As part of the customer record cleansing project, Michael thinks that there may be many changes that arise after the data is analyzed. He wants to understand what the possible methods are to maintain data in an efficient manner. He is interested in both individual maintenance as well as changes in mass.
SAP S/4HANA provides various methods to create, edit, and control the quality of the business partner / customer master data efficiently. For instance, it is possible to copy an existing customer and use it as a model. It is also possible to extend a customer to several companies so that all of them can use it, each with its own individual settings. In addition, it is possible for an authorized user to proceed to a mass upload or modifications of the customer master records. Let’s review the different options.
Copy an Existing Business Partner
One of the easiest ways to create a new customer is by selecting an existing business partner with similar characteristics and use it as a reference. As all the settings of the reference business partner are copied over to the new customer master record and they must be reviewed carefully to determine which settings to keep or those that need to be updated.
For example, the name and address of the new customer are settings that likely need an update whereas the roles or the payment terms can be probably maintained without modifications. It is important to note that the roles and related organizational entries will be copied in their entirety.
Another copy option is to copy a customer master record specifically. In this instance, you get a chance to determine which organizational units to copy.
SAP S/4HANA offers the possibility to activate a functionality to check for duplicate business partners, based on the address data index. When this customization is in place, a pop-up window will inform the user creating a business partner that a potential duplicate business partner already exists in the database, determined by the percentage of similitude between the addresses entered.
From this pop-up window, it is possible to access the potential duplicate customer for review or to continue with the creation process.