Success Story
MailCenter XRechnung at DVV

Case study

Decision Criteria for SAP Add-in MailCenter – XInvoice

1. Integrated solution for all e-invoicing requirements
2. Perspective use also for documents from purchasing
3. Not a “consultant solution”, but a standard product

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company

Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH

• Registered office: Duisburg
• Industry: Public utility
• Turnover: 1.8 billion
• Employees: over 4,350
• Internet address: www.dvv.de

Project Objectives

1. Reliability in sending electronic invoices should be increased
2. Reduction of manual effort in invoicing
3. Compliance with the requirements of EU Directive 204/55/EU
4. Attachments should be sent with invoices in an email

Choosing MailCenter

1. Integrated solution for all e-invoicing requirements
2. Perspective use also for documents from purchasing
3. not a “consultant solution”, but a standard product

Solutions and Services

1. Digitization Platform MailCenter – Module E-Bill
2. Solution partner: munich enterprise software GmbH

Implementation Highlights

1. Rapid acceptance of the solution by users thanks to high usability
2. munich enterprise was able to meet all the requirements of specialist departments and group billing

Main benefits for the company

1. Assurance that all invoices are created and sent correctly
2. An integrated solution for all document types in e-invoicing
3. Clear assignment of invoices to the desired format and to the Group company
4. Invoice and attachments are summarized in one e-mail

Environment

SAP ERP ECC 6.0 EHP 8

Case study in detail

“With the MailCenter, we are advancing digitization in the company.”

Wolfgang Scheffler
, SAP Senior Consultant Logistics/Accounting (Project Management) at Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH

Approx. 32,000 outgoing invoices via SAP SD per year

Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft (DVV) is an SAP customer through and through: A wide variety of modules are in use throughout the Group for several clients. Outgoing invoices for all deliveries and services that are not energy sales and grid charges are created in SAP SD. Above all, the departments had long expressed the desire to be able to send invoices by e-mail. Many customers are now also pushing for invoices to be sent to them only electronically as PDF.

DVV therefore tested electronic invoice dispatch via message processing via SAP standard applications and interfaces (including Lotus Domino) for a while. However, again and again invoices were not sent. The whole construct was not technically stable enough.

Solution from a single source

For this reason, DVV sounded out the market at the end of 2019 in search of a new solution. It was actually about two topics: the electronic invoicing as such and the acc. EU Directive 204/55/EU will in future apply legal obligation to e-invoicing, i.e. the creation of the new e-invoice formats XRechnung and ZUGFeRD. The system should also ensure this. Wolfgang Scheffler, SAP Senior Consultant Logistics/Accounting and head of the project at DVV: “munich enterprise has also considered the topic of e-invoicing through the module of the same name for its MailCenter for SAP.”

Message determination in the mail center

For example, DVV introduced munich enterprise’s digitization platform in spring 2020. With it, it can send SAP business documents easily, quickly and flexibly by e-mail from SAP – not only invoices from the SD module, but also all purchasing-related documents in SAP MM such as purchase orders, inquiries, etc. You can make a dedicated message determination in the software, i.e. select which format type is to be generated (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung) and to which Group company the invoice is to be assigned.

Summary in the document pool

Furthermore, all invoices from SD initially converge in a document pool of the e-digitization platform. There, colleagues from the Group Billing / Central Invoicing Department can check once again whether all the necessary attachments are attached to the invoice. “For us, this is a major advantage of the solution,” says Wolfgang Scheffler. “With SAP’s own solutions, you can’t combine the invoice and attachments within one email.”

Process optimization through digitization

Users praise the good usability of the MailCenter compared to the conventional SAP standard. The output can be clearly determined according to certain criteria, i.e. the amount of invoices that still has to be sent to customers by e-mail. For the management, the main focus is on advancing digitization in the company with the MailCenter. This works all the better the more integrated and less disruptive digital business processes are.

Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH

Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft (DVV) is a multi-service group in the areas of supply, mobility and services. The Group includes more than 30 companies such as Stadtwerke Duisburg AG, Netze Duisburg GmbH, Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft AG, octeo Multiservices GmbH and DCC Duisburg CityCom GmbH. With around 4,350 employees, the DVV Group is one of the largest employers in Duisburg and makes a decisive contribution to the provision of an efficient infrastructure in the city with around 500,000 inhabitants. In 2020, the Group generated sales of 1.8 billion euros.