Business Partner 

Definition

Natural or legal person with whom business relationships are maintained. Typical business partners are banks, a central treasury department with which financial transactions are concluded, or a customer who has several accounts at the bank, for example.

Use

You need this business object, for example, to create a contract as a transaction with one specific business partner in Loans Management (FS-CML), which is why the business partner data must exist before the transaction can be entered. The options available for creating a business partner depend on the system settings you make here.

Structure

Business partners are divided into different categories, which have different attributes assigned to them. The system distinguishes between:

●     Persons (for example, individuals, brokers)

●     Organizations (for example, banks, companies)

●     Groups (for example, societies according to the German Civil Code, people living in shared apartments)

The functions of the business partner in the contract are determined using business partner roles, such as Account Holder and Card Holder, as well as Prospect or Processor. You define the rights and obligations of the business partner when you assign the role category. A business partner can have several roles. You determine business partner roles when you assign the role category.

The data you can process for a business partner is divided into three areas:

...

●     General Data

This data is held centrally for all business partner roles. Access to the data can vary according to the role category, depending on the system settings in the Implementation Guide (IMG) for the Business Partner.

●     Company Code-Dependent Data

This is data that only applies for a particular role in the relevant company code.

●     Differentiated Data

In the standard version this is data from Additional Information, Ratings, and Customer Segments that can be defined differently by means of a differentiation criterion. If you use Bank Analyzer (FS-BA) you can also define Bank Analyzer Characteristics differently.

You can use the field modification functions in the IMG for the business partner to define which fields are required or optional, which are displayed only, and which are suppressed.

You can link business partners using relationships. You also have to authorize the business partner for the permitted transactions.

Integration

You make settings for the Business Partner in the IMG for the SAP Business Partner for Financial Services.

If an authorization objectis entered for the business partner under Authorization Group, an authorization check is carried out before the business partner is processed. The standard system checks the authorization object B_BUPA_GRP (business partner authorization groups).