Purchase orders in SAP,
confirmed and kept on date
Lleverage automates purchase order confirmation in SAP S/4HANA and ECC with an AI agent. It reads each supplier’s reply from the purchasing inbox, whether a line in the thread, a PDF or a spreadsheet, checks quantity, price and date against the purchase order in SAP, and records the confirmation. A buyer only sees the lines that moved.
How does purchase order confirmation in SAP work with an AI agent?
In SAP a buyer raises the order in ME21N, waits for the supplier, then keys the reply into the item’s Confirmations tab and chases the ones that never answer. The agent handles that loop, and SAP stays the record.More on filling SAP’s gaps without customising it.
Turn the requisition into a purchase order
A purchase requisition in SAP becomes a purchase order with the supplier you hold a contract with, priced off that outline agreement or the purchasing info record, and a delivery date the supplier has actually met before.
Get the signature it needs
Under your threshold the order goes out on its own. Above it, the approver gets the quote and the budget line attached. The release strategy or flexible workflow you run in SAP stays in place.
Read the supplier’s confirmation
A line in the email thread, a PDF order acknowledgement, a spreadsheet or a portal export. The agent picks it up from the purchasing inbox and ties it to the purchase order number and each item in SAP, even when the supplier quotes its own article numbers.
Check it and record it on the order item
Confirmed quantity, price and delivery date are compared with the purchase order item. Lines that agree are recorded on the item’s confirmation in SAP, so MRP plans with the confirmed date. A line that moved goes to the buyer, and a supplier who stays silent is chased on the day the reply was due.
What changes for the buying desk in SAP?
Purchase orders go out on contract terms and every confirmation is recorded in SAP the day it arrives, so a delivery that slips is caught while there is still time to act. Your buyers spend their day on suppliers, and the replies and reminders are handled.
Learn moreExample data
One purchase requisition in SAP, through to the confirmation.
A purchase requisition in SAP asks for 40 bearings by 18 March. 3 suppliers can take the order. Only 1 of them can hold the date.
Example data
You decide which purchase orders in SAP need a buyer
Every check on a purchase order and its confirmation has a setting. Orders inside your terms go out, confirmations that agree are recorded in SAP, and anything outside them waits for the buyer who owns that supplier, with the reason attached.
Example data
SAP’s confirmation control or Lleverage: which fits when?
SAP S/4HANA handles supplier confirmations on the purchase order item, with confirmation control keys, the Monitor Supplier Confirmations app, ME91F reminders and, for suppliers on SAP Business Network, confirmations sent electronically. We read SAP Help Portal and SAP Learning on 8 October 2026, and every statement in the middle column comes from those pages.
| SAP’s own confirmation tools | Lleverage | |
|---|---|---|
| How a confirmation gets in | A buyer enters it in the purchasing document, it is created as an inbound delivery, or the supplier transmits it electronically. | Read from the purchasing inbox as the supplier sends it: email text, PDF, spreadsheet or portal export. The supplier changes nothing. |
| Suppliers on SAP Business Network | SAP’s strength. Suppliers confirm, reject or backorder each line there, and S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition creates the confirmations for those lines on its own. A full rejection marks every line as deleted. | Nothing to add for those suppliers. We think the agent earns its place with the ones who reply by email. |
| Excel confirmations by email | SAP built a task automation, Mass Confirmation of Purchase Orders (48K), that read Excel attachments from the inbox and confirmed the lines. SAP Help Portal now lists it as deprecated. | Spreadsheets, PDFs and the text of the email are read the same way, whatever layout the supplier uses. |
| What is expected per item | The confirmation control key sets which confirmations you expect, in which order, and which ones count for MRP and goods receipt. It can be defaulted from the info record or the supplier. | Works with the confirmation control you already have. Your buyers set which differences in quantity, price or date need a person. |
| A price or date that moved | A unit price the supplier changes on SAP Business Network shows in the Expected Value field for the buyer to review. A comparison of emailed confirmations with the order is not described in SAP’s documentation. | Quantity, price and date are compared with the order item on every line. Only the lines that moved reach a buyer, with the difference named. |
| Missing confirmations | With Acknowledgment Required set and message records maintained, ME91F creates reminders for missing order acknowledgements. ME2A monitors confirmations but cannot create reminders. | A supplier who has not confirmed hears from it on the day the reply was due, in the same thread, and the buyer sees who is still silent. |
| Approving the order | Flexible workflow, available as of S/4HANA 1709, routes a purchase order by conditions such as company code, material group and total net amount, in one or more steps. It can replace the classic release procedure. | Each order goes to the one person whose signature it needs, with the quote and the budget line attached. SAP’s own release stays in place. |
| Versions and price | Confirmation control and ME91F are described for SAP S/4HANA. The Business Network confirmation scenario is documented for S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. Prices are not described in SAP’s documentation. | SAP S/4HANA and SAP ECC, on your own servers included. One monthly price per agent, with integration included. |
| Fits best when | Your main suppliers confirm through SAP Business Network or electronically, and your buyers key the few others by hand. | Most suppliers reply by email in their own format, and your buyers spend the morning keying confirmations and chasing silence. |
We think SAP’s confirmation control and SAP Business Network are enough when your suppliers confirm electronically: the confirmation lands on the order item and MRP uses it without anyone typing. We think Lleverage fits when the replies arrive by email in every format and the work you want gone is reading them, keying them and chasing the ones that never come. More on reading documents into the ERP.
Our engineers set it up with you.
It takes on more of the buying desk as it learns.
Forward deployed engineers put the first category live with your buyers and connect it to SAP, S/4HANA or ECC, so the first orders and confirmations run supervised within a few weeks. From there it automates gradually: every correction teaches it your suppliers, your contracts and their confirmation formats, and fewer orders need a person to look.
They work inside your operation. They load your contracts and approved supplier list with your buyers, set the confidence line together, and stay on as suppliers and prices change, working alongside the people who run SAP purchasing for you.
The purchasing inbox, the buying rules, the checks and the log are yours to configure. Our documentation and support sit behind your team, and an engineer is a call away whenever you want one.
Talk to us about either ↗Frequently asked questions
How do you enter a purchase order confirmation in SAP?
A buyer opens the purchase order item and records the supplier’s reply on its Confirmations tab: the acknowledgement number or, with a confirmation control key, the confirmed quantity and date. Suppliers on SAP Business Network confirm there instead. For suppliers who answer by email, the agent does that keying and the buyer checks only what moved.
What is a confirmation control key in SAP?
It is a setting on the purchase order item that tells SAP which confirmations to expect from the supplier, such as an order acknowledgement and a shipping notification, in which order, and which of them count for MRP and goods receipt. It can default from the info record or the supplier. The agent works with the keys you already use.
Does it work with SAP ECC and on-premise S/4HANA?
Yes. Lleverage connects to SAP S/4HANA and SAP ECC, in the cloud or on your own servers, and reaches systems behind your firewall without opening them to the internet. The agent gets the access a buyer has, nothing more, and our engineers set up the connection with your SAP team. More on integrations.
Do we still need SAP Business Network?
Keep it for the suppliers who use it. Their confirmations already land in SAP without anyone typing, and we think that is the better route where a supplier will take it. The agent covers everyone else: the suppliers who reply with a PDF, a spreadsheet or a line in the email thread, often most of them.
What happens when a supplier moves the delivery date?
The line goes to the buyer who owns that supplier, with the old and the new date side by side, before anything is recorded. Where your rules allow, the agent chases the supplier for the original date first. Once a new date is accepted it is written to the order item in SAP, and planning hears the same morning.
Where is our purchasing data hosted?
In the EU by default, under GDPR, or on your own servers where needed. Purchase orders, info records and confirmations stay in SAP. The agent reads the supplier emails in the purchasing inbox you connect, and each confirmation it records is logged with the reply it came from and the order item it changed. More on control and audit trails.
The rest of the back office.
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Quote to orderQuote & SellQuotes drafted, orders entered and confirmed the moment they land.
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Forecast to producePlan & ProduceThe plan reshuffled when reality changes.
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Order to deliveryDeliver & SupportCustomers answered with full context, in their own channel.
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AP & ARPay & CollectInvoices matched, real variances flagged, the rest untouched.
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Master dataGovern & EnableMaster data kept clean and in sync across every system.