Tell us what you think

We want to create the best possible experience for our learners. Your feedback helps us to improve the experience for everyone.

Maintaining Business Partner Master Data

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to create business partner master records

Concept of the Business Partner

A supplier or vendor is a business partner that delivers and sells goods and services to your organization. A business partner can be a supplier and a customer at the same time if, for example, your supplier also buys goods from you.

You can maintain the business partner master data using one of the following apps. You need the role of Master Data Specialist - Business Partner Data to use these apps.

Maintain Business Partner (BP)
Manage Business Partner (F1053A)
Manage Supplier - Master Data

You can view the comparison of the features offered by the apps in the area of business partner in Feature Comparison for Business Partner.

SAP Business Partner icon located between a Supplier icon and a Customer icon.. Business Partner Categories: Person, Organization, Group.

When a business partner is created, the business partner category must be selected. The business partner category is the term used to classify a business partner as one of the following:

A natural person (for example, a private individual or an employee)
A group (for example, community of heirs. The group category is only available with the Maintain Business Partner app )
An organization (legal entity or part of a legal entity, such as a company or a department of a company)

The business partner category determines which fields are available for data entry. The assignment of the business partner category is static and cannot be changed once the business partner has been created.

SAP Business Partner Supplier

A supplier master holds information about the supplier such as their name, address, bank details, tax details, and billing preferences. This supplier information is used and stored in transactions such as purchase orders, goods receipts, and supplier invoices.

Some supplier information is specific to a particular company (known as company code) or purchasing unit (known as purchasing organization) within your organization.

General data, Roles, Purchasing and Accounting data.

The link between a business partner and other components is achieved by a role concept. A business partner role corresponds to a business context in which a business partner can appear. Possible roles are, for example for supplier, Supplier (Fin.Accounting) (FLVN00) and Supplier (FLVN01) (relevant for procurement processes) or Customer (Fin.Accounting) (FLCU00) and Customer (FLCU01) (relevant for sales processes). The supplier can have the business role supplier(FLVN01) and/or the business role Supplier (Fin.Accounting) (FLVN00). This ensures that the relevant master data for the various processes can be recorded correspondingly and that the business partner can be used for the relevant functions (such as procure-from party).

The business partner data that is relevant for suppliers (business partner roles supplier and supplier (Fin.Accounting) is subdivided into the following categories:

General data:
General data is valid for a single client. General data includes data such as the supplier’s address, control data, bank details, and contact persons.
Accounting data:
Company code data is maintained at the company code level. Company code data includes data such as the number of the reconciliation account, information for correspondence and withholding tax, and the payment methods for automatic payment transactions.
Purchasing data:
Purchasing data is maintained for each purchasing organization. Purchasing data includes data such as the purchase order currency, Incoterms, partner roles, purchasing data, and various controls pertaining to the supplier. You can also maintain different data for specific plants or for vendor subranges.

Business Partner Grouping and Number Ranges

Business Partner Groupings determine the number ranges for the Business Partner IDs. You cannot change the assignment or IDs afterward. If a Business Partner Grouping is assigned to an internal number range, you cannot enter the Business Partner ID manually. In this case, you can leave the field blank as the system automatically chooses a number from the assigned numeric number range.

The following table shows the business partner groupings and corresponding number ranges that are defined for business partners (customers, suppliers, contacts, employees, and so on):

Business Partner Grouping and Number Ranges

Business Partner Grouping	Range / Business Partner ID	Comments
BP01	External numeric number range (low): 1 – 999999	Use this grouping, for example, to migrate numeric master data records
BP02	Internal numeric number range for standard use: 1000000 – 9999999	If no Business Partner Group is entered, this number range is used per default.
BP03	External numeric number range (high): 10000000 – 999999999	Reserved for SAP sample master data objects.
BPAB	External alpha-numeric number range: A – ZZZZZZZZZZ	This range must start with a character.
BPEE	Internal numeric number range: 9980000000 – 9999999999	Reserved for business partners used as Employees.

Account Groups

Account Groups are leading control parameters for creating the ERP data segments of a Supplier master record. Currently, the only supported account group for Supplier master data is SUPL.

Reconciliation Account and Partner Roles

Reconciliation Account

When creating a business partner master record for a supplier, a unique number is required. Depending on the business partner grouping, this is automatically assigned by the system or manually assigned by the administrator. The supplier number is also the subledger (SL) number of the financial accounting. In subledger accounting, the sum of the liabilities per supplier is updated.

You have also to maintain a reconciliation account in the company code data of a business partner. This account is a G/L account in the general ledger. A reconciliation account depicts a company’s liabilities to several suppliers in G/L accounting.

When entering invoices, you enter the supplier (invoicing party) and the system determines the reconciliation account from the business partner master record.

Business Partner Function

Various functions of the business partner supplier. Ordering Address, Goods Supplier, Invoicing Party, Freight Supplier.

The business partner supplier can assume various roles in relation to your enterprise. During the procurement process, the supplier is first the purchase order recipient, then the goods supplier, then the invoicing party, and finally the payee.

Not all the various roles in a particular process are necessarily assumed by the same business partner. Different business partners can take over the different tasks.

Because of this, it is possible to define appropriate partner functions for purchasing in the supplier master record. These partners can then be accepted as proposal values in purchasing documents. The business partner function determines the rights and responsibilities of each partner in a business transaction.

Examples:

Partner function Invoicing Party:
If you order from Supplier A, the invoice will always be created by the company headquarters C. Company headquarters C is therefore the deviating invoice party for Supplier A.
Partner function Goods Supplier:
If you order from Supplier A, the goods will always be delivered by subsidiary S. Subsidiary S is therefore the deviating supplier of goods for Supplier A.

Manage Purchase Orders - Partner Tab

Manage Purchase Orders app has Partner tab in the header level of the purchase order in which you can view, assign, or unassign partners, for example, suppliers and their associated partner functions.

Purchase Order - New Purchase Order application screen with Create button highlighted.

As a configuration expert, you need to enable the Partner tab in the app Manage Purchase Orders. In a standard system setting this configuration step is switched off by default. In your configuration environment, navigate to Maintain Partner Functions in Manage Purchase Orders Application → Sourcing and Procurement → General Settings. Then, turn the switch on by configuring the step Enable Partner Functions in Manage Purchase Orders Application. Once the switch is on, you cannot turn it off.

If the Partner tab is activated and a supplier is maintained in the header of the purchase order:
- A partner with partner function (for example: BA = Ordering Address, LF = Supplier, RS = Invoicing Party), is entered automatically, if maintained in the supplier master data.
- A default partner with partner function (for example: BA = Ordering Address, LF = Supplier, RS = Invoicing Party), is entered automatically, if more than one partner with the same partner function exists in the supplier master data and one partner is marked as the default partner.
- If multiple partners exist for the same partner function and no default partner is maintained in the supplier master data, a partner for the specific partner function can be selected manually. (Business functions are, for example, BA = Ordering Address, LF = Supplier, RS = Invoicing Party).

Tutorial - Create Business Partner Master Data

In the following tutorial you can learn how to create a business partner master data using the Maintain Business Partner app.

DemoStart Demo

Master Data for One-Time Supplier

It is not possible to create a purchasing document or an invoice in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud system without a business partner master record.

However, for suppliers who supply the company once or very rarely, it does not make sense to enter their own supplier master records in the system. Therefore, collective accounts are set up for such one-time suppliers. These collective accounts are called Conto pro Diverse (CpD) - accounts for different purposes. A special business partner grouping is used to create a CpD supplier master record. The standard account group delivered by SAP for one-time suppliers will be "CPD" with the flag "One-time account "set in the account group configuration.

Supplier master record available?


YES - "Normal" supplier master record	Purchasing Document: Name and address data, language and order currency are taken from the supplier master record
YES - "Normal" supplier master record	Invoice: Bank data and reconciliation account are taken from the supplier master record
NO - One-time supplier master record	Purchasing Document: Name and address data must be entered manually. Language and order currency are taken from the one-time supplier master record
NO - One-time supplier master record	Invoice: Bank data must be entered manually. Reconciliation account taken from the one-time supplier master record

Unlike other supplier master records, no supplier-specific data is stored in the master record for a CpD account because the account is used for several suppliers. In a one-time supplier master record, you can store, for example, the language, purchase order currency, and reconciliation account. You can only enter supplier-specific data, such as the name, address, or bank details, during document entry. You can configure whether address checks need to be skipped or performed for one-time suppliers using the corresponding account group configuration.

Next lesson