Link to Customer for SAP Business Partner 

     

This function does not appear in the Bank Customer Accounts (SAP IS-B-BCA) and In-House Cash (SAP IS-B-BCA) applications.

Use

Financial accounting and reporting in Financial Accounting (FI) does not have the SAP Business Partner. In the subledger Accounts Receivable (AR), your clients are referred to as customers. In Accounts Receivable (AR), all business transactions are listed that concern relationships with these clients. Much of the data comes from the Sales area (SD – Sales & Distribution). 

The applications that use the SAP Business Partner have requested the SAP Business Partner be linked to the customer in Financial Accounting. Many SAP customers already use Financial Accounting, have entered numerous customers in the system, and would now also like to use the SAP Business Partner. As the customer data is stored in different tables in Financial Accounting than the SAP Business Partner data, the link between the SAP Business Partner and the FI customer is made using the corresponding tables.

This integration means that you can also create customers for an SAP Business Partner. When you select the corresponding role and make the necessary Customizing settings, the system generates a customer in the background. The central data for the customer is entered in the SAP Business Partner and then transferred to the customer.

Prerequisites

The Customizing settings for the SAP Business Partner must be consistent with those for the FI customer. In field selection for roles that require an FI customer, make sure that the required entries are the same as those for the FI customer. You do this for the following reason:

When you create an SAP Business Partner, the system creates the FI customer after you have saved your entries. The customer is upgraded in the background. The system fills all the required fields based on the entries made for the business partner.

     

If you did not fill a required entry field for creating a customer when you created the business partner, the system interrupts the batch run and goes directly to the current processing screen for the customer. In this case, you have to fill the required entry field and resume the batch run by pressing ENTER. Do not choose Save. This will terminate the batch run and the customer will not be created completely.

You can access the field control function in Customizing under Corporate Finance Management -> Basic Functions -> SAP Business Partner for Financial Services -> SAP Business Partner -> General Settings -> Business Partner -> Basic Settings -> Field Groupings -> Configure Field Attributes per BP Role.

You can access the screen selection controls for the customer in Customizing under Financial Accounting -> Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable -> Customer Accounts -> Master Data -> Preparations for Creating Customer Master Data. Here, you can process various activities including Define Account Groups with Screen Layout (Customers), Define Screen Layout per Company Code (Customers), and Define Screen Layout per Activity (Customers).

Features

You generate a customer only if you intend that customer to have the role of a business partner. In the Customizing settings delivered with the system for Release Banking 4.63 / CFM 2.0, this applies for the roles TR0151 Counterparty and TLCU00 Customer, for example.

If you require customer accounts for roles, you must maintain table view V_TBD002. In this view you make the following settings:

·         Whether a customer is automatically generated when you create a business partner (for example, role FLCU00 Customer)

·         Whether the user can decide in the initial screen whether or not a customer is generated when creating a business partner (for example role TR0100 Main Loan Partner, or role TR0151 Counterparty):

¡        Up to Release Banking 4.63/CFM 2.0 the user sets an indicator in the initial screen to determine whether or not a customer is generated

¡        From Release R/3 Enterprise the user must access the tax tab page to determine whether or not a customer is generated

·         Whether the number of the assigned FI customer is displayed in the business partner data

·         Whether an existing FI customer can be used as a template for creating a business partner

You can also use a function module (BPOB_TRD001_DEB_ROLLE) to help you decide whether a customer is automatically generated when you create a business partner, or whether the user determines this in the initial screen. In this case, you must specify the function module in view V_TBD002. You can also enter a function module (BPOB_TRD001_VORBEL_DEB) to enter default values for customer data.