Beyond Manual Entry: Why SAP Document AI is a Game-Changer for GTS Compliance

For years, global trade teams have shared a common "secret" headache: the arrival of Long-Term Supplier Declarations (LTSDs). Whether they arrive as pristine PDFs or grainy, handwritten scans, these documents often require hours of manual data entry, dragging down efficiency and increasing the risk of human error.

But the landscape is shifting. With the rise of the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and SAP Document Information Extraction (Document AI), the dream of automated, "audit-ready" data capture is finally becoming a reality.

The Challenge of the "Unstructured" Document

Most automation struggles with LTSDs because every supplier has a different layout. One might put the "Country of Origin" in the top right; another buries it in a line-item table. Traditional software often gets "confused" by these inconsistencies.

SAP Document AI changes the game by using Artificial Intelligence and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to not just read text, but to understand it.

Deep Dive: How the SAP Document AI "Thinks"

To bridge the gap between a flat PDF and your SAP GTS system, the technology relies on three technical pillars:

1. Defining the Schema (The AI’s Instruction Manual)

Before the AI can extract a single character, we define a Schema. This is a structured blueprint of exactly what data points your compliance process requires.

What makes the newest version of SAP Document AI so powerful is how it uses these schemas. The description you give to a field actually serves as the "Prompt" for the AI. For example, instead of just labeling a field "Origin," we can provide a descriptive prompt: "Find the country of origin mentioned in the table, even if it is abbreviated." This allows the AI to use its reasoning capabilities to distinguish between a "Ship-from" country and the actual "Country of Origin" for the goods—a distinction that traditional OCR systems often miss.

• Header Data: This includes the "who" and "when"—Supplier names, VAT numbers, and validity periods.

• Line Item Data: This is where the complexity lies. The schema tells the AI to look for repeating tables containing Material Numbers, Commodity Codes (HS Codes), and Preference Eligibility statuses.

2. Choosing the Extraction Strategy

One of the most powerful features of the current SAP BTP stack is that it doesn't force you into one way of working. At Tricollis, we configure the system to use the right tool for the right document:

• Template-Based Extraction: For your top-tier suppliers who send hundreds of documents in a fixed format, we create a "Template." By visually mapping the fields once, the AI achieves near-perfect accuracy, even if the document contains unusual fonts or unlabeled data fields.

• Generative AI (LLM) Scenarios: What about the thousands of small suppliers who send a unique layout once a year? Creating a template for them is inefficient. Using the power of Large Language Models (LLMs), the AI can "reason" through a new layout, identifying a Commodity Code simply by its context and format, rather than its location on the page.

3. Handling the "Messy" Reality (Handwriting and OCR)

In regions like Central Europe, it is still common to receive declarations with handwritten signatures, dates, or even corrected values. The OCR engine within Document AI is specifically trained to handle these "noisy" documents, converting handwriting into structured data that your GTS system can actually process.

Strategic Scenarios for SAP GTS

Where does this technology actually "win" in a real-world implementation? We see three primary use cases where the ROI is immediate:

• LTSD Inbound Processing: Automating the verification of inbound supplier declarations against your existing Material Master, ensuring that the preference status matches before a single shipment leaves your warehouse.

• Customs Declaration Validation: Automatically "reading" commercial invoices or packing lists from external brokers to ensure the data they submitted to authorities matches your internal SAP records.

• Sanctioned Party Screening (SPL) Documentation: Extracting entity names from unstructured contracts or onboarding forms to perform a clean, automated screening against global restricted-party lists.

The "Human-in-the-Loop"

Automation doesn't mean "hands-off." A critical component of a robust GTS strategy is User Verification. Data extracted by the AI is presented in a user-friendly Fiori screen, allowing your experts to confirm, correct, or override results before they hit your SAP GTS database. This ensures your audit trail remains spotless and "audit-ready" for customs authorities.

Is Your GTS Ready for AI?

Implementing Document AI is an ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) journey. It requires more than just "turning on" a service; it requires smart post-processing rules to handle the nuances of supplier formats and language variations. For example, converting localized date formats or translating "Origin" terms into the standard ISO codes your GTS system expects.

As SAP continues to expand these capabilities—with roadmaps including embedded document translation and 1,000-page file handling—now is the time to move from manual entry to automated intelligence.