Defining Master Data

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to explain FI-CA master data objects

Master Data

Diagram of business partner and accounts containing central and control data, industry-specific contracts, and convergent invoicing agreements. It shows relationships among partner, account, and contracts in FI-CA. Business Partner contains central data such as name, address, communication, and bank data. It represents a natural Person or legal Organization with whom business relationship can be conducted. Contract account contains control data such as payment method, payment term, and dunning procedure. It is an object for open-item accounting in FI-CA and contains a group of contracts. Industry specific - contract. Convergent Invoicing - provider contract, partner agreement, master agreement.
A diagram illustrating various roles associated with a business partner, including: contract partner, customer, debitor, claimant, constituent services, employee, vendor, creditor, and plant.

The business partner represents a person or organization for which you have to process receivables and payments.

The business partner must exist in the role MKK Contract Partner to be usable in FI-CA.

The business partner role MKK must have a validity period to December 31, 9999.

The business partner category is used to classify a person or organization and determines which fields are available for data entry. For an organization, you must enter the legal form. For a person, you must enter name, gender, and so on.

The business partner category must be selected when a business partner is created and cannot be changed afterward. It's not possible to create any other business partner categories in customizing.

The business partner group can freely be defined and controls the number range.

The business partner can have different addresses for different functions, which are classified according to address types defined in customizing (correspondence and delivery address). The business partner can only have one single standard address.

Diagram showing the relationship between the contract account and contract account category, including general data (account name, account determination, clearing strategy, and payment term), payment data (company codes, incoming payment, and outgoing payment), and dunning/correspondence (invoicing data, dunning procedure, and correspondence data) .

The contract account is a unit that groups business partner postings. Before a document can be posted, a contract account must be assigned to a business partner in the role MKK.

The contract account category defines the following attributes:

  • The number range that's allowed for external or internal number assignment

  • The editing screens or data fields of the contract account transaction

  • Whether you can assign one or more business partners

  • Whether you can assign one or more contracts

  • Whether it's a collective bill account

  • Whether it's a one-time account

You can use event 1017 and function module BAPI_CTRACCOUNT_EASYCREATE to create a contract account with default values.

A diagram shows the distribution of Contract Account Data. It highlights Business Partner Level (creditworthiness) in one quarter. The rest is Contract Account Level that includes: payment term, clearing category, interest key, account determination ID, tolerance group, account class, and dunning procedure.

The contract account data controls the FI-CA processes:

  • The clearing category controls payment allocation and the clearing of receivables.

  • The dunning procedure determines the dunning levels and the dunning activities.

  • The account determination ID is used to determine the general ledger accounts.

  • The payment term determines the due date and the cash discount deadline.

  • The creditworthiness reflects a business partner's payment patterns.

  • The interest key determines the conditions for interest calculation.

  • The tolerance group defines limits for payment differences.

Flowchart illustrating how factors like dunning, write-off, returns, manual inputs, and industry-specific transactions influence outcomes in dunning and returns activities.

The creditworthiness is stored in the business partner's master data record and is updated automatically during the dunning run or returns processing.

The creditworthiness can also be entered manually.

The creditworthiness can therefore be influenced by business transactions, such as complaint over unjustified returns (improving creditworthiness) or blacklists from external credit evaluators (worsening creditworthiness).

Diagram illustrating the payment terms, highlighting the interest key. It shows the flow from an account to specific FI-CA payment terms for receivables and payables,detailing terms like payment terms n 14 days or 0 days.

The FI-CA payment terms contain data for determining the due date and cash discount terms.

The FI-CA payment terms reference FI payment terms for receivables (incoming payment) and payables (outgoing payment).

The FI-CA payment terms support the due date correction to a working day in connection with the factory calendar.

The FI-CA payment terms support the single-level cash discount procedure.

The FI payment terms provide different rules for determining the due date for receivables and payables.

Visual representation of a lock concept. There is a posting lock and three accounting processes: Dunning Run, Interest Run, and Payment Run. Each process includes account documents, dates, and a lock symbol.

Postings to a contract account can be prevented by a central posting lock. This prevents postings, clearing, reversal and clearing reset for the involved account.

In addition, the open items in this account are not dunned. During online clearing processing, open items of locked contract accounts are flagged with an appropriate icon. It's not possible to activate these items.

Individual business processes can also be prevented by locks. You can set these locks for all items at contract account level or at the level of an individual item in the parametrization table.

The lock reason is defined in customizing and can have a time limit. Once this limit has expired, the locks are deactivated.

You can use transaction FKLOCK2 to create processing locks. Using the selection criteria Business Partner, Contract Account and Company Code, you can set mass locks for a combination of Lock Category, Process, and Lock Reason.

You can use transaction FPLKA to create a list of locks.

You can use transaction FPLKDEL to delete mass locks.

A diagram explaining company code. Company Code Group defines the company codes for which postings can be made to a contract account. Paying Company Code is responsible for payment transactions For paying company codes, house banks and payment methods are defines. Standards Company Code is used for all postings for which no company code can be determined by other means.

The company code group includes all company codes that can be used to post to a contract account. One company code group is assigned to each contract account. Company code groups can overlap. For example, group 1 can consist of company codes 0001, 0002 and 0003, and group 2 can consist of company codes 0001 and 0003.

You can use event 1010 to check whether a company code group is permitted in a contract account. This enables you to prevent cross-country groups from being used, for example.

Paying Company Code

Exactly one paying company code is always assigned to each company code group in customizing. A paying company code is responsible for payment transactions. You have to define house banks and payment methods for paying company codes. Several company code groups can have the same paying company code. The paying company code does not have to be in the company code group itself.

You can also specify the paying company code in a business partner item. In this case, the specified code overrides the paying company code determined via the company code group of the contract account. If a paying company code specified in the line item is in a different country than the paying company code determined via the contract account, you also have to specify a payment method in the line item. In this case, you cannot use the payment methods from the contract accounts because they refer to a different country.

Standard Company Code

A standard company code is allocated to each contract account. You use the standard company code for all postings for which no company code can be determined by other means (payment on account).

A diagram showing the process of creating new bank data for outgoing payments, with a business partner's multiple bank and credit card details linked to two contract accounts. Both accounts include specific IDs for incoming and outgoing payment data.

You can use transaction FPP4 to change bank data in the business partner and contract account in one step.

If you set the Create Bank ID indicator in the client-specific settings in customizing, you can use event 1053 to determine new bank data for the relevant business partner.

If you set the Create Credit Card ID indicator in the client-specific settings in customizing, you can use event 1054 to determine a new credit card ID for the relevant business partner.

Provider Contract

A diagram explaining provider contract that supports the process of Consumption Item (CIT) creation in Convergent Invoicing (CI). It is created in SAP C/4HANA and replicated to SAP S/4HANA. It comprises all legally binding agreements regarding the provision and billing of services that are entered by a customer and a company for a specific period of time. Header Data is business partner, company code, start/end date. Item Data is item hierarchy, contract account and if applicable a prepaid account, ID of the product to which the provider contract relates, and account assignments such as company code, profit center, and segment.

Partner Agreement

Partner Agreement supports the process of revenue sharing and partner settlement in Convergent Invoicing (CI). It is created in SAP C/4HANA and replicated to SAP S/4HANA.If an end user uses services or purchases products of a service provider, and these services or products use infrastructure, services or products of a partner, then payment is due to this partner. In these cases, a portion of the amount that you invoice to the end customer has to be paid to one or more partners. Partner settlement uses processes analog to those in the invoicing of end customers. Partner settlement hereby uses the same data object but in a form that is tailored to partner settlement. You distinguish between provider contract and partner agreement by means of the contract category field. From a technical perspective, they are both provider contracts, and the system stores their data in the same tables.

Master Agreement

Master Agreement supports the processes of invoice and discount agreement in Convergent Invoicing (CI). It is a contract between a provider and a customer usually a large company in which common terms of future contracts are defined. It is created in SAP C/4HANA and replicated to SAP S/4HANA. A provider contract can have a reference to one master agreement. Agreements define rules and areas of validity (business partner, products, billable items) for 3 different agreement types. Discount Agreements define what kind of discounts will be applied to the billable items. Invoice Agreements define which invoice the billable item will end up on. Invoice List Agreements define that the headquarters’s invoice overview displays only final amounts and not billable items.

Create Master Data

ExerciseStart Exercise

Business Example

Create a business partner and a contract account.

Note

In this exercise, the value ## should be replaced with your group number.

Task 1: Create a Business Partner in the Contract Partner Role

Steps

  1. Start the SAP Fiori Maintain Business Partner app (transaction BP).

    1. Choose the Masterdata tile group.

    2. Choose the Maintain Business Partner tile.

  2. Maintain the settings to show keys in drop-down lists.

    1. Choose Menu → Settings.

    2. Select Show drop down lists with keys.

    3. Select Sort drop down lists by their keys.

    4. Choose Save.

  3. Create a new business partner using the following data:

    Header Data

    FieldValue
    Business Partnerac240-##
    Create in BP RoleMKK Contract Partner
    GroupingYNEX External Number

    Address Data

    FieldValue
    First Nameyour choice
    Last Nameyour choice
    Streetyour choice
    House Number##
    Postal Code69190
    CityWalldorf
    CountryDE

    1. On the Maintain Business Partner screen, choose Person.

    2. On the Create Person screen, enter the values from the Header Data table.

    3. In the Change Role dialog box, choose Create.

    4. On the Create Person: Role Contract Partner screen, go to the Address tab.

    5. On the Address tab, enter the values from the Address Data table.

    6. Choose Save.

    7. Choose Back.

Task 2: Create a Contract Account for the Business Partner

Steps

  1. Start the SAP Fiori Maintain Contract Account app (transaction CAA1).

    1. Choose the Masterdata tile group.

    2. Choose the Maintain Contract Account tile.

    3. Choose Create.

  2. Create a new contract account using the following data:

    Header Data

    FieldValue
    Business Partnerac240-##
    Contract Accountac240-##
    Contract Account CategoryY2 External Number
    Valid Fromcurrent date
    Contract Account Referenceac240-##a
    Business Partner Referenceac240-##a

    1. On the initial screen, enter the values from the Header Data table.

    2. Choose Continue.

  3. Check the most important fields of the contract account using F1 and F4.

    1. Go to the General Data tab.

    2. Check the following fields:

      • Account Determination ID
      • Payment Terms

    3. Go to the Payments/Taxes tab.

    4. Check the following fields:

      • Company Code Group
      • Incoming Payment Method

    5. Go to the Dunning/Correspondence tab.

    6. Check the following fields:

      • Dunning Procedure
      • Correspondence Variant

    7. Choose Save.

    8. Choose Back.

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