100K+ year
Governed across the healthcare authority
72K+ year
Invoice Dossiers without manual matching
96
Participating in distributed invoice and payment operations
85%
Through automation and operational orchestration
1. The Operational Challenge
A large public healthcare authority serves approximately 900,000 people across more than 100 municipalities and over 2,600 km², through seven hospitals, healthcare districts and a broad network of territorial services. Financial responsibility is therefore inherently distributed. Supplier expenditure can originate in many facilities, services and organizational structures, while the resulting invoice must remain connected to the right accounting context, responsible unit, procurement references and supporting evidence throughout its life.
Every year, more than 100,000 supplier invoices enter this environment from the regional electronic-invoicing platform. But receiving the invoice is only the beginning. Contracts, purchase orders, goods receipts, service confirmations, accounting events and other evidence can arrive at different times. Their progressive availability changes whether the expenditure can be reconciled, who is responsible for it and whether it can legitimately move toward payment authorization.
Approximately 72,000 Invoice Dossiers every year are reconciled automatically across an organization comprising 96 organizational units.
Coopera provides the persistent operational context that keeps this distributed financial reality connected from invoice receipt through reconciliation, authorization and subsequent payment execution
2. Why it was complex
The challenge was not simply to automate invoice processing. It was to maintain one coherent financial operation while evidence, responsibility and execution evolved asynchronously across a highly distributed public organization.
Responsibility depends on business context
Receiving an invoice does not automatically identify the organizational unit responsible for it. Supplier information, contract references, purchase orders, accounting data and the underlying service or expenditure may all contribute to determining where responsibility belongs.
Payability emerges over time
An invoice cannot progress simply because it has been received or registered in SAP. Contracts, orders, goods receipts, service evidence and accounting events may become available independently. Their combination determines whether the expenditure is genuinely ready to progress.
Distributed execution must remain one operation
Hospitals, districts and territorial structures retain their local responsibilities while participating in a common financial model across 96 organizational units. Distribution cannot become fragmentation.
Payment authorization introduces another level of governance
Even when an invoice becomes eligible for liquidation, public expenditure is not yet authorized for payment. Statutory, fiscal, social-security, procurement and accounting conditions still need to be verified, with approvals and resulting authorization explicitly connected to the expenditure and evidence supporting them.
Financial execution continues across other systems
SAP, regional payment services and national public-payment infrastructure subsequently perform different parts of the operation. The original financial context must survive those handoffs until the payment outcome is known.
3. How Coopera holds operations together
This operation evolves through three connected Living Business Objects, each representing a different level of financial responsibility.
Invoice Dossier
The Invoice Dossier begins when a supplier invoice enters the organization. The invoice itself remains governed content. The Dossier becomes the persistent operational context connecting: Invoice · Supplier · Contract · Purchase Order · Goods Receipt / Service Evidence · SAP Events · Accounting Information · Organizational Responsibility · Supporting Documents · Reconciliation Results. Its condition evolves whenever relevant information becomes available. Automated reconciliation can evaluate that changing context and match accounting, procurement and evidentiary information without requiring all elements to arrive at the same time.
More than 72,000 Invoice Dossiers each year are reconciled automatically. When human intervention is required, the exception remains inside the same persistent context rather than becoming a disconnected manual operation.
Payment Authorization Case
Once one or more Invoice Dossiers belonging to the same supplier become eligible for liquidation, they can contribute to a Payment Authorization Case. This represents a wider level of responsibility. It can keep connected: Eligible Invoice Dossiers · Supplier Evidence · Taxes Controls · Procurement References · Fiscal Controls · Budget Conditions · Responsibilities · Approvals · Digital Signatures · Payment Authorization Act.
The Case remains active while the evidence and approvals required to authorize public expenditure are completed. Once the required conditions are satisfied, the formal authorization act can be produced and digitally signed within the same operational context.
The authorization is therefore not a disconnected document produced at the end. It becomes evidence that changes what the financial operation is legitimately allowed to do next.
Payment Case
Authorized expenditure can then contribute to a Payment Case. This third Living Business Object maintains continuity between formally authorized expenditure and financial execution. SAP remains responsible for creating the payment mandate. Regional Coopera infrastructure and the national public-payment ecosystem then perform the subsequent payment operations.
The Payment Case keeps connected: Authorized Expenditure · Payment Mandate · Signed Authorization · Payment Execution · Status Updates · Final Payment Evidence. Different systems can start and complete their part.
The underlying financial operation remains coherent until its payment outcome is known.
4. What This Looks Like in Practice
Asynchronous Reconciliation
Evidence progressively makes the Invoice Dossier ready.
- A supplier invoice may arrive before all the information required to establish its complete business context.
- Subsequent SAP events, purchase orders, contractual references and receipt or service evidence can progressively enrich the Invoice Dossier.
- Each relevant change can reactivate reconciliation and rule evaluation.
- A matching purchase order may satisfy one condition.
- A goods receipt may satisfy another.
- Missing or inconsistent evidence can keep the Dossier from progressing.
Readiness for liquidation emerges from the current evidence; it is not simply the next predefined workflow step.
Distributed Responsibility
One financial model across 96 organizational units. Invoices originate from expenditure distributed across hospitals, healthcare districts and territorial structures.
Coopera uses the available operational context to preserve and support the appropriate organizational responsibility around each Invoice Dossier. The authority can therefore standardize how evidence, reconciliation and authorization are governed without removing responsibility from the structures that actually originated the expenditure.
Central governance and distributed accountability can coexist.
From Liquidation to Governed Authorization
Financial readiness is not payment authority. A liquidable Invoice Dossier does not automatically become payable.
The Payment Authorization Case adds the statutory and administrative evidence required before public funds can be authorized. Multiple eligible invoices can participate in the same authorization context where appropriate, together with supplier evidence, fiscal and social-security controls, procurement references, approvals and digital signatures. Only when those conditions are satisfied does subsequent payment preparation become legitimate.
From Authorization to Payment Outcome
Systems execute their part without breaking continuity. After formal authorization, SAP prepares the payment mandate. Execution then continues through the regional and national public-payment infrastructures. Status information and resulting evidence can return later and remain correlated with the relevant Payment Case.
- SAP performs accounting.
- Payment infrastructure performs financial execution.
- Local organizational units retain expenditure responsibility.
Coopera preserves continuity across the complete invoice-to-payment operation.
5. The Outcome
The Local Health Authority now operates a common digital financial model across 96 organizational units distributed throughout a province-wide healthcare network.
More than 100,000 supplier invoices every year become persistent Invoice Dossiers whose condition evolves as accounting events and documentary evidence become available. Approximately 72,000 Dossiers annually are reconciled automatically, allowing the majority of the workload to progress without manual matching while preserving evidence and organizational responsibility at object level. Eligible expenditure then moves into Payment Authorization Cases, where statutory controls, approvals, signatures and formal authorization remain connected to the financial reality being authorized. Payment Cases subsequently preserve continuity into SAP and the regional public-payment environment until the final outcome and evidence are known.
The wider organization was already paying within statutory terms in 2019, approximately 11 days ahead of due dates, and by 2025 its Payment Timeliness Indicator had improved to approximately 17.15 days ahead of statutory terms.
This organization-wide performance should not be attributed to Coopera alone. What the case demonstrates is that strong payment performance can be sustained and further improved while the underlying operation remains highly distributed and complex. Coopera provides the operational infrastructure connecting evidence, reconciliation, responsibility, authorization and financial execution within that wider model. The result is not simply automated invoice matching.
It is a connected invoice-to-payment operating model in which distributed expenditure, documentary evidence, statutory authorization, accounting systems and financial execution remain coherent from supplier invoice to payment outcome.
6. What This Case Proves
Multiple Living Business Objects can represent one financial reality
Invoice Dossier, Payment Authorization Case and Payment Case can each retain their own identity and responsibility while participating in one connected invoice-to-payment operation.
Payability can emerge from changing evidence
SAP events, contracts, purchase orders and receipt evidence can arrive asynchronously and progressively determine whether an Invoice Dossier is ready to move forward.
Automation can preserve distributed responsibility
More than 72,000 Invoice Dossiers can be automatically reconciled each year while 96 organizational units retain the responsibilities associated with their expenditure.
Governance can continue through the actual financial outcome
Liquidation, formal authorization and payment execution remain distinct responsibilities while the wider operation stays connected until payment evidence is known.
