12K+
Governed through the operational environment
8.6K+ Year
Invoice Dossiers progressing without manual matching
10
With distributed verification and liquidation responsibility
100%
Across payment authorization procedures
1. The Operational Challenge
A leading public oncology research and treatment institute combines highly specialized cancer care with clinical research, innovation and advanced therapies. Its financial operations reflect that organizational complexity. Supplier expenditure originates across specialized clinical, research, procurement and administrative structures, while responsibility for ordering, verification and liquidation is distributed across 10 organizational units.
Every year, more than 12,000 supplier invoices enter the environment from the regional electronic-invoicing platform. But the invoice itself is only the first piece of the operation. SAP accounting events, contracts, purchase orders, goods receipts or service confirmations and supporting evidence can arrive independently and at different times. Each new element can change whether the expenditure is correctly reconciled, which organizational unit is responsible for it and whether it can legitimately move toward liquidation.
Approximately 72% of Invoice Dossiers — more than 8,600 every year — are reconciled automatically.
Coopera maintains the persistent operational context behind this model, keeping invoice evidence, distributed responsibility, statutory controls, authorization and subsequent payment execution connected from the first invoice event to the resulting financial evidence.
2. Why it was complex
The challenge was not simply to automate invoice matching. It was to preserve financial accountability while evidence and responsibility remained distributed.
Responsibility is distributed
The Institute does not operate through one centralized liquidation office. Different organizational units retain responsibility for expenditure originating in their operational areas. An Invoice Dossier therefore needs to remain connected not only to accounting information, but to the organization actually responsible for understanding and liquidating the underlying expenditure.
Liquidability emerges over time
An invoice is not ready for liquidation simply because it has arrived or has been registered in SAP. Its condition progressively changes as: Contract · Purchase Order · Goods Receipt / Service Evidence · SAP Events · Accounting Information · Supporting Documentation become available.
Evidence arrives asynchronously
The information required to reconcile expenditure originates from different systems and participants. Every meaningful arrival can trigger new matching, validation or rule evaluation without restarting the operation.
Reconciliation is not financial authority
Even after an Invoice Dossier becomes liquidable, public funds cannot simply be released. Fiscal, social-security, procurement, budget and accounting conditions still need to be verified before expenditure can be formally authorized.
Authority must remain attributable
The final authorization represents a legally significant human responsibility. Automation can prepare the operation, perform controls and assemble evidence. It cannot make accountability disappear.
3. How Coopera holds operations together
The financial operation evolves through three connected Living Business Objects, each representing a different level of responsibility.
Invoice Dossier
The Invoice Dossier begins when a supplier invoice enters the organization. The invoice 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 changes as new information arrives.
Automated reconciliation continuously evaluates the available context and determines whether the evidence required for liquidation has been satisfied.
- A purchase order may complete one requirement.
- A service confirmation may complete another.
- An SAP event may provide the accounting information needed for matching.
Where conditions remain incomplete or ambiguous, the same Dossier persists while the responsible organizational unit resolves the exception.
More than 8,600 Invoice Dossiers every year are reconciled automatically through this model. The evidence changes. Responsibility changes. The Invoice Dossier remains the point of continuity.
Payment Authorization Case
One or more eligible Invoice Dossiers associated with the same supplier can subsequently contribute to a Payment Authorization Case. This Living Business Object represents a different responsibility: determining whether public expenditure can legitimately be authorized. It can keep connected: Eligible Invoice Dossiers · Compliance Evidence · Taxes Control Evidence · Procurement References · Controls · Responsibilities · Approvals · Digital Signatures · Payment Authorization Act. The Case remains active while required evidence is acquired and the appropriate people complete the governed authorization process.
Once the required conditions are satisfied, the formal payment authorization act is produced and digitally signed within the same context. The signed act is therefore not simply an output document.
It is attributable evidence that the expenditure has reached an authorized condition.
Payment Case
Authorized expenditure can then contribute to a Payment Case. SAP remains responsible for creating the payment mandate, while the regional payment environment and national public-payment infrastructure perform the subsequent financial execution.
The Payment Case preserves continuity between: Authorized Expenditure · Payment Mandate · Signed Evidence · Payment Execution · Status Updates · Final Payment Evidence. Different systems execute different parts of the operation.
The financial context remains connected until the resulting payment outcome is known.
4. What This Looks Like in Practice
Asynchronous Reconciliation
Evidence progressively makes the Dossier ready. Supplier invoices and the evidence needed to understand them do not necessarily arrive together. Coopera maintains the Invoice Dossier while SAP events, procurement information and supporting documentation progressively enrich its current condition.
- Every significant change can trigger new reconciliation and validation.
- Missing evidence keeps the Dossier from progressing.
- New evidence can satisfy an outstanding condition.
Liquidability is continuously resolved from the current business context rather than hard-coded as the next workflow step.
Distributed Responsibility
The right unit remains accountable for the expenditure. Across 10 organizational units, responsibility for ordering and liquidation remains distributed. Coopera uses the available accounting, procurement and documentary context to keep each Invoice Dossier associated with the organizational responsibility behind the expenditure. Where conditions are clear, automation can progress the Case. Where human intervention is necessary, the exception remains inside the same operational context and can be directed to the appropriate unit.
Distribution does not have to become fragmentation.
Governed Payment Authorization
Automation prepares the operation while people retain authority. A liquidable Invoice Dossier is not automatically a payable one. The Payment Authorization Case brings together the additional statutory evidence and controls required to authorize public expenditure. Responsible participants operate within that context, and the resulting authorization is digitally signed.
Across the environment, 100% of payment authorization procedures use digital signature. This is more than the removal of paper signatures. The authorization remains connected to: who authorized · what expenditure was authorized · which evidence supported the decision · under which operational conditions it occurred.
Digital execution preserves attribution rather than removing it.
Through to Payment Outcome
Systems execute their part without breaking continuity. After authorization:
- SAP prepares the payment mandate.
- Execution then continues through the regional and national public-payment environments.
- Status changes and resulting evidence return to the relevant Payment Case and remain connected to the Invoice Dossiers and authorization that originated the payment.
- SAP performs accounting.
- Payment infrastructure performs financial execution.
- Organizational units retain their responsibilities.
Coopera keeps the wider financial operation coherent across them.
5. The Outcome
The oncology institute now operates a continuous digital model from supplier invoice reception through reconciliation, formal authorization and subsequent payment evidence.
More than 12,000 supplier invoices every year become persistent Invoice Dossiers whose condition evolves as accounting events and documentary evidence arrive. Approximately 72% — more than 8,600 Dossiers annually — are reconciled automatically, allowing manual work to concentrate on situations in which the business context genuinely requires intervention. The remaining exceptions do not fall outside the operating model. They stay connected to the same Dossier and can be resolved by the organizational unit responsible for the expenditure. Once eligible, Invoice Dossiers can contribute to Payment Authorization Cases where statutory checks, supporting evidence and explicit human responsibility remain connected to the decision to commit public funds.
100% of payment authorization procedures are digitally signed, preserving attributable evidence inside the same operational context. Payment preparation and execution can subsequently continue through SAP and regional public-payment infrastructure while status and evidence remain correlated to the relevant Payment Case.
The result is not simply faster invoice processing. It is a governed invoice-to-payment operating model in which automation and distributed human authority coexist without losing accountability from incoming evidence to financial outcome.
5. What This Case Proves
Distributed responsibility can remain operationally coherent
Ten organizational units can retain responsibility for different expenditures while participating in one common invoice-to-payment model.
Evidence can continuously determine financial readiness
Contracts, purchase orders, receipt evidence and SAP events can arrive independently and progressively change whether an Invoice Dossier is ready for liquidation.
Automation and human authority can coexist
More than 8,600 Invoice Dossiers can be reconciled automatically every year while legally significant payment authorization remains explicitly attributable.
Digital authorization can become native operational evidence
A digitally signed authorization remains connected to the expenditure, evidence, responsible participants and conditions that made payment legitimate.
