Creating and Changing Business Partner Master Data (SAP Library - FI Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable)

Creating and Changing Business Partner Master Data

Use

Business partner master data from Financial Accounting and Logistics is stored in shared master records that can be accessed from both views. This function lets you create and change master records for business partners centrally, that is, including the following data:

Customer master records and vendor master records

General data

General data is independent of company code, sales area, and purchasing organization and is therefore valid for business partners for all company codes, all sales areas, and all purchasing organizations.

Company code data

The company code data is defined separately for individual company codes. You can only bill for a transaction if the payer has been maintained from a Financial Accounting view (company code data).

Customer master records only

Sales area data

Vendor master records only

Purchasing organization data

Features

Reference Master Records

If you create a new master record, and a master record with similar data exists, you can use the existing master record as a reference. You enter the number of the existing business partner in the Customer or Vendor field in the reference section of Create Customer: Initial Screen or Create Vendor: Initial Screen. The system copies data from the existing reference master record to the new master record.

If you only enter the customer or vendor number in the reference section, the system copies the general data only. If you also enter the company code, sales area or purchasing organization in the reference section, the corresponding data is also copied. Only data that can be identical for both master records is copied. For example, country, language and account group are copied. The address is not copied. You can change copied data.

Search Help

You can use matchcodes to search for vendor, customer, and consumer master records. An additional search help lets you search using address attributes such as:

Name

Street

Zip code

Note

If you enter any character (including *) in the search help field First name when searching for customer master records, only those for consumers are found. This is because you can only maintain first names for customers who are consumers and not for companies.

Example

Customer master record search criteria:

Name

Smith

First name

Thomas

In the search help field Name, you enter Smith. In the search help field First name, you enter Thomas. The consumer master record Thomas Smith is located, and not the customer master record for the company Thomas Smith (Ltd.).

Prerequisites

In customizing for Business Partners, you can create your own tab layouts for customer and consumer master data maintenance. You do this in the activities under Create Tab Layouts.

Activities

Creating Business Partner Master Records

Assign an account group and specify the partner function the business partner is to fulfill (for example, sold-to party or one-time vendor).

Enter the business partner number or the system assigns the number.

If a master record with similar data already exists that you want to use as a reference, search for and enter data on the existing master record in the reference section.

Enter and save the following data in the master record as appropriate: