Search Term: Vendor Master Data 

If you do not know a vendor account number, you can search for the vendor master record using certain fields in the master record. In most cases, you will want to search for an account using the vendor's name. For this SAP uses the Search Term field, which is independent of the address fields. A search term is required since the name for search functions is formulated differently from how it is formulated in the address.

Your company should have rules on how to enter this field so that consistency is maintained. The search term usually consists of only the most important parts of a vendor’s name. Before you make any entry in this field in the master record, find out how your company wants this field filled. The system does not distinguish between upper and lower case letters.

The name of the vendor's company is Dr. Dwight Evans & Sons, Limited. You enter the full name of the company in one of the Name fields for the address format. To keep the search terms consistent, your company has decided that supplementary name data (such as "Dr" and "& Son") is not to be entered in the Search term field. Therefore, all your accounting personnel know that supplementary name data is not required for a search and accordingly enter only the name EVANS in the Search Term field.