Vendors: Partner Determination for Vendor Hierarchy Nodes
Use
During purchase order processing, the system automatically determines special partner functions in the partner data of the document. The system uses these partner functions for the following purposes:
·
To determine the hierarchy path and store it in the document·
To store hierarchy data per item (the pricing of individual items in the purchase order may relate to different hierarchy nodes)Features
In the purchase order, the system determines a default partner function (2A in the standard R/3 System), based on the
hierarchy category. The system then uses partner determination (controlled through Customizing for Vendor Hierarchies (Purchasing) in the activity Define Partner Determination for Hierarchy Categories) to find higher-level partner functions, until it has determined the complete hierarchy path for the purchase order. The standard version of the R/3 System includes four standard partner functions for this purpose, namely 2A-2D. You can add as many additional partner functions as you require, up to a maximum of 15 levels.Example
The following example shows how the system uses partner determination to create the hierarchy path in a purchase order. In the following vendor hierarchy a purchase order is placed with vendor 2743.
Using partner determination, the system creates the correct hierarchy path by establishing which higher-level partners apply. The partner function 2A is defined in Customizing as the default partner function. The vendor has the partner function VN (vendor). In this example, the system determines the following hierarchy path and stores it as partner data in the purchase order:
Partner functions and corresponding nodes/vendors
Partner function |
Node/vendor |
2C (node - top level) |
4711 |
2B (node - second level) |
4713 |
2A (node - third level) |
4714 |