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Business Partner Approach

Business Partner is the single point of entry for customer, supplier, and vendor data in SAP S/4HANA. Customer and supplier master data is now maintained through Business Partner for improved data harmonization. Migration to SAP S/4HANA requires implementing Customer/Supplier Integration to convert existing customer and vendor records into the Business Partner framework. Specific transactions for customers and vendors are no longer available in S/4HANA.

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275 views4 pages

Business Partner Approach

Business Partner is the single point of entry for customer, supplier, and vendor data in SAP S/4HANA. Customer and supplier master data is now maintained through Business Partner for improved data harmonization. Migration to SAP S/4HANA requires implementing Customer/Supplier Integration to convert existing customer and vendor records into the Business Partner framework. Specific transactions for customers and vendors are no longer available in S/4HANA.

Uploaded by

harrish
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Business Partner Approach in SAP

S/4HANA
As part of the SAP S/4HANA Business Partner (Central Master Data) development team, we
come across many concerns during the migration from ERP to SAP S/4HANA. It is vital to
understand the business partner approach before migrating to SAP S/4HANA. This blog attempts
to give you the latest information on business partner approach, customer/supplier integration,
and conversion process. This blog is also inspired from the top simplification list items.

Business Partner Approach

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

This is to ensure the ease of master data maintenance and to achieve harmonization between
them. Compared to classical ERP transactions, maintenance of Customer and Supplier master
data via Business Partner has many advantages:

 A legal entity is represented with one Business Partner.


 Business Partner allows maintenance of multiple addresses with corresponding address
usages.
 In classical transactions, one customer can only be associated to one account group. But
in Business Partner, multiple roles can be associated to the same Business Partner.
 Maximal data sharing and reuse of data which lead to an easier data consolidation.
 General Data available for all different Business Partner roles, specific data is stored for
each role.
 Maintenance of multiple relationships to the same Business Partner.
 Maintenance of Time Dependency at different sub-entities roles, address, relationship,
bank data etc.
Customer Supplier Integration (CVI)

There are redundant object models in the traditional ERP system. Here the vendor (now,
supplier) master and customer master is used. The (mandatory) target approach in SAP
S/4HANA is the Business Partner Approach. Customer Supplier Integration is a perquisite to
move to SAP S/4HANA.
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 create,
edit, and display master data for business partners, customers, and suppliers.

It is planned to check the introduction of the CVI in the pre-checks and the technical Conversion
procedure of SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition 1511, 1610, and 1709. A system where the
customer/supplier integration is not in place will be declined for the transition.

Changes in Business Process

Only SAP Business Suite customer with Customer/Supplier integration in place can move to SAP
S/4HANA, on-premise(Conversion approach). It is recommended but not mandatory that BuPa
ID and Customer ID/Vendor ID are the same.

The user interface for SAP S/4HANA is transaction BP. There is no specific user interface for
customer/supplier like known from SAP Business Suite (the specific SAP GUI transactions like
XD01, XD02, XD03 or VD01, VD02, VD03/XK01, XK02, XK03 or MK01, MK02, MK03 etc. are
not available in SAP S/4HANA on-premise)

Transaction not available in FD01, FD02, FD03, FD06, FD0


SAP S/4HANA on-premise FK01, FK02, FK03, FK06
edition MAP1, MAP2, MAP3
MK01, MK02, MK03, MK06, MK12, MK18, MK19,
V-03, V-04, V-05, V-06, V-07, V-08, V-09, V-11, V+21, V+22, V+23
VAP1, VAP2, VAP3
VD01, VD02, VD03, VD06
XD01, XD02, XD03, XD06, XD07
XK01, XK02, XK03, XK06, XK07

For further information on the modified functionalities and features, refer to SAP S/4HANA
Product Assistance > Cross Components > Central Master Data > SAP Business Partner.

Activities
1. Whether the Business Partner ID and Customer-ID /Vendor ID should be the same
in the S/4HANA System? The keys for a smooth synchronization of the ERP
customer/vendor into the SAP S/4HANA system with the business partner as the leading
object are beside Business Partner Know-How also consistent customer/supplier data
and valid and consistent customer/supplier and Business Partner customizing entries.
For this reason, the customer/supplier data has to be cleaned up before it can be
converted into the SAP S/4HANA Business Partner.

2. Preparation Pre-Checks and clean-up customer/vendor data in the ERP System (SAP
Notes: 2211312, 2210486, 2216176)

3. Synchronization Done via Synchronization Cockpit. Open SAP Note 2265093 and refer
to the attached BP_Conversion Document.pdf > Chapter 4. Convert Customer/Supplier
Data into Business Partner .
4. Conversion Conversion Process must be triggered according to the BP_Conversion
Document.pdf that is attached to SAP Note 2265093.
5. Business Partner Post Processing The customer/supplier transformation is
bidirectional. After successful S/4HANA conversion process, you have to activate the
post processing from direction Business Partner to Customer /Supplier.
Industry Specific Actions
IS-OIL Specific Actions:

 In S/4HANA all the IS-OIL specific fields (including customer BDRP data fields) have
been adapted as per the new Framework of BP.
 The IS-OIL Fields related to Vendor and Customer now have been moved to BP under
the roles FLCU01 (Customer), FLVN01 (Vendor).

Retail Sites Specific Action:

 Customers and vendors assigned to Retail sites are not handled by CVI synchronization
(MDS_LOAD_COCKPIT) on SAP ERP as described in this note, but by a specific
migration process during SAP S/4HANA conversion. See SAP Note 2310884 for more
information.

Finance:

 Refer to the blog Business Partner approach: Customer Vendor Integration to Business
Partners (CVI)
Additional Information
 SAP Note 2265093 – Business Partner Approach
 SAP Note 1923393 – Contact Person Synchronization
 SAP Note 2399368 – Cockpit Excel Upload
 SAP Note 2363892 – Business Partner as one legal entity
 SAP Note 2336018 – BP S4HANA : Suppress Mandatory BP field
 SAP Note 2345087 – Missing values in required entry fields cause posting termination
 SAP Note 2400445 – Customer Company Data – Deletion/archiving/block not visible in
BP transaction
 SAP Note 2349671 – Supplier Company Data – Deletion/archiving/block not visible in BP
transaction

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