Why You Should Optimize Your Invoice Processes Before Migrating to SAP S/4HANA

09.09.2025

Topic: AP Automation | SAP | S/4HANA

Current State: Many Companies Still Haven’t Migrated

As of 2025, only about 45% of SAP customers are live on S/4HANA, according to ASUG. That leaves 55% either still preparing for the transition or right in the middle of it. The timeline is getting tighter: mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC officially ends in 2027.

That means companies must now think strategically—not only about technology, but also about prioritization and resource allocation.

The Challenge: Limited Resources and Narrow Timeframes

Migrating to SAP S/4HANA is a massive undertaking. With thousands of companies planning to make the switch in the coming years, several issues are already clear:

• Internal resource strain: What happens when experienced employees retire or your IT department is already stretched too thin?
• Consultant shortage: External SAP consultants are already booked out years in advance.
• Talent gap: Qualified SAP professionals will only become harder to find and more expensive as 2027 approaches.

Organizations that fail to spread out their projects risk being forced into a rushed, high-pressure migration.

The Solution: Decouple and Prepare Projects in Advance

The best practice is clear: separate sub-projects and start where you’ll see the biggest impact first.

• “Clean Core” and “Forward to Standard”: Standardizing and cleaning up processes today will reduce complexity during migration.
• Invoice workflow optimization: Accounts payable automation and modern invoice workflows (e.g., with SAP Fiori) can be implemented independently of your S/4HANA migration.

This not only reduces overall migration complexity but also delivers measurable value early on.

A solution must be suitable.

A solution like xSuite Invoice is perfectly suited for this decoupling approach. The software not only supports multiple deployment models of SAP S/4HANA but also carries official SAP certifications such as Integration with SAP S/4HANA and Integration with SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

These certifications matter because they ensure that your invoice workflow remains compatible and officially validated by SAP—regardless of which S/4HANA model you ultimately choose. If your organization has not yet decided between on-premises, cloud, or hybrid deployment, your invoice solution will not lock you in. This flexibility protects your investment and gives you time to focus on the broader migration strategy without introducing additional risks.

Another advantage: xSuite integrates at the interface level. This means it is not tied to SAP GUI or Fiori, which opens up two practical paths:

• Fiori first, S/4HANA later: Companies can let users gain early experience with Fiori in a dedicated, controlled environment—well before the actual S/4HANA migration.
• S/4HANA first, Fiori later: If preferred, the migration to S/4HANA does not have to include an immediate switch to Fiori. Users can continue working in the familiar SAP GUI even under S/4HANA.

In both scenarios, interface-level integration ensures freedom of choice and a smoother transition for IT teams and end users alike.

Why Focus on Accounts Payable?

Invoice management is one of the smartest areas to optimize before moving to S/4HANA:

• High manual workload: Many companies still process invoices manually, which is slow, error-prone, and costly.
• Avoid legacy baggage: Custom developments and one-off ECC extensions shouldn’t be blindly migrated to S/4HANA.
• Fast ROI: Invoice processing is a high-volume, repetitive process—automation pays off quickly.
• Scalability & compliance: Modern AP automation tools ensure standardized, auditable, and scalable processes.

That makes accounts payable an ideal candidate for modernization ahead of your S/4HANA migration.

Another important advantage: if you implement a modern invoice workflow before migrating to SAP S/4HANA, your users can already become familiar with the software. When the switch to S/4HANA takes place, the invoice workflow won’t be something entirely new—the team will already be trained and comfortable, which eases adoption and reduces the change management effort.

Bottom Line: Don’t Wait—Act Now

With limited time and rising resource demands, the recommendation is clear: Don’t postpone AP automation until after migrating to SAP S/4HANA.

Companies that act today gain twice:

1. They ease the complexity of their upcoming S/4HANA migration.

2. They unlock immediate efficiency gains in accounts payable processing.

Forward-thinking businesses are already taking this approach. The question is: will you?