If your business is SAP-based and you've deployed Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, you’ve probably saved a great amount of time and money. Your ERP system has greatly reduced the amount of manual data entry that was previously required when important information—like a customer order, for example—needed to be transferred from your SAP platform to an SAP warehouse management system, an SAP inventory management system, etc.
However, there is one step in the order completion process that still needs to be done manually for each order: shipping. Despite the seamless integration between your ERP's eCommerce platform and your warehouse management system, one of your team members will still need to manually:
- Review each order
- Determine or estimate the order's weight and dimensions, then enter the information.
- Find the order's packaging strategy that is both cost- and safety-effective.
- To find the best carrier and service for the job (based on cost, service levels, customer expectations, etc.), go to your carriers'/brokers' websites and enter the pertinent data at each location.
- Print records like pick lists, return and package labels, BOLs, address labels, etc.
In other words, there are still many manual steps involved in shipping even though your SAP ERP system is highly sophisticated. These steps slow down your workflow and frequently result in higher costs for your business because they depend on guesswork or ad hoc decision-making rather than being automated and optimized for every order.
This is where the shipment automation from Liquid UI for SAP S4 HANA, ECC, or ERP comes in. Liquid UI helps SAP-based businesses struggling with a disjointed combination of Windows Task Scheduler, cron, application-specific schedulers, and other tools to try and manage their production. We work with companies to develop cross-platform, single-pane scheduling frameworks for coordinated production.
The Liquid UI SAP ERP Integration
With Liquid UI Efficient SAP SD, you can integrate an intelligent, automated shipping-management solution directly into your ERP system, whether you use SAP or other major ERP platforms.
After deploying the Liquid UI platform, you can automate a large portion of the shipping process without leaving your ERP environment.
For instance, when Liquid UI is incorporated into your ERP, you can:
- Apply your shipping restrictions and policies automatically for each order.
- Connect your ERP system to the Liquid UI shipping automation system and have it pull all relevant customer order data for you automatically.
- Access Liquid UI's network of hundreds of carriers (parcel, freight, LTL, white glove, etc.) automatically for every order—without having to go to any carrier's website.
- Determine the best company for the job based on cost, service options, customer expectations, policies, carrier pickup rules, etc. by automatically comparing all relevant carriers to the order's details.
- Automatically review the contents of the order and other important information, choosing the best box, material for packing, and other order-fulfillment specifics.
- Automatically determine and report to your warehouse team the particular guidelines your chosen carrier has set forth for order staging and pickup.
- Automatically produce the necessary shipping documentation, such as return and package labels.
- Regardless of the carrier you choose, automatically create a branded customer-facing website for your business that allows for shipment tracking and status updates.
- Create your business on-demand reports on carrier performance and other pertinent data by automatically tracking and analyzing all of your shipping data.
- Send all tracking and shipping data back into your ERP system automatically so that you don't have to manually enter it.
How Liquid UI Integrates with Your ERP?
You have three options for deploying the Liquid UI shipping automation system:
This gives you flexibility in terms of how to use Liquid UI within your organization—either as a standalone platform for all of your shipping processes accessing through our web portal or Mobile directly or by integrating it into your ERP system.
Furthermore, Liquid UI can be integrated into your ERP system, which eliminates the need for you to manually enter any of the above-described steps (for carrier selection, packing optimization, branded tracking, etc.). The solution will also automatically transfer all pertinent order data into your ERP system.
Example of a Liquid UI Integration with SAP
If your company operates within SAP’s platform, Liquid UI will handle the integration between your SAP environment and the Liquid UI solution.
Liquid UI will:
- Pull this data by mapping all fields in your SAP environment that are pertinent to your shipping processes (product data, shipping guidelines, negotiated rates with particular carriers, etc.).
- Add new products and other relevant data to the Liquid UI environment as needed.
- Utilize the data for each new order to automatically request rates from carriers and schedule shipments.
- Send tracking updates for any orders that are completed using your Liquid UI system.
Still, have questions? Speak with a Liquid UI SAP SD automation expert.
Liquid UI’s Enterprise Shipping Automation Framework
Liquid UI is used by some of the most demanding SAP S4HANA, ECC, and ERP solution providers in the world. Our solutions have been used since 1998 to automate, integrate, and accelerate business application processing by companies of all shapes and sizes. Liquid UI allows you to gain control over your production environment across your network, virtualized environments, and cloud platforms. And Liquid UX can be deployed, ensuring a very fast return on investment.
- A single console with over 20 years of proven dependability and experience can schedule, watch over, and manage your production across all of your environments.
- Increases productivity throughout your enterprise computing environment while lowering costs.
- Eliminate costly human error from your mission-critical production environment.
- increased application service levels
- Faster delivery of information and reports that are essential to business operations.
- Allocates manpower to other crucial projects while freeing up resources.
- reduces the cost of producing applications.
- Provides your development team with a framework for future automation needs.
- Flexible licensing accommodates almost all budgets.
It’s time to start. Contact our experts for any technical support from our experts on Liquid UI for SAP S/4 HANA, ECC, and ERP at your convenience.
Some of the SAP ERP partners that Liquid UI integrates include:
- Canada Post
- City of Tacoma
- Essroc Cement
- Energen
- Hampel Oil Distributors Inc.
- Marin Municipal Water District
- Philip Morris USA
- Polk County Public Schools
Our customers range from small, independently owned firms to global powerhouses. They are very important to us and are our biggest motivators.
We provide tools and user-friendly SAP business applications that enable greater efficiency, precision, productivity, and overall business success. For complete details, please feel free to meet our customers.
