Business Partner Data

Definition

In Consolidation, the business partner data consists of the administrative data of a consolidation unit. This includes the name of the legal entity, address data, and contact data such as phone and fax number.

Use

You use the component SAP Business Partner (CA-BP) to define the business partner data of a consolidation unit. This means that the business partner data is stored in the central database of the SAP Business Partner component. This also lets you access the business partner data of the other SAP application components that employ SAP Business Partner.

In consolidation unit maintenance, the business partner data of a consolidation unit can be found under the Business Partner tab. To each consolidation unit you can assign an existing business partner or you can create a new business partner for a consolidation unit.

Caution Caution

Before you can assign a business partner to a consolidation unit, you must have defined a number range in the Customizing settings for the SAP Business Partner . To do this, go to the SAP Reference IMG and choose Start of the navigation path Cross-ApplicationComponents Next navigation step SAPBusinessPartner Next navigation step BasicSettings Next navigation step NumberRangesandGroupings Next navigation step DefineNumberRanges. End of the navigation path

End of the caution.

There is also an option to upload business partner data into your SAP System from other systems using a Microsoft Excel file. See: Uploading Business Partner Data with a Microsoft Excel File .

Structure

The SAP Business Partner has a large number of fields for storing business partner data. Since only a portion of these fields are relevant for consolidation, the number of fields has been reduced in the Consolidation system. Specifically, the Consolidation System features only the organizationally related fields (that is, from the category organization ).

Business partner numbers

Business partners have two numbers, which are used for various assignments:

  • Business partner number

    A business partner number is defined for each business partner in the central database of the SAP Business Partner. This number is valid within the SAP System.

    When you create a new business partner for a consolidation unit, depending on your definition of the number range the system either automatically assigns a number or you need to enter your own number.

  • External partner number

    If a non-SAP system already contains administrative data for the consolidation units, you can use the external partner number to assign that data to the business partner data in the SAP System. The external partner number is particularly useful if you want to upload the data from a non-SAP system into the SAP System using a Microsoft Excel file.