~30K year
Governed through the regional billing environment
60K+ year
Automatically processed and correlated
18
Operating through the same centralized billing model
100%
Of outbound invoices using HSM infrastructure
1. The Operational Challenge
A regional public authority operates a centralized financial and accounting environment serving 18 public healthcare organizations, including local health authorities, hospitals, university hospitals and research institutes. The organizations share a regional SAP environment, but they do not become one fiscal entity. Each retains its own issuing identity, accounting responsibility, customer relationships and organizational configuration.
Every year, approximately 30,000 outbound invoices originate from accounting activity managed in regional SAP. But the accounting record is only the beginning of the fiscal operation. Before an invoice can legitimately enter Italy’s national electronic-invoicing infrastructure, structured accounting information must become a compliant fiscal document. Required data must be verified. The correct organizational and signing context must be applied. The electronic invoice must be generated and digitally signed. It must then be submitted to the Italian National e-Invoicing Exchange Platform (SDI). And submission still does not complete the operation. Responses and status events continue to arrive asynchronously afterwards and must remain connected to the original invoice until its final fiscal condition is known.
Coopera provides the persistent operational context that connects accounting origin, fiscal issuance, digital signature, SDI interaction and final outcome across the regional healthcare environment.
2. Why it was complex
The challenge was not simply to generate and transmit electronic invoices. It was to centralize fiscal execution while preserving organizational identity, regulatory validity and continuity across asynchronous systems.
One regional model, 18 independent fiscal identities
The healthcare organizations use the same regional environment while remaining legally and fiscally independent. Every invoice must stay attributable to the organization actually responsible for issuing it.
An accounting record must become a legally valid fiscal document
SAP provides the structured information required for billing, but additional controls and transformation are required before that information can become a compliant electronic invoice. Required fiscal data, customer information, tax conditions, mandatory fields, duplicate prevention and organizational configuration can all determine whether issuance is legitimate.
Digital signature is part of the operation
Every eligible outbound invoice is automatically digitally signed using CAdES through HSM infrastructure. The correct signing identity must remain connected to the healthcare organization and invoice that require it.
SDI interaction is asynchronous
Submission does not produce one simple final response. Acknowledgements, errors and other status events can arrive later and must be correlated with the invoice that originated them. At current scale, more than 60,000 SDI interactions every year occur around approximately 30,000 outbound invoices.
Accounting must remain aligned with fiscal reality
What happens outside SAP cannot remain disconnected from SAP. Relevant SDI outcomes must eventually return to the correct regional accounting context so that the accounting system reflects what actually happened in the fiscal environment.
3. How Coopera holds the operation together
In this scenario the Outbound Invoice becomes the primary Living Business Object.
Outbound Invoice
Every Outbound Invoice becomes a persistent Living Business Object with its own identity and evolving operational context.
It can keep connected: Issuing Organization · Customer · Accounting Reference · Fiscal Data · Current State · XML Invoice · Digital Signature · SDI Interactions · Errors · Retry History · Accounting Status · Evidence. The accounting information can originate in SAP. The fiscal document can be generated and signed. Transmission can start and finish.SDI messages can continue arriving afterwards.
The Outbound Invoice remains the persistent point of continuity through all of them. This distinction is fundamental.
The XML document is an important representation of the invoice, but the operation is larger than the XML itself. The Living Business Object retains the fiscal identity, controls, signature, exchanges, history and current condition that make that document operationally meaningful.
A technical message is equally not an isolated artifact. Its arrival can confirm progress, report a problem, require another attempt or establish a new fiscal condition. The message becomes part of the same Outbound Invoice context and can change what must happen next.
Accounting data, fiscal content, execution and evidence remain connected around one persistent business object.
4. What This Looks Like in Practice
From Accounting Data to Fiscal Document
Issuance begins only when the conditions are satisfied. Regional SAP provides the structured information from which the Outbound Invoice is created. Coopera combines that information with the organizational and fiscal context required for legitimate issuance.
Before submission, configured controls can verify: Required Fiscal Data · Customer & Destination Information · Tax Conditions · Mandatory Fields · XML Compliance · Duplicate Prevention · Issuer Configuration · Signature Preconditions. If required conditions are not satisfied, execution does not simply continue because an accounting record exists.
Submission becomes available only when the current Invoice context makes it legitimate.
Automated Digital Signing
High automation without losing fiscal attribution. Once the required conditions are satisfied, the electronic invoice is automatically signed using the appropriate CAdES/HSM infrastructure. The signing operation remains associated with both the Outbound Invoice and the healthcare organization legally responsible for issuing it. This allows 100% of eligible outbound invoices to be digitally signed automatically without separating the signature event from the business operation that required it.
Automation does not replace governance. Governance determines when automation is allowed to act.
National e-Invoicing Exchange Platform Interaction
Submission is a transition, not the finish line. After digital signature, the invoice is transmitted to SDI. From there, the operation becomes asynchronous. Subsequent messages are correlated with the originating Outbound Invoice and interpreted according to their operational consequence.
An interaction may: Confirm Progress · Report a Problem · Require Retry · Establish a New Fiscal Condition. Temporary failure or transmission problems therefore do not create a new disconnected invoice or force operators to reconstruct the history afterwards.
The existing Living Business Object retains its context while the next appropriate execution occurs.
Closing the Loop with SAP
Fiscal outcomes return to accounting. Relevant SDI outcomes ultimately need to be reflected inside the regional accounting environment. Coopera therefore manages more than outbound transmission. As the invoice progresses through its external fiscal lifecycle, the resulting condition is propagated back to the appropriate SAP organizational tenant.
- Regional SAP remains responsible for accounting.
- SDI remains responsible for the national fiscal exchange.
- The HSM infrastructure performs digital signing.
Coopera keeps those responsibilities connected around the same Outbound Invoice until the fiscal outcome is known.
5. One Regional Model Across 18 Organizations
Centralization does not require the loss of organizational identity. The same operational model can serve 18 independent healthcare organizations while each invoice retains the issuing organization, fiscal configuration, signing identity, SAP context and resulting evidence appropriate to it.
Common execution can therefore be standardized at regional level without collapsing distinct fiscal responsibilities into one entity. This is particularly important when the operation crosses systems that understand different parts of the same reality.
- SAP knows the accounting origin.
- The generated XML represents the fiscal document.
- The digital-signature infrastructure provides attributable signing.
- SDI manages the national electronic-invoicing exchange.
The Outbound Invoice is the persistent operational context that keeps those pieces coherent.
6. The Outcome
The regional healthcare ecosystem now operates through one centralized outbound-invoicing model while preserving the fiscal and accounting responsibility of each participating organization.
Approximately 30,000 outbound invoices every year move from regional SAP into a governed fiscal lifecycle.
- Required controls determine whether an invoice is eligible for issuance.
- Eligible invoices are automatically digitally signed through the configured HSM infrastructure.
- More than 60,000 annual SDI interactions are received, correlated and processed as part of the operational life of the invoices that generated them.
- Relevant fiscal outcomes return to the correct SAP tenant, keeping accounting aligned with what actually occurred outside the regional system.
Operators therefore do not need to reconstruct invoice status by comparing independent accounting records, transmission attempts, signing evidence and SDI messages. The context already exists around the Outbound Invoice.
The result is not simply centralized e-invoice transmission. It is a regional fiscal operating model in which accounting systems, healthcare organizations, digital trust infrastructure and the national e-invoicing ecosystem remain continuously connected around each invoice.
5. What This Case Proves
A fiscal document can become a Living Business Object
The Outbound Invoice maintains identity, fiscal context, lifecycle, evidence and current condition while systems and services perform different parts of the operation.
Centralization can preserve organizational responsibility
Eighteen healthcare organizations can share one billing environment while every invoice remains attributable to its actual issuing organization.
Submission is not the end of execution
SDI responses continue to change the operational condition of the Invoice after transmission until its fiscal outcome is established.
High automation can remain governed
Generation, validation and 100% automated digital signing occur within explicit fiscal and organizational conditions rather than outside them.
