This year has been marked by continuous disruption, shifting regulations, and unstable geopolitical conditions. But it has also been characterized by new opportunities to generate business value.
This is true for each function within an enterprise. Teams within HR, Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Spend are positioned to drive impact in every aspect of business — from revenue growth to cost management to overall business agility and resilience.
The innovations shared at SAP Sapphire in 2025 reflect our commitment to bringing out your best, providing a clear path to guide organizations toward certainty in a time where that is rare. These innovations will empower organizations to navigate the complexities of the current landscape and emerge stronger, more adaptable, and better equipped to face the future.
Here are a few innovations that we announced that support Finance and Spend teams in delivering increased value.
Introducing embedded virtual cards in SAP Ariba
Many organizations work to be nimble as it relates to finding the right supplier at the right time, which can mean introducing one-time vendors into the supplier landscape. While this helps with business agility, it often comes with a cost: time-intensive supplier onboarding processes that involve manual effort that is better used elsewhere. Traditional payment methods, like checks and physical credit cards, not only require more work, they can introduce fraud risk and security vulnerabilities.
That is why SAP is embedding virtual card payments into SAP Ariba Buying and SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing. We are supporting the flexibility and agility needed to help businesses run at their best. At no additional cost, our customers can now use virtual credit cards for pay on purchase order transactions. With virtual cards, customers can:
- Prevent overcharges and fraud
- Enjoy payment flexibility
- Better manage spend security
- Reduce manual effort of supplier setup processes
- Enhance vendor payment efficiency
- Maintain control of payments made outside of procure-to-pay ERP processes
Using virtual cards requires minimal change management efforts, giving buyers the ability to adjust card parameters based on enterprise-wide objectives without disruption.
SAP integrates WalkMe Premium with SAP Ariba and SAP Concur
In a time when digitalization is imperative, minimizing obstacles and reducing change management efforts is key to a smooth business transformation. Time and time again, I hear leaders report that one of the biggest challenges of implementing new software is employee change management.
Introducing WalkMe Premium for SAP Ariba solutions, a platform that provides real-time, in-app guidance for users to reduce the time and effort associated with adopting new technology in the workplace, empowering employees to maximize business value with SAP Ariba. Customers can also take advantage of WalkMe Premium for SAP Concur solutions, which offers users valuable, easy-to-follow training content, all within the SAP Concur user interface.
The WalkMe solution is a digital learning platform that helps users apply process knowledge in real time to navigate complex software tasks. With WalkMe Premium integrated directly into SAP solutions, employees can access in-app prompts for standard tasks, like creating purchase orders or managing approvals, with pre-configured industry templates that eliminate the need to learn overly technical processes.
The in-app workflow guidance can be adjusted as needed to keep processes up-to-date, allowing for little to no change management effort to ramp employees up faster than ever — all while preserving process compliance. At SAP, we know that clear, concise user guidance is key to accelerating technology adoption. I expect that the integration of the WalkMe solution into SAP solutions will be a gamechanger for organizations experiencing technology updates and changes.
New Joule Agents enhance finance and spend functionality
New agentic AI capabilities are coming to finance and spend solutions with Joule agents that will be integrated across SAP Business Suite. These new agents include:
- Meeting Location Planner Agent: Automates time-consuming group travel tasks, improving efficiency and user experience
- Expense Report Validation Agent: Uses alerts and guided experiences to help employees fix issues based on past data, company policy, and patterns before submitting reports
- Sourcing Agent: Uses past event data and supplier information to autonomously create sourcing events tailored to specific needs and users can easily modify these events to efficiently manage supply chain disruptions.
- Dispute Resolution Agent: Analyzes dispute details and relevant business records to validate cases and propose solutions
- Accounts Receivables Agent: Uses data related to overdue receivables to perform appropriate follow-up tasks with customers
Additionally, SAP Ariba Procurement customers will soon be able use Joule to enhance daily tasks such as retrieving supplier bids, displaying past purchases and approvers, and providing easy access to supplier information. Joule innovations will also be available soon in SAP Fieldglass solutions, enabling users to accelerate existing workflows and processes.
SAP Taulia Receivables directly integrated into SAP finance solutions
Embedded finance capabilities have been expanded with the integration of Receivables Finance, powered by SAP Taulia, in SAP finance solutions. Finance teams now have a fast, scalable way to unlock capital from outstanding receivables in a time when businesses are battling inflationary pressures, tariffs, and supply chain volatility. This capability can be activated immediately in SAP finance solutions.
Once activated, SAP Taulia Receivables enables users to:
- Dynamically manage working capital
- Accelerate receivables through true sale
- Use Joule-powered insights to make informed liquidity decisions
Expanded SAP Ariba Procurement and travel and expense offerings in SAP Business Suite
In keeping with our promise to deliver a connected, suite-first experience for our customers, SAP Business Suite includes extended SAP Ariba and SAP Concur functionality.
The newly announced SAP Business Suite application packages align with the strategic business needs of our customers with line of business-specific bundles, delivering an improved buying experience. With strategic sourcing package, our procurement customers can manage the source-to-contract process from start to finish. Within the SAP Finance Premium package, customers have access to operational procurement capabilities, including requisitioning, invoice management, and B2B collaboration, along with expense management capabilities from SAP Concur.
Achieving success in a new era of procurement
Amid the unpredictable nature of today’s finance and spend landscape, agility is the secret to long-lasting success. SAP’s advanced AI capabilities, powered by harmonized data and paired with an integrated suite of applications, ensure productivity, accuracy, and an optimized employee experience.
With SAP, you can handle anything that comes your way.
If you did not get a chance to attend SAP Sapphire, access on-demand content from the event platform here.
Etosha Thurman is chief marketing officer for Finance and Spend Management at SAP.
