Jun 15, 20214 min read

Business Partner Concept in SAP S/4HANA

Updated: Aug 18, 2021

What is Business Partner?

In SAP S/4 HANA, Business Partner is the leading object and single-entry point to maintain Business Partner, Customer, and Supplier (formerly known as Vendor) master data.

Business Partner allows maintenance of multiple addresses with corresponding address usages.

It is not a new terminology it is also in ECC

ECC have two options

1. Customer or vendor 2. Business Partner

In SAP S/4 HANA is only Business Partner
Business Partner is any entity is impact with our business and or impaction our business is known as business Partner
The EWM, MDG, TM, CRM, SRM they are following Business Partner concept.
Vendor customer is are the role which is done by business partner
It is mandatory in conversion ECC to S/4HANA, Business Partner must be assign to customer and vendor in ECC.

Which Table we are getting here

BUT000 – General Data
BUT020 – Address
BUT100 – BP Roles
KNA1- Customer Data
LFA1- Vendor Data

Business Partner Role

SAP Business Partner Screening for SAP S/4 HANA is used to centrally manage master data for business partners, customers, and vendors. Business Partner Application allows you to create, maintain, and manage business partners. You can also use this to perform integration with other functions and data exchange.

You can use the BP Role to carry out a business classification of a BP role on the basis of business transaction. The attributes of the BP role depend on the particular transaction involved.

In S/4 HANA we have three different categories

A Business Partner can be

Organization
Person- Individual
Group- Group of person or partners

Account Group

An account group is a named collection of accounts. CSA uses account groups in financial statements to increase their flexibility and to enable you to use a financial statement for multiple clients. Some account group names are pre-defined, but account group definitions are client specific.

Customer Account Group

Customer account groups in SAP are used to classify customers into business partner functions that fit best the nature of the business transaction. Customer account groups control the customer hierarchy containing the customer master record. It determines the role of a customer and customer master data.

We create Customer Account Group in Financial Accounting

Menu Path:

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Financial Accounting-> Account Receivable & Payable->Customer Accounts-> Master Data-> Preparation for creating Customer Master Data-> Define Account Groups with screen layout (Customer) Master data

Menu Path:

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Financial Accounting-> Account Receivable & Payable->Customer Accounts-> Master Data-> Preparation for creating Customer Master Data-> Create Number ranges for Customer Account Group

Menu Path:

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Financial Accounting-> Account Receivable & Payable->Customer Accounts-> Master Data-> Preparation for creating Customer Master Data-> Assign Number ranges to Customer Account Group

Vendor Account Group

You use vendor groups to classify your vendor records into groups that share similar characteristics. You define vendor groups adding vendor records.

Menu Path

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Financial Accounting-> Account Receivable & Payable->Vendor Accounts-> Master Data-> Preparation for creating Vendor Master Data-> Define Account Groups with screen layout (Vendor) Master data

Menu Path:

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Financial Accounting-> Account Receivable & Payable->Vendor Accounts-> Master Data-> Preparation for creating Vendor Master Data-> Create Number ranges for Vendor Account Group

Menu Path:

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Financial Accounting-> Account Receivable & Payable->Customer Accounts-> Master Data-> Preparation for creating Vendor Master Data-> Assign Number ranges to Vendor Account Group

Customer Vender Integration

Customer/Vendor Integration involves the following process phases: You process the business partner or customer/vendor. ... If a customer/vendor master record is assigned to the business partner, then the system updates the customer/vendor data in the business partner at the same time, irrespective of role.

Work before conversion is as follows:

· Archive redundant master data.

· Activate business functions.

· Integrate custom enhancements.

· Implement check reports (see below section for these standard tools).

· Configure CVI as customer/vendor to BP.

· Implement customer specific mapping, if necessary.

· Assign number ranges.

The Customer/Vendor Integration (CVI) component ensure the synchronization between the BP object and the Customer/Vendor objects. Aside from the mandatory Business Partner target approach in S/4HANA, it is also the approach used in both SAP Master Data Governance (MDG) versions: MDG on S/4HANA as well as MDG on ERP.

Define BP Grouping & Assign Number Range

Menu Path:

T-code: BUCF

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Cross Application Components-> SAP Business partner-> Business Partner-> Number Range & Groupings-> Define Number Range

Customer Integration

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Cross Application Components-> Master Data Synchronization-> Customer Vendor Integration-> Business Partner Settings-> Settings for Customer Integration-> Field Assignment for Customer Integration-> Assign Keys-> Define Number Range Assignment for direction BP to Customer

Vendor Integration

Menu Path:

T-code: BUCF

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Cross Application Components-> SAP Business partner-> Business Partner-> Number Range & Groupings-> Define Number Range

SPRO-> SAP IMG Screen-> Cross Application Components-> Master Data Synchronization-> Customer Vendor Integration-> Business Partner Settings-> Settings for Vendor Integration-> Field Assignment for Vendor Integration-> Assign Keys-> Define Number Range Assignment for direction BP to Vendor

Create Business Partner

T-code: BP

BP as Customer

BP as Vendor

Advantage of Business Partner

SAP product simplification Principle of one creation of cycle customer or vendor, But by Business Partner approach.
Simplified master data creation
Creation a customer XD01, VOK1, many other t-codes
These all convert only one t-code BP,
Single maintain centralized data addresses and so on
Time dependent data like roles and addresses are tome dependent data, multiple addresses can be put in it.
Role- This year and next year
Address like ship to address, sold to address
In CRM we can determine the partner
Harmonization of B/W products
Adoption of FSCM need business partner approach
Another reason embedded like, EWM, TM, this all working on Business Partner approach
Credit management FSCM credit management is working on business partner approach