Managing Business Partners

Application-neutral data, such as name, address and bank details, is stored in the general data of the business partner master record.

Contains company code-specific data. Any company that wishes to do business with a specific business partner has to create a company code segment. The company code data contains information like the reconciliation account, terms of payment, payment methods, dunning data, or correspondence settings. You can also maintain settings for posting blocks.

For the procurement process to be used in Materials Management for a vendor, the Business Partner master record of that vendor must have a corresponding Business Partner Role used for Material Management (for example, BP-Role FLVN01 - Supplier). The purchasing data is specific to a single purchasing organization, just like the company code data of the master record is specific to a single company code. In the same way that several company code segments of the vendor master record can exist, there can be several purchase data segments of the vendor master record. Every purchase data segment presents data, which is specific for exactly one purchase organization. You can access the purchasing data of Business Partner Master Record using the SAP Fiori App Maintain Business Partner. Alternatively, you can use transaction BP in the SAP Easy Access menu.

• General data at the client level

• Company code segment

• Purchasing organization segment

The sales and distribution department interacts with customers, so it requires specific data about all of your customers. For this reason, you can create a sales area segment for each customer with for example account group FLCU01 - Customer. Any sales area that needs to do business with a customer has to create such a sales area segment first. This segment contains data that is specific to the sales area. You can access the sales data of Business Partner Master Record using the SAP Fiori App Maintain Business Partner. Alternatively you can use transaction BP in the SAP Easy Access menu.

A complete and integrated customer account contains the following three segments:

• General data at the client level

• Company code segment

• Sales area segment

Using the SAP Business Partner, it is possible to group roles. If the roles are grouped, one person can create, in one step, one customer or business partner in different roles, for example FI (FI-Customer) and SD (Customer). With this functionality a centralized maintenance of Business Partners is feasible. Data records for all areas, for example Financial Accounting, Sales and Distribution, and Materials Management can be created at once.

Customer/Vendor Integration for the business partner may be required if you want to use Financial Accounting (FI) and SAP Business Partner in parallel.

In Financial Accounting (FI) for company external accounting, accounts receivable and accounts payable accounting is used as part of the Accounts Receivable (AR) and Accounts Payable (AP) subledgers to manage accounting data for all customers and vendors. Financial Accounting uses its own customer/vendor master records, which are integrated in all accounting transactions, such as creating business transactions on accounts and processing posting data.

Other applications, such as Loans Management (FS-CML) or SAP Treasury and Risk Management (TRM), use the SAP Business Partner to manage business partners too.

You can use customer and vendor integration independent of each other. There are companies that use customer integration only, and others that also require vendor integration. Customer/vendor integration is intended as a one system/one client solution.

You can assign only one customer/vendor to a business partner and vice versa (1:1 assignment). You can assign one customer and one vendor to a business partner simultaneously in a corresponding business partner role.

Customer/Vendor Integration takes place in the background whilst the system processes master data. When you create the business partner the system posts all required fields in the customer/vendor in accordance with the information in the business partner. Technically speaking when you update the business partner, the system updates the corresponding customer/vendor at the same time.

The customer/vendor master record is linked to the business partner in accordance with the settings made for synchronization control and Customer/Vendor Integration in Customizing.

You can generate a customer/vendor during business partner processing only if you have selected a customer business partner role category for which this is possible.

When processing the business partner, you have also updated the relevant data for the customer/vendor master record.

In customizing, you assign account groups for the customer and vendor master records to the business partner groupings to ensure that the system updates the customer and vendor at the same time as you process Business Partners.

The Flag Same Number determines that when you create a customer master record/ vendor master record as part of Customer/Vendor Integration you use the same number as the business partner number that is currently being processed. Prerequisites therefore are:

• Number ranges for the customer/vendor and business partner have the same areas.

• External number assignment is set in Financial Accounting (FI).

It is not necessary to have identical numbers for business partner and customer/vendor. You are more flexible if you do not have identical numbers for business partner and customer/vendor.

Each business partner has to be assigned to a grouping when you create the business partner. The grouping determines the number range (external or internal). You cannot change the assignment afterwards. You define the groupings, their descriptions, the associated number range and other attributes in Customizing.

You also define standard groupings for the internal and the external number assignment. Furthermore the entry in the grouping field determines whether and how an entry is made in the business partner number field.

For each number range, you can define whether the number assignment is internal or external. The system assigns the internal number, whereas the user who creates the record assigns the external numbers. External numbers may be alphanumeric.

You can choose "Hide" Grouping in the customizing settings. This field controls whether a grouping is offered for selection in a dropdown list box or in the F4 help. If you set the indicator, the grouping is hidden and cannot be selected in the dialog. This can be helpful, for example, if a grouping should be reserved for the data exchange (external interfaces).

For each number range, you can define whether the number assignment is internal or external. The system assigns the internal numbers, whereas the user who creates the record assigns the external numbers. External numbers can also be alphanumeric.

The number ranges of the customer and vendor account groups have to be in compliance with the SAP Business Partner Settings, if the "same number" switch is set.

Every Customer and Vendor has an account group. In SAP Business Partner the account group is linked in the Customer/Vendor Integration using the Grouping.

For each number range, you can define whether the number assignment is internal or external. External numbers may be alphanumeric.

You can assign each number range to one or more account groups.

In Financial Accounting, after the customer or vendor account is created, you can no longer change the account group.

The number ranges of the customer and vendor account groups have to be coordinated with the SAP Business Partner settings, if the same number switch is set. In this case you have to use external number assignment for the account groups. You are more flexible if the same number is not set. Then you can use internal number assignment for the account groups.

The field status for Vendor and Customer accounts is important, because it is helpful, if important fields are marked as required entries. For example, to ensure that all correspondence has complete address information, you must change the field status so that all the address fields are marked as required entry.

There are various options for controlling the field status in the Business Partner. It is recommend to control the field status of the business partner FI using the settings for the FI customer/vendor.

That means, field status on the Business Partner settings should be defined on the lowest priority level, so that these settings have no impact on the SAP Business Partner (Customer/Vendor) maintenance.

For the maintenance you have three possible settings in the FI customizing: the account group-specific, the activity-specific and the company-code specific field status. In the SAP implementation project, the account groups of customers and vendors are usually equipped with the corresponding field status.

If you do not want to use the activity-specific control for the customer/vendor, set the field status to Optional (Opt.Entry). Since this field status has the lowest priority, the account group control is always used.

For every business partner role, it is possible to maintain the field status (not recommended, but possible). A business partner can have several roles, therefore Link Rules are stored in the system. If a Business Partner has two Roles assigned, for example, we might have two different field status settings for the same field. If a Business Partner has three roles, we could have three field status settings.

For example, a field:

• Is very important in Financial Accounting and is set to a required entry field
• Is not important in SD and is set to hidden

If the normal rules apply, the field would be hidden in the BP. Since this would not make sense from a business point of view, special rules apply for several responsible roles (the rules for "same criteria").

For the same criteria (more than one Business Partner Role) the priorities are:

1. Required entry

   (highest priority)

2. Optional entry

3. Display entry

4. Hide entry

5. Not-specified*

(* not specified means you haven’t made an active decision (it is the primary status))