Last Updated on February 9, 2023 by Pradeep
SAP Business Partner – Introduction
The SAP business partner in S4 HANA is now a new way of managing master data for Business Partners, Customers, Vendors, etc. With current development, BP (Business Partner) is the single point of entry to create, edit, and display master data for Business Partners, customers, and, vendors.
The Business Partner concept has a very big importance in SAP S4 HANA Finance as we do its configuration in this application. It has a variety of newly added features which have made it very popular and demanding.
Let us move on to understand SAP Business Partner more by touching on its overall facts and work processes.
What has all covered herein this article:-
- A Detailed Concept of Business Partner
- Areas in the SAP system where Business partners put a major impact
- Benefits of using Business Partner
- Master Data Synchronization in Business Partner
- Business Partner Features
- How to Check and Activate Business Functions
- CVI Process
- Steps to Configure Business Partner Master Data
- EndNote
Let us start one by one.
Concept of SAP Business Partner
In SAP S/4 HANA, the business partner has become the leading object and single point of entry to maintain supplier (formerly known as Vendor) and customer master data. With this new approach, master data maintenance becomes easier and achieves harmonization among the various business functions of a company.
Brings diverse Business Processes Together
The business partner function brings together the different and diverse business processes a company manages with its partners. It does it all via a single transaction and with a consolidated view of a partner’s data. Further, it can have the role of a supplier (vendor), a customer or an employee. It can also be a person, a group of persons or an organization. You can create a business partner in different business partner roles.
It Plays Multiple Roles
You don’t need to create the general data for each business partner role as it’s the same for all business partner functions. As a result, you can use the same business partner for different applications. For example, you can interact with business partner number 20000 as a customer in a customer role and vendor as a vendor role. Hence, in this way, a business partner can play multiple roles.
Eliminates Data Redundancy
Due to the highly integrated nature of data and information flow in business partners, a tremendous amount of data redundancy is eliminated as the basic or general information maintained for a business partner automatically extends to other partner functions.
Thus, after maintaining a business partner’s general or basic information a company can maintain or extend the existing business partner’s general information into one or more of these areas.
Areas that have a major impact on Business Partner
Finance
In the SAP Finance area, a business user maintains specific information such as the company code associated with a business partner (either a vendor or customer). Business controls such as reconciliation account maintenance, tolerance limits, reminders for payment, tax details, legal data and specific or overall blocking of business partners are some of the options available in the finance area of a business partner.
Material Management
A business partner plays a pivotal role in the procurement process of the MM- Material Management area of S4 HANA. Some of the business controls are available for maintaining or extending purchasing information. It includes purchasing organization order currency, payment terms, dunning procedure, Automatic Purchase order creation etc.
Sales and Distribution
A business partner plays a central role in the sales, delivery and billing process of the SD- Sales & Distribution area of S/4 HANA. Here also, some of the business controls are available while maintaining or extending sales information. It includes a sales area (which is comprised of the sales organization, distribution channel and division) order currency, payment terms, dunning procedure, shipping and billing.
Also Read: Automatic Payment Program in SAP
Benefits of Using SAP Business Partner
- A legal entity is represented by one business partner.
- A business partner allows the maintenance of multiple addresses for various uses.
- While in SAP ERP, one supplier or customer could be associated only with one vendor account group. However, with business partners in SAP S/4 HANA, multiple roles can be associated with the same business partner.
- Maximum sharing and reuse of data lead to easier and simplified data consolidation.
- The general data of a business partner is available for different business partner roles. However, specific data is stored for each role.
- We can have multiple relationships with the same business partner.
- Time dependency at different sub-entities (role, address, relationship and bank data) can also be maintained.
Master Data Synchronization
In an SAP S/4 HANA system, master data synchronization synchronizes the master data objects of a business that are similar. The similarity can not only be from a technical point of view but also from a functional view. In this way, you can integrate different SAP applications seamlessly into your business process.
For example, you can use master data synchronization to set up the integration of the business partner with the vendor master. As a result, you will be able to integrate SAP applications that make technical use of business partners in their user interfaces and use the vendor master as a technical basis in the subsequent business processes. Importantly, Customer-Vendor integration (CVI) for the business partner is a mandatory prerequisite in SAP S/4 HANA.
Read related: Key Parts of Vendor Master Data Structure in SAP
Features and Characteristics of SAP Business Partner
- SAP Business Partner represents a legal entity.
- Business Partner allows the maintenance of multiple addresses with corresponding address usage.
- As per the old approach, you can associate only one customer with one account group. However, in the Business Partner approach, you can assign multiple roles to the same Business Partner.
- It allows maximum Data sharing and reuse of data, which leads to easy consolidation.
- General Data is available for all different Business Partner roles, while specific data is stored for each role.
- It allows the maintenance of multiple relationships with the same Business Partner.
- It allows the maintenance of Time Dependency at different sub-entities & roles, addresses relationships, bank accounting, etc.
How to Check and activate Business Functions in SAP Business Partner?
Below are the steps to check and activate business functions:-
Goto – Switch Framework Browser => Click- CA_SUPPLIER_SOA => Click – CA_BP_SOA Switch=> Activate Switch ‘VENDOR_SFWS_SC1’ and VENDOR_SFWS_SC2’.
Customer Vendor Integration (CVI) Process
Customer-Supplier Integration is a prerequisite to moving to SAP S/4 HANA.
Business Partner is now capable of centrally managing master data for business partners, customers, and suppliers. With current development, BP is the single point of entry to creating, editing, and displaying master data for business partners, customers, and suppliers.
Business Partners can check the Introduction of the CVI in the pre-checks and the technical conversion procedure of the SAP S/4 HANA on-premise edition.
The change in Business Process is, that the user interface for SAP S/4 HANA is transaction BP. There is no specific user interface for customers/suppliers as known from SAP Business Suite to clarify. SAP GUI transactions are not available.
Transactions not available in SAP S/4HANA On-Premise Edition
- FD01, FD02, FD03, FD06
- FK01, FK02, FK03, FK06
- MAP1, MAP2, MAP3
- MK01, MK02, MK03, MK06, MK12, MK18, MK19
- VD01, VD02, VD03, VD06
- XD01, XD02, XD03, XD06, XD07
- XK01, XK02, XK03, XK06, XK07
Checkout: SAP S/4HANA Finance Next Batch Information
SAP Business Partner Master Data Configuration
Follow the below steps:
1. Setup BP General Data
2. Select General Business Partner Role and Grouping
Here this grouping is linked with the customer/vendor Number range and this Grouping is key linking to the Vendor/Customer, BP groups and the number range. The system updates Table BUT000 once the General BP role completes.
3. Setup FI Vendor
BP role FLVN00 FI Vendor extension enables invoices to post directly in FI. Here system updates vendor master tables LFA1 & LFB1.
You can post the FI document but cannot create PO as you haven’t extended purchasing data. Hence for extending purchasing data, use Role FLVN01.
System updates Table LFM1 once the BP Role extends to the supplier BP Role. Once BP extends to Purchase Organisation using BP role FLVN01, you can use the vendor to create the PO.
4. Setting up Customer
Once you extend the BP role to FI customers, the system will update Table KNA1. Further, the Finance segment can start posting directly in FI. For example, FB70, etc.
5. Extend Customer to Sales Role
BP Role FLCU01 is extended to the Sales area.
The system updated Table KNVV with Sales view details so that you can use the Customer in the Sales Area.
So this was the process of Master Data Configuration in SAP S/4HANA Finance. It is an important step towards the Business Part Configuration in the SAP system.
EndNote
Business Partner configuration is a very important process that you can best learn with the help of training in SAP FICO or S/4HANA Finance.
Since it is a completely practical subject of Financial Accounting and a must in the SAP implementation work. I advise you to learn it thoroughly and practically.
SAP S/4HANA Finance Training By Pradeep Hota – 100% Practical-Based
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