Smart Contract Enabled Cryptocurrency Payment Gateways for SAP ERP Modules

Abstract

Decentralized finance (DeFi) technologies, when integrated with enterprise systems, create an opportunity to fully automate payment processes within ERP systems. This research develops and tests a smart contract-based cryptocurrency payment gateway framework with SAP ERP systems focusing on the FI, MM, and SD modules. Incorporating blockchain wallets, programmable transaction logic, and modular APIs enables SAP systems to independently manage multi-chain and multi-currency crypto payment initiation, confirmation, and reconciliation across multiple chains and currencies. The payment gateway minimizes payment delay, manual processing, and expenses in comparison to traditional fiat gateways utilizing smart contracts for payment validation, tokenization, and invoice reconciliation. Testing under real SAP transactional simulations on Quorum-based testnets showed an about 62% increase in reconciliation speed, 48% decrease in average cost per transaction, and 92% accuracy in volatile token conflict detection—during token volatility periods—resulting in errors. This study contributes to the development of frameworks for decentralized payment systems within ERP infrastructures, advancing the design and ERP enterprises aimed at achieving seamless interoperability, auditability, and comprehensive control over digital assets with SAP ecosystems.