Ratings 

Definition

Object with which you can represent  rating results for the business partner using established rating procedures

Use

External service providers, government agencies, or departments within the company rate natural or legal persons for various business processes. The ratings take account of their payment history, credit standing, or other criteria.

Use this object to rate business partners according to various rating procedures, specifying a unique validity period.

You can save multiple rating results for each rating procedure. Note that you can map only one rating result for a particular rating procedure within a fixed validity period.

You can create ratings and trends for a rating procedure only if the business partner grants you permission to acquire the rating and save the results.

You can use Dun & Bradstreet or SCHUFA as external providers of rating procedures, and the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) can also provide rating procedures as a state authority, for example.

Structure

The ratings for the business partner consist of the following attributes:

• Rating procedure
• Rating permission
• Rating
• Trend
• Valid from
• Valid to
• Rated on
• Text

Integration

You make settings for the ratings in Customizing for the SAP Business Partner for Financial Services by choosing Settings for Financial Services ® General Settings ® Ratings/Credit Standing ® Ratings ® Set Rating Procedures and Ratings.

Example

You would like to check the credit standing for your customer Build Inc.  You obtain permission from the customer to carry out a rating and save the results using the Moodys rating procedure, and rate the business partner on 03/01/2003. The rating is intended to cover the period from 03/01/2003 to 03/01/2005. The customer’s credit standing is excellent, and the business partner is given the rating Aa1. You expect the customer’s rating to remain the same in the long term too, and define the trend as constant.