O'zapft is: Fully integrated SAP cash register for Austria's largest brewery group

To ensure that the internal billing processes run smoothly, the company relies on Snap's integrated SAP POS solution at the point of sale.

Brau Union Österreich sells fourteen leading beer brands, including proven public favorites such as Gösser, Schwechater, Zipfer and Fohrenburger. And it obviously tastes good - the company sells an impressive five million hectoliters of beer every year. The stores in the nine breweries, three manufactories and more than 30 logistics locations throughout Austria generate a not insignificant proportion of this. Reason enough to connect the cash registers at the point of sale directly to the SAP ERP system used throughout the group.

Unchanged sales process with full SAP integration

"We were looking for a solution that was as user-friendly as a traditional retail supermarket checkout, but was fully integrated into SAP ECC and SAP S/4 Hana and 100% legally compliant," explains Stefan Campos-Haslehner, the IT project manager responsible at Brau Union Österreich.

However, a system with its own inventory management was not desired. In order to keep complexity low and avoid interfaces, the process already correctly mapped in SAP, from order entry to invoicing, was to continue to be carried out unchanged in the Sales and Distribution module.

Agile implementation of extensive functions

In addition to access to customer and material master data, availability checks and a user-friendly interface for input via touchscreen, scanner or keyboard were among the requirements for the new checkout solution. In addition to the cash payment option, the specifications also included card payment via a terminal and electronic signatures for delivery bills. It was also required that each cash register be able to carry out its own daily closing. The pilot project was implemented at the Fohrenburg brewery in Bludenz, and a proof of concept carried out before the start of the project minimized any potential risks.

An agile, iterative implementation was chosen for the development: three-week sprints and incremental delivery with the support of Jira, Confluence and Xray. To get a good feel for the future look and feel of the application, the Snap team used the UX design tool Figma to create corresponding mockups for the required Fiori interfaces. To ensure usability and practicality, qualified end users, i.e. employees from the stores and the finance department, were involved in the process right from the start.

Fully integrated SAP checkout at the POS

The first version of the Snap cash register has been live at Brau Union Austria since summer 2023 and has since been successively rolled out in more than forty stores and locations. The Snap POS system complies with the legal requirements of KassenSichV (Germany) and RKSV (Austria). It is fully integrated into SAP ECC and SAP S/4 Hana and accesses customer and material master data in real time. It is also seamlessly integrated with the SAP modules for Finance and Accounting (FI) and Sales and Distribution (SD). Thanks to its modular structure, the Snap cash register can be expanded to include functions such as card payment or digital signatures.

Cashless payment with the Payment Agent

With the Payment Agent, another software solution from Snap Consulting that is fully integrated into SAP, self-collection customers can conveniently pay for their beer without cash. This enables payment terminals to communicate directly from SAP transactions. Automatic amount transfer prevents input errors and saves time. This is not an insignificant factor for the payment service provider, for controlling and, of course, for a thirsty barbecue group waiting for their beer.

The Snap POS also runs on S/4, whereby various architectures and hybrid solutions are also possible. The purchase of a license for the POS solution includes both the on-premises version under SAP ECC and the version that runs on S/4.

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