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Explaining the Business Partner Concept for Convergent Invoicing

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Business Partner Concept for Convergent Invoicing
Describe the relevant roles and master data

The Business Partner Concept

Lesson Overview

The lesson provides an overview of the use of the business partner concept in convergent invoicing.

Business Example

The company Print Service Corporation uses business partner addresses for both contract account management and hardware sales. The system should use central data for the same business partner.

The Business Partner Concept

Hint

Consume-to-cash: Provider contract in consume-to-cash integration has a different relationship to contract account, than a contract object.

A provider contract has relation to business partner and one contract account can be used in different provider contracts.

Application-neutral data, such as the name, address, bank details, and payment cards of the business partner, is stored in the business partner master record. The special requirements involved in setting up business partners that are organizations, groups, or individuals are also met.

SAP Business Partner also provides an open infrastructure for linking the application-specific attributes of the business partner. From a business point of view, this link is made by way of the role concept.

On the technical side, SAP Business Partner offers predefined interfaces that can be used to link business partner attributes from different applications.

This means that existing business partner mapping within the SAP system can be gradually integrated into SAP Business Partner.

Roles and Master Data

A business partner (BP) role corresponds to a business context in which a business partner can appear. A business partner can have several roles, such as a contract partner (FI-CA), contact person, customer (potential customer), or business partner (general).

The example above shows that business partners can assume several roles (customer, contract partner), depending on the business process in which they are involved.

BP roles consist of blocks (attributes) known as data sets. These are shown as little black boxes in the graphic above.

SAP Business Partner offers an open infrastructure. This means that other components (SAP S/4HANA, industry components, components of development partners, and customer-specific components) can easily add their own application-specific business partner data.

Business partners must exist in the business role MKK for role category MKK. If you use time-dependent business partner roles, note that the MKK business role for role category MKK cannot have a time limit. It must always have a validity period from today's date to December 31, 9999. You may not, and cannot, restrict the validity of this role.

If you have customer as a business partner role, the technical name is FLCU00. To integrate SAP SD with FI-CA, there is one business partner in the role of customer and the role of contract partner.

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