Internal and External Business Partners in SAP S/4HANA Service
Business partners are any parties in which your company has a business interest. You can create and manage your business partners centrally for different business transactions, and reflect the different roles they play, such as sold-to party and ship-to party.
A business partner can be any of the following:
Employee:
An employee is a member of your company and is involved in the interactions between your company and customers, prospects, vendors, and other parties.
Account:
An account is a company, individual, or group with which you have a business relationship. An account can be, for example, a customer, prospect, vendor, or competitor. Accounts are subdivided into Corporate Accounts (companies or organizations), Individual Accounts (private individuals), and Groups (any groupings, such as households).
Contact:
A contact is a person with whom you have a business relationship. A contact is usually assigned to a corporate account.
Business Partner Categories are part of the standard delivery and cannot be defined. A business partner category cannot be changed after a business partner has been created.
The following Business Partner Categories are available:
Organization: The Organization represents units such as company, a department of a company, a club, or an association.
Group: A Group specifies a team or an executive board
Person: A Person represents an individual.
Internal Business Partners
The business partner role classifies the business partner according to business function, for example, Employee and Sold-To-Party. The roles that are assigned to a business partner mirror the partner's functions and the business transactions in which they may be involved.
You can assign more than one business partner role to a business partner. General information, such as name, address, and bank details, only has to be entered once.
The personnel master is linked to the Business Partner role Employee as well as to the SAP User. The Personnel number is linked to the organizational unit through the Business Partner. Personnel numbers can be linked to a Position.
When creating documents, Business Partner Employee can then be assigned automatically. For example, when creating a service request, the default value for the Employee Responsible is linked to the SAP User, namely the SAP User of the Service Agent.
External Business Partners
Depending on the Business Partner Role, the data is generic or limited to a certain area. For example, when maintaining the Business Partner role Sold-To-Party, you need to maintain sales-specific data.
SAP Business Partner Relationships
A business partner relationship forms a business-relevant connection between two business partners. Business partner relationship categories describe the business-relevant relationship between business partners. A business partner relationship can be given a time-limit with start- and end-dates.
You create a contact-person relationship with the relationship category has contact person between a business partner with the BP category Organization and a business partner with the BP category Person.