departs from the standard; that is exactly how we implemented and extended it in the packaging industry.
02
Capture from mail and PDF
Shared mailbox, EDI fallback, portal download or paper: the capture layer reads the customer PO number, line items, quantities, prices and requested dates. Where layouts vary strongly, AI extraction is added instead of training every customer layout by hand.
03
Check customer, material and price
Sender to customer, customer material number to your material, ordered price to the valid condition. What matches becomes an order; what deviates becomes a work item — with the document image and the concrete difference next to it.
04
Create the sales order
The checked document becomes a sales order in SAP SD — with the customer PO number, line items, dates and conditions. As a proposal to confirm or without intervention, for defined customers and document types, depending on how far you want to go.
05
Exceptions to the sales office
Unknown material, a price deviation beyond tolerance, a requested date you cannot meet: agent determination sends the case to the responsible sales team rather than into a shared mailbox — with deputies and deadlines.
06
Rollout across countries and sites
One template further sales organisations adopt instead of a solution per site. In the packaging industry we supported the rollout across Europe and North America and adapted the solution country by country.

Evidence, not claims

Implemented, extended, rolled out.

Sales orders are one of the two document types we have worked on longest in the VIM Beyond framework: installation and implementation in the packaging industry, a rollout across two continents, upgrade support later — and an assessment of an existing solution in printing and publishing.

Sales order solution package set up (packaging industry)
Solution Accelerator for sales orders extended and adapted
Rollout across Europe and North America supported
Assessment of an existing solution (printing and publishing)
Upgrade and UAT support including the move from BCC to IC4S
Workshops for end users and IT, third-level support afterwards

To the project list →

How we work

01
Look at real orders
We look at your customers’ real purchase orders, not sample documents: how many customers send how many layouts, where does the material number sit, how clean are the prices? That yields a defensible statement about which share can run without the sales office.
02
Rules and tolerances
With sales and order processing we settle which order may be created without a question, which price deviation creates a work item and who decides it. That decision determines the degree of automation — not the software.
03
Implement and roll out
Customizing, development, testing, a supported go-live and training for the sales office and IT. One site as the reference, then the template for the rest — plus third-level support for when your next major customer changes their order form.

Customer voices

What clients say about working with us

Johannes supported us during our migration from SAP R/3 to SAP S/4 HANA, including the upgrade of OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions (VIM) which we are using to process sales orders. We were facing several uncertainties in the process, as well as issues with SAP Single Sign-On in the validation client.
Thanks to his clear guidance and deep technical expertise, we were able to complete the upgrade successfully and identify the root cause of the SSO issue. Johannes even uncovered a deeply rooted bug in the OpenText Intelligent Capture for SAP Solutions (IC4S) component related to restoring machine learning data, which we were able to get corrected. His ability to explain complex topics clearly and his professional, solution-oriented approach made a big difference for us.
I would absolutely recommend working with him.
Susan Wang
IT Process Analyst · Sales & Marketing
Johannes Auer impresses across the board with his overall package as a project manager. His ability to address issues early and proactively, combined with an excellent professional background, builds trust from the very beginning. Particularly noteworthy is his clear, technically sound, and at the same time pleasantly human communication with all stakeholders, which significantly contributes to the project’s success. Even in challenging situations, he remains calm and keeps a clear overview. His structured way of working and his ability to explain even complex matters in a clear and precise manner round off his profile and make working with him not only successful but also highly enjoyable.¹
Manfred Rocker
Team Manager · SAP FI/CO
What I particularly value in working with Johannes Auer is his quick grasp of complex topics and his extensive expertise – not only in the SAP VIM environment but also across the broader SAP landscape.
He finds pragmatic solutions, critically questions existing processes, and proactively provides helpful documentation. He delivers changes and adjustments reliably after conducting his own tests – significantly reducing the risk of errors only being discovered by the business users.¹
Volker E.
SAP Team · Packaging systems

Next step

Let's talk about your VIM project.

No obligation — 30 minutes, directly with the managing director.

Book 30-min call Contact →

Frequently asked questions about sales orders in SAP VIM

Do we need SAP VIM for invoices first?
No. VIM Beyond Invoices is a framework in its own right and can be implemented without invoice processing. If you already run VIM you save the installation, the archive connection and the capture infrastructure — and your business users already know the interface.
Why not simply use EDI?
Where customers order via EDI, EDI is the better route — no VIM Beyond needed for that. The value lies in the long remainder: the customers for whom a connection never paid off, and the EDI customers whose order arrives as a PDF again the moment something breaks. In most organisations that remainder is the majority of the documents and the minority of the attention.
How does the customer material number reach our material?
Through the customer material info record, provided it is maintained — and in practice that is the actual work. Where it is missing, additional rules fall back on description, EAN or previous orders, and the rest becomes a work item for the sales office. As a by-product you get a list of master data gaps you did not have before.
What happens on a price deviation?
The ordered price is held against the valid condition. Within your tolerance the order goes through; beyond it a work item is created for the responsible person — with the document image, the condition record and the difference side by side. Whether the customer price or your condition wins is your decision, case by case, not the software’s.
Is the order really created without intervention?
Technically yes — the posting logic in the framework creates the sales order. The usual starting point is still a proposal the sales office confirms; once the hit rate is stable over months, defined customers and document types move to automatic creation. That order is deliberate: trust is built on real documents, not in a presentation.
And the order confirmation to the customer?
That comes out of SAP SD as before — just earlier, because the order is in the system earlier. The other direction, inbound confirmations from your suppliers, is a separate topic with its own solution package.

Creating sales orders in SAP automatically

Automated capture of inbound customer purchase orders is, alongside order confirmations, the use case for which OpenText ships the most mature solution package in the VIM Beyond framework. The sections below summarise what it is about and where the pitfalls are.

What is sales order automation in SAP?

It means the path from an incoming customer purchase order to a sales order in SAP SD without anyone re-typing the line items. The document is captured, assigned to a customer, checked against material and pricing master data and created as an order. The bottleneck is rarely reading the characters but the assignment: which customer, which material, which price, which date — and what happens when one of them is not unambiguous.

How the sales order solution package works

The package captures the order through capture or AI extraction, determines the customer from the sender and the document header, resolves customer material numbers, checks prices against the conditions and creates the sales order. Lines within your tolerances go through; everything else becomes a workflow item for the sales office. The document itself is archived against the sales order through SAP ArchiveLink.

Master data decides the straight-through rate

Sales order automation is always a master data project too. Customer material info records, maintained conditions and unambiguous sender addresses are the difference between eighty per cent straight through and constant rework. We measure that against your real orders before implementation — and name the gaps rather than discovering them mid-project.

What this has to do with confirmations and billing

Everything hangs on the order: until it is in the system there is no order confirmation, no availability check and no reliable order intake figure. And a missing customer PO number on the order later becomes a blocked invoice at your customer — the same mechanics you know from your own invoice intake in SAP VIM, seen from the other side.