AI Driven Procurement Demo with Clean Core SAP
- AccleroTech
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Clean-core strategy isn’t optional anymore; it’s a competitive necessity.
Today’s businesses need speed, visibility, and flexibility, yet many procurement processes are still tightly embedded inside SAP. A simple approval change can trigger a full ERP change cycle. New routing rules often mean custom ABAP. And audit cycles turn into manual searches across emails and transaction logs. The result is slower cycle times, rising maintenance costs, and limited room to adapt.
Agent-Driven Procurement offers a smarter alternative. It moves approvals, routing, and orchestration into an intelligent layer outside SAP, while SAP continues to serve as the trusted system of record for financial transactions.
This clean-core approach blends automation, AI-driven validation, and conversational agents to create a procurement experience that’s faster, more transparent, and ready to evolve with the business, without adding complexity to the ERP core.
Why Procurement Needs a Clean‑Core Reinvention
For many organizations running SAP ECC, years of incremental enhancements, custom workflows, and tightly coupled ABAP logic have created a heavy, hard to change ERP core.
Each new customization adds to this weight, making the system increasingly rigid and limiting the ability to modernize or respond quickly to business, needs to change ERP core.
Procurement is often one of the biggest contributors to growing technical debt. Over time, custom approval chains, hard-coded validations, scripted routing rules, and tightly coupled point-to-point integrations built directly into the ERP begin to pile up.
What once solved an immediate business need gradually turns into long-term complexity, making every future change slower, riskier, and more expensive.
Key Challenges in Traditional SAP Procurement
· Workflow changes require SAP transports, which slow down operations and delay even small policy updates.
· Approvals are fragmented across multiple systems like email, SAP inboxes, shared drives, leading to inconsistent decisions and slower cycle times.
· Custom ABAP deeply embedded in procurement logic inflates the ERP core and becomes a blocker during system upgrades or S/4HANA migrations.
· Audit evidence is scattered, making compliance and traceability time-consuming.
· ERP‑bound workflow logic limits flexibility, because any change to the ERP (for example, moving from ECC to S/4HANA) forces teams to rebuild approval workflows and embedded custom logic from scratch.
A clean core removes friction, reduces risk, and restores agility to procurement.
Intelligent Procurement Architecture
This procurement architecture enables a modern, low-code Procure-to-Pay (P2P) process using Microsoft Power Platform as the orchestration and experience layer, while SAP ECC / S/4HANA remains the clean core system of record for financial and procurement transactions.
The design follows a sidecar innovation model, where:
Business workflows and user experience run in Power Platform.
SAP handles transactional integrity (POs, GR, Invoices).
Integration occurs via secure APIs through the SAP ERP Connector and On- Premises Data Gateway.
Governance, reliability, and security are enforced using Microsoft Entra ID and Power Platform controls.
Procurement Architecture – Layered Overview
Experience & Engagement Layer
This is where users interact with the procurement process. Employees raise purchase requests through Power Apps or Microsoft Teams. Approvers review and act directly within Teams using chat-based approvals. Suppliers can interact via portal or email where required. The focus of this layer is simplicity and adoption, modern interfaces replace traditional ERP screens, reducing friction and improving user experience.
Transactional Data & Digital Twin Layer
This is the intelligence engine of architecture. Dataverse acts as the system of workflow record, storing request state, approval history, vendor data, and audit logs. Power Automate orchestrates routing, escalations, and policy-based approvals. AI Builder and agents validate rules, extract document data, and assist in decision-making. This layer forms the digital twin of procurement: a reusable, loosely coupled process model that exists outside SAP but mirrors and governs it. All business logic lives here. Not inside ERP.
Integration Layer
This layer securely connects the digital twin to SAP. Using secure APIs and connectors (with on-premises gateway if required), approved requests are transmitted to SAP for official posting. Status updates flow back to the Power Platform layer to maintain synchronization.
Because the integration is connector-based, if the organization migrates from ECC to S/4HANA or even another ERP, the workflow remains unchanged. Only the connector changes.
This is what makes the architecture future-proof.
SAP Clean Core Layer
SAP ECC or S/4HANA remains the transactional backbone of the enterprise, handling Purchase Order creation, financial postings, vendor ledger updates, and goods receipt and invoice processing with precision and control. There is no embedded workflow customization, no approval logic built into ERP, and no additional ABAP development. By keeping SAP focused strictly on transactions, the system stays stable, compliant, and fully upgrade ready, while innovation and workflow intelligence operate outside the core.
Security & Governance Layer
Security is embedded across every layer of the solution. Microsoft Entra ID controls authentication and access, while Dataverse enforces role-based security to protect sensitive data. Data Loss Prevention policies restrict connector usage, and audit logs track approvals and ERP interactions for full compliance visibility.
Well-Architected Considerations
This procurement solution aligns with Microsoft Power Platform Well-Architected principles to ensure resilience, security, scalability, and strong governance while keeping SAP clean and stable.
Reliability
Dataverse provides high availability and disaster recovery. Power Automate includes retry policies and error handling for SAP integrations. Monitoring through the Admin Centre and flow history ensures proactive issue detection.
Security
Microsoft Entra ID manages authentication and access control. Dataverse enforces role-based security, while DLP policies restrict connector usage. All data is encrypted, and audit logs track approvals and integrations.
Operational Excellence
Solution-aware ALM pipelines manage Dev/Test/Prod environments. Governance via the CoE toolkit and monitoring dashboards ensures controlled deployments and visibility into process health.
Performance Efficiency
Optimized Dataverse tables and efficient Power Automate flows support scalable transaction volumes. API calls are streamlined, and notifications are asynchronous to prevent bottlenecks.
Experience Optimization
Modern Power Apps replace legacy ERP screens. Teams-based approvals and Copilot agents improve usability and reduce training overhead.
A clean-core strategy only works when it’s built on reliability, security, and governance.
Procurement Process Flow (Clean Core Model)
Agent-Driven Procurement Process Flow
Modern procurement doesn’t need to overload ERP systems to be powerful. This process flow shows how you can move intelligence, automation, and AI-driven decisions outside SAP, while keeping SAP clean, stable, and upgrade-ready.
Stage | What Happens | Business Impact |
Purchase Request Initiation | Employees submit requests via Power Apps or Microsoft Teams. A guided digital interface captures vendor details, amount, cost center, and supporting documents. | Improved data accuracy, Reduced manual errors |
Centralized Data Capture | Requests are stored in Dataverse, becoming part of a structured, governed workflow. Every action is logged with real-time status tracking. | Full audit visibility, tracking Controlled governance |
Automated Approval Workflow | Power Automate triggers rule-based routing aligned to policy. Supports sequential/parallel approvals, threshold escalations, and automated validation checks. All decisions and comments are logged. | Policy-compliant approvals, Complete traceability |
Teams-Based Decisioning | Approvers review and act directly within Microsoft Teams. They can approve, reject, or comment without switching systems. Rejections notify the requester automatically; approvals move to ERP posting. | Seamless collaboration, Faster decision cycles |
SAP Transaction Posting | After final approval, a secure API call creates the Purchase Order in SAP ECC or S/4HANA using standard connectors. SAP records the financial transaction as the system of record. | Clean ERP core, No embedded workflow logic |
AI Driven Procurement Demo with Clean Core SAP
The demo shows how procurement can be modernized without customizing SAP. Following the “Don’t Fatten the Fat Boy” principle, SAP stays as the clean transactional core, while Microsoft Power Platform acts as the intelligent orchestration layer. This keeps the ERP lean and stable while still enabling rapid innovation.
At the center of this approach is a Digital Twin of the procurement process built on Dataverse. It mirrors approvals, workflows, policy checks, and operational states outside SAP. SAP handles the financial postings; the Digital Twin handles the intelligence.
Watch the full demo here:
SAP Procurement Accelerators
SAP is a robust ERP system that stores procurement master data, posting documents, and financial integrity. However, SAP’s native user experience spans multiple transaction codes and screens. Procurement accelerators built on Power Platform address this gap by providing streamlined, prebuilt building blocks that consolidate SAP’s core procurement capabilities into a unified front-end experience.
These building blocks cover the entire procure‑to‑pay cycle, including:
· Vendor Management
· Purchase Requisitions
· Purchase Orders
· Goods Receipt
· Vendor Invoices
· Vendor Payments
They are powered by Power Apps, cloud flows, Dataverse, and the SAP ERP connector-allowing organizations to configure and extend workflows without adding technical debt to SAP. Because they rely on SAP’s published APIs, they continue working reliably as long as SAP maintains core API compatibility, making them sustainable and cost efficient in the long term.
Benefits & Impact (AI Driven Procurement Demo with Clean Core SAP)
Faster procurement cycles Approvals move at the speed of conversation. With chat‑based approval cards in Teams, PR→PO timelines shrink dramatically because decision‑makers act instantly.
A Clean‑Core SAP
All routing, policies, and intelligence sit outside SAP, keeping the ERP lean, predictable, and upgrade‑friendly. No ABAP workflows. No custom logic hiding inside the core.
Audit-ready transparency Approvals, comments, documents, and SAP postings live in one source.
Intelligent assistance Procurement and Audit Agents reduce manual effort and improve compliance.
Built for ERP evolution Whether you stay on ECC or move to S/4HANA, your procurement workflows remain intact. The logic lives outside the ERP, so adapting to a new SAP backend is as simple as reconnecting the APIs, not rebuilding processes.
Conclusion
Clean‑core procurement is far more than a technical choice; it’s a business decision. By shifting workflow logic, intelligence, and approvals outside SAP, organizations free the ERP to do what it does best: remain the stable, authoritative system of record. Everything else the agility, the intelligence, the user experience moves to a flexible sidecar layer powered by agents, automation, and API‑based integration.
The result is a procurement function that moves faster, adapts quicker, and scales without friction. SAP stays lean. Workflows stay modern. And the business stays ready for whatever comes next.
Keep SAP clean, move intelligence to the edges, and let procurement become the strategic engine it was meant to be.
About AccleroTech
AccleroTech is an AI-First, Remote-First Microsoft Power Platform Solutions company, dedicated to accelerating productivity for global businesses with cutting-edge AI solutions. We specialize in:
AI-driven automation
Conversational agents
Business intelligence
Rapid solution development using reuse-first methodology
📩 Contact us: info@acclerotech.com
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