Linking Business Locations to Business Partners (SAP Library - SSR

Linking Business Locations to Business Partners

Procedure

Choose Logistics ® Sales and Distribution ® Service Station Retailing ® Master data ® Location ® Change.

Enter the Location ID and choose Enter.

Choose the Roles tab.

The Change Business Location: Partner Role Listing screen appears.

In the Partner roles data section choose Create role.

The Create Partner Role screen appears.

Make the following entries:

Entry	Remarks/Customizing
Role	The partner role type describes the role or function of the business partner with respect to the location that you are maintaining. The range of partner role types that you can use for a specific location is determined by: · The partner role types that you have entered in Customizing · The partner roles allowed for the location type
Partner role technical category	The partner role technical category defines the type (that is, vendor, customer or SAP user) and account group (for example vendor accounts receivable) and partner function (for example, customer sold-to partner). If the partner role type that you have entered specifies a default partner role technical category, you do not have to enter a partner role technical category. If no partner role technical category is proposed or you wish to change the technical category, you can use the matchcode to display possible technical categories for the partner role. In Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream), you can define a default partner role technical category for any specific partner role type by choosing SSR ® Business Location Master Data ® Business Partner Roles ® Define partner role.
Validity period start date	The validity period start date defines the date that the partner role assignment begins. Validity periods for a specific location partner role may or may not overlap according to the role and the configuration of your system. For customers defined for automatic service station partner invoicing, no overlap is allowed. You can adjust the necessary settings in Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream) by choosing SSR ® Business Location Master Data ® Business Partner Roles ® Set system control - partner roles. If the validity periods for a specific role are not permitted to overlap, the system issues an error message on input of a start or end date/time combination that overlaps with an existing date/time range.
Validity period end date	If the validity period end date is left blank, it is interpreted as 31.12.9999 for overlap checking and other functions. You may also have to enter a validity period end date. You can specify this in Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream) by choosing SSR ® Business Location Master Data ® Business Partner Roles ® Set system control - partner roles.

Choose Enter.

An additional screen area appears.

Enter the ID of the business partner and Choose Enter to validate the partner ID.

A green check mark in the General status field confirms that the partner is valid
If either a red cross or a yellow lightning flash icon appears, there is a problem with the partner object. For example, it may be flagged for deletion. An error message also appears.
The partner role technical category that you specify determines whether or not the System automatically generates an entry in the relevant customer master record when you create the partner role assignment. This in turn determines whether location reporting is possible for this partner. If the technical category supports entry generation, a check mark appears in the Generate entry field. If the text Entry generated appears, together with a green check mark, the link between business partner and business location exists in the partner master record, and location reporting is possible for the business partner.

Note

The function of a business partner determines whether a partner is suitable for location reporting. Normally, customer ship-to parties are suitable for reporting, because the ship-to party is the locational instance of the customer business partner. If the ship-to party is linked to the location, revenue flows can be tracked accordingly.

When you define partner roles in Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream), you can choose to suppress the generation of entries in the partner master record for specific partner roles.

If the business partner is a customer, SD sales area and partner role data appear in the Customer defaults for automatic processing data section or, if the customer has been defined for more than one sales area or the same partner role more than once, you can select the appropriate area or role. The system uses this data for automatic invoicing of service station partners.

If you cannot or do not want to generate a link to the business partner (Generate entry checkbox is not selected), go to step 8 of these instructions.

If you wish to generate a link to the business partner, go to the next step of these instructions.

Choose Partner role ® Generate link.

Choose Yes to proceed with link generation.

If you have proceeded with the link generation, the system informs you that the entry is updated when you save the business location data. This arrangement combines all updates into one logical unit of work and ensures that, if you cancel your update to the business location, the update of the customer master is also canceled.

To add the partner role assignment to the partner role assignment table, go back.

You return to the Change Business Location: Partner Role Listing screen.

Save your entries.

The initial screen for changing the business location master record appears. A message confirming that the business location has been changed is displayed.