A BP relationship forms a business-relevant connection between two distinct business partners.

You can assign a relationship category to two business partners. If a relationship category is assigned to business partners, the business partners are said to have this relationship.

Attributes can be assigned to a relationship, meaning that redundant data retention is avoided.

If a business partner is both the purchasing manager of company A and also the MRP controller of company B, the attributes that this business partner has as purchasing manager and as MRP controller (such as department, function, power of attorney) can be defined in the relevant relationships. If this was not possible, the business partner would have to be created twice so that the relevant data could be assigned uniquely to the particular relationship.

You can limit a relationship in time by entering the start date and end date of the relationship. This means that it is possible to get an overview of the periods in which certain business partners were contact persons for a company, for example.