Business Partner (BP Model) Functionality

Business Partner is an 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.

Business partnering is the development of successful, long term, strategic relationships between customers and suppliers, based on achieving best practice and sustainable competitive advantage.

There are 2 types of partners 1. Customer or vendor 2. Business Partner

Business Partner Role

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.

We have three different categories as per our business, a Business Partner can be

• Customer
• Vendor- Individual
• Business Partner

Business Partner and Sales Order Process

In order to process Sales Orders, Business Partner’s must be created in the Customer Role. Separate data must be created for each sales area the Customer does business in. For example, if a company has a Chicago sales as well as a New York sales area, separate data will be required for each.

In order to process a Sales Invoices, Business Partner’s must be created in the Customer (Fin Accounting) Role. Separate data must be created for each Company Code the Customer does business in. For example, if a company has a US Company Code as well as a German Company Code, separate data will be required for each.

Business Partner and Purchase Order Process

In order to process Purchase Orders, Business Partner’s must be created in the Supplier/Vendor Role. Separate data must be created for each sales area the Supplier does business in. For example, if a company has a Chicago Sales Area as well as a New York Sales Area, separate data will be required for each.

In order to process a Invoices in purchasing, Business Partner’s must be created in the Supplier/Vendor (Fin Accounting) Role. Separate data must be created for each Company Code the Supplier does business in. For example, if a company has a US Company Code as well as a German Company Code, separate data will be required for each.

Customer Account Group

Customer account groups 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.

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.

Business context for Business Partner (Customer or Vendor) Integration.

Advantage of Business Partner

• Product simplification Principle of one creation of cycle customer or vendor, But by Business Partner approach.
• Simplified master data creation
• Single maintain centralized data addresses many issues.
• Time dependent data like roles and addresses are time dependent data, multiple addresses can be put in it.
• Address like ship to address, sold to address
• In CRM we can determine the partner
• Harmonization of Business information Warehouse (BW) products
• Adoption of Financial Supply Chain Management (FSCM) need business partner approach

Why is BP Model important ?

In Maersk business, Business partner (it could be Vendor or Customer or Both) is very important in SAP ECC and SAP TMS systems. In SAP ECC invoices will be generated against the BP. In SAP TMS the BP is used to execute the orders placed by BP. Without BP model, we might need to store the Customer data and Vendor data separately which causes redundant data. Storing redundant data is not in line with the concept of effective Master Data Management. This redundancy can be reduced/eliminated by using Business Partner based MDM.

In financial systems it becomes convenient to manage the payables and receivables & their cycles by identifying the business partners that are not just suppliers but also customers.

In case of Maersk BP model implementation will help:

1. Consolidated data view
2. Central blocking
3. Avoid redundant payment issues
4. Clear reporting