Logical Separation of the Buyer and Supplier Processes

There is a legal requirement that supplier and buyer processes are separate. The IBM Sterling e-Invoicing inbound and outbound process flows separate the buyer and supplier processes in the following manner:

• If both the buyer and the supplier processes are executed at the same time based on the configurations in the agreements, no part of the process flow can be skipped. The supplier process is executed in full to sign the e-Invoice, and the buyer process is executed in full to validate the signed e-Invoice.
• The actual buyer and supplier processes are implemented as distinctly separate business processes. These business processes are run in an identical manner regardless of whether both the buyer and the supplier processes are being executed or just one of the processes.

From a tax auditor perspective, the archive service user interface allows the archived e-Invoices to be viewed for only the supplier side, or only the buyer side, thus maintaining the separation. The necessary user permissions are assigned so that the tax auditor can view only the specified e-Invoices for a specific VAT code (country).