Skip to main content

Legal

Tax & Accounting

Trade & Supply

Risk & Fraud

News & Media

Books

Developers

Integrations

Tracker for SAP

Legal Tracker offers an integrated solution called the ERP Cloud Connector that lets invoices connect directly to the SAP S4/HANA Cloud for payment and processing. Information in Legal Tracker is converted to a format that can be used by theSAP S/4HANA Cloud system. This end-to-end solution is fast and easy to set up. Once the solution is set up, approved invoices are submitted and the payment status is monitored automatically. The ERP (Enterprise resource planning) system can also send updates of the payment status of the invoices. Automatic behind the scenes processing allows two-way monitoring of the data. The invoices are sent automatically to the SAP S4/HANA Cloud system and the payment status is monitored, then uploaded into Legal Tracker.

Setting Up the SAP Integration with Legal Tracker

Step 1: Enable Legal Tracker API access and credentials
  1. Contact Legal Tracker support to request access to the Developer Portal. The Developer Portal allows your IT team access to security, authentication, and registration information, and provides detailed API documentation. This process uses the AP Data Exchange and Billing APIs.
  2. Share your API credentials with your Client Success Manager to initiate the Legal Tracker side of the integration.
Step 2: Set up Communication Users in SAP
  1. Set up communication users in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud System. For a step-by-step description of this process, see the SAP blog Setting up Communication Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
  2. Share your API Credentials with your Client Success Manager to initiate the SAP S/4HANA side of the integration.
Step 3: Add the Communication Arrangement in SAP
In the step you will add two communication arrangements in SAP.
  • When prompted to specify a Communication Scenario, select
    SAP_COM_0057 (Supplier Invoice Integration)
    .
  • When you have added Supplier Invoice Integration, repeat the procedure and add
    SAP_COM_0240 (Invoice Posting Integration)
For a description of this process, see How to Create a Communication Arrangement in the SAP Help Portal.
Step 4: Assign Recipients to Users
Next, you must add a recipient. At the Assign Recipients prompt, specify the following:
  • Namespace:
     /MMPUR
  • Recipient Name
    : MMPUR_OMVC_STS_UPDOUT
  • Message Type
    : Info

Field Requirements

Transmission to SAP S4/HANA Cloud Requirements
Once the connection between Legal Tracker and SAP S4/HANA Cloud has been successfully confirmed and established, the next step is to define the customer's required fields for invoice transmission. This is a crucial step in the process.
By default, the following fields are already accessible in Legal Tracker out-of-the-box.
  • Vendor Name
  • Vendor Short Name
  • Date of invoice
  • Invoice Number
  • Invoice Currency
  • Total Approved
  • Approved Expenses
  • Approved Fees
  • Firm Office ID
  • Invoice description
Additional fields a customer may likely need to define in their invoice spreadsheet are the following:
  • SAP Vendor Number (labelled
    sapVendorNumber
    )
  • General Ledger Number (labelled
    generalLedgerNumber
    )
  • Profit Center (labelled
    profitCenter
    )
  • Cost Center (labelled
    costCente
    r)
  • Company Code (labelled
    companyCode
    )
When the fields are confirmed and defined, send an email to the Legal Tracker Admin or Coordinator. They must agree that these fields will not be modified, and if changes are required in the future that they will contact their support contact before initiating any changes.
Reverse Transmission to Legal Tracker (Status Updates)
Customers must define what type of information they want to receive with invoice status updates. Most of the fields are system generated, but the field for
Payment Status
 can be modified to meet the needs of customers. Below are the following updates the system can generate by default. In the event a customer wishes alternative wording they will need to specify which code and the wording they want to use.
System Generated Response Code
Code Meaning
Blank
Posted (Online Invoice Verification)
1
Planned for background verification
2
Deleted
3
Contains Errors
4
Correct (Posted, not complete)
5
Posted
A
Parked
B
Parked Complete
C
Held Parked
D
Held Entered
E
Parked Released

Getting up and Running

Once the connection and required fields are established as explained in the previous sections, you must create a few test invoices to ensure the AP Cloud Connector is working as intended. It is important for admins and Legal Tracker Coordinators to provide support along with their AP team.
Step 1: Create Test Invoices
The Tracker admin or Coordinator creates one or more test invoices that are representative of an upcoming invoice, or one that has already been paid. It is important for test invoices to be representative of typical invoices, otherwise errors can occur because of format discrepancies.
Step 2: Approve Invoices and Get the Batch Ready
Typically, the Cloud Connector is triggered by a time interval lookup, such as checking for new invoices every 24 hours, but during the test you run the pipeline on demand to ensure the configuration is correct. For this process to run smoothly, you should contact the corresponding CLEO support representative to ensure availability to run the test.
Step 3: Verify Successful Transmission of Invoices in SAP S4/HANA Cloud
This step requires the participation of the customer's AP team because they are required to sign off on the test invoices. The format you use will be the expected format for all future invoices. If the transmission of information does not meet the customer's needs, verify the following:
  • The information provided for API credentials for Legal Tracker and SAP S4/HANA are correct
  • Invoice spreadsheet fields are correct
  • Test data is representative of actual invoices
  • The correct batch was captured by Cloud Connector
Although this is unlikely to happen, in most cases one of these factors is probably the cause of any transmission issues.
Step 4: Verify the Invoice Status Update Transmission in Legal Tracker
As with the previous step, this step requires the participation of the customer's AP team and the Legal Tracker admin or Coordinator. The following steps will need to occur in order to get a status update on the test invoice(s):
  1. The AP team updates the invoice in SAP S4/HANA Cloud to any of the following:
    • Contains Errors
    • Parked
    • Posted
  2. Ad-hoc query from CLEO to run the status update transmission.
  3. Legal Tracker Admin/Coordinator to verify the information populated in the test invoice(s) are correct.
Step 5: Sign-off
When the Cloud connector is up and running, have the Legal Tracker admin or Coordinator verify that the entire connection is working as intended and the integration is complete. This step can be completed with email. You should now have the following emails that should be retained on file for the customer:
  • Sign-off on the invoice spreadsheet with confirmation that the fields will not be modified without contacting Support.
  • Sign-off from the customer's AP team that invoice transmission is correct and working as intended
  • Sign-off from the Legal Tracker admin or Coordinator the integration is complete and working as intended

Maintenance & Future Considerations

As explained in the previous sections, it is important for customers to not modify their invoice spreadsheet once it is agreed upon. However, they may require changes later which we will need to accommodate. Depending on the changes needed there will likely be associated costs.
Updating fields in the Invoice Spreadsheet
If our customer require fields in their invoice spreadsheet to be modified, we require an email notice and advise that it be done during a period there is no active batch of invoices waiting to be sent to AP. At a time that is agreed upon, Thomson Reuters will temporarily turn off the integration to perform the required changes.
For this updating process to be considered complete, retain the following in our customers file:
  • Email indicating customer would like to modify the invoice spreadsheet fields
  • Agreed upon data to do modifications
  • Sign-off on Invoice Spreadsheet and to not modify those fields without reaching out to support prior
  • Sign-off from customers AP Team that invoice transmission is correct and working as intended
  • Sign-off from Legal Tracker Admin/Coordinator the integration is complete and working as intended
Future Considerations
Legal Trackers and the Thomson Reuters product team are always eager to hear how we can improve our customer experience and what the future from our customers perspective may look like with greater integration into the systems they utilize. With this in mind if a customer contacts Support for ideas related to enhancements or adjacent functionalities please relay this information to product so we can do future research to see if there is a market fit.

This article applies to:

  • PRODUCT: Legal Tracker
  • Subject: Integration
  • Audiences: Company