Ryerson Improves O2C Operations with Vertex PLUS Tools for SAP ERP

Company Profile

Ryerson is one of North America's largest and most trusted metal distributors. Founded in 1842 and headquartered in Chicago, the company operates over 100 locations across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China. Ryerson offers a catalog of more than 70,000 metal products and provides value-added processing and supply chain solutions to a wide range of industries. 

The Challenge

With a large population of tax-exempt customers and a complex tax landscape, Ryerson’s tax team needed tools that could help them scale efficiently while maintaining compliance. On the AR side of their business, they faced several operational hurdles that impacted tax exemption management and tax credit accuracy:

• Difficulty proactively identifying and setting up exempt customers in their SAP ERP
• Manual, time-consuming processes for managing exemption certificates
• Communication gaps between sales and tax teams
• Labor-intensive tax credit adjustments and limited visibility into document flow

The Solution

Since 2017, Ryerson has trusted the Vertex O Series tax engine to provide real-time tax determination for their SAP ECC. To address its exemption and tax credit challenges, Ryerson again turned to Vertex for its purpose-built tools to streamline tax operations in SAP—specifically, FLUX Builder and flexRFC AR. 

• With FLUX Builder, the tax team gained the ability to manage exemption certificates directly within SAP, eliminating the need to toggle between systems or manually create customer records in O Series. This integration allowed Ryerson to proactively identify new customers requiring exemption setup and initiate outreach before issues arose. The tool also enabled mass updates, such as expirations and changes, which significantly reduced administrative overhead and improved data accuracy.
• Meanwhile, flexRFC AR improved how Ryerson handled tax credits. By reading directly from original documents and following the document flow, the tool ensured that tax adjustments were accurate and aligned with the source data. This eliminated the need for manual research and reduced the risk of duplicating credits or introducing errors. The built-in reporting capabilities also proved invaluable for compliance, audits, and support for the tax team—all while reducing the need for coordination across departments.

Together, these tools empowered Ryerson’s tax team to shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive strategy.

The Results

Implementation with Vertex Global Professional Services

Ryerson opted not to use a third-party integrator for implementation and instead worked directly with consultants from Vertex Global Professional Services, completing setup in just a few weeks. Most of the implementation timeline was driven by Ryerson’s own rigorous testing standards to ensure the tools met their expectations. 

Conclusion

By implementing Vertex PLUS Tools for SAP ERP, Ryerson transformed its tax operations from reactive and manual to proactive and strategic. The combination of FLUX Builder and flexRFC AR has empowered the tax team to streamline exemption management, improve tax credit accuracy, and reduce internal coordination across departments. These tools have not only delivered measurable time savings and compliance improvements but have also enhanced the overall customer experience—a critical differentiator in today’s competitive landscape. With more time to focus on high-value, analytical work, Ryerson’s tax team is now positioned as a true enabler of business success.

Vertex Solutions

• Vertex O Series for SAP (for sales and use tax)
• Vertex PLUS Tools for SAP ERP
  • FLUX Builder
  • flexRFC AR
• Vertex Consulting Services

Results

• 30% reduction in open customers incorrectly set up as taxable
• 50% time savings in exemption processing
• Eliminated manual tax adjustment research
• Improved audit readiness and reporting
• Reduced internal coordination and manual tax adjustments
• Enhanced customer experience and operational efficiency

Copyright © 2025 Vertex, Inc. All rights reserved. The information contained herein is intended for information purposes only, may change at any time in the future, and is not legal or tax advice.  Any product direction and potential roadmap information is not a guarantee, may not be incorporated into any contract, and is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality.  This information should not be relied upon in making purchasing, legal, or tax decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Vertex’s products remains at the sole discretion of Vertex, Inc.  Any statements in this release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties described in Vertex’s filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC) that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.  Vertex cautions readers not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which Vertex has no obligation to update and which speak only as of their dates.