Maintaining Business Partner Master Data 
Maintaining Business Partner Master Data
When you create a business partner in R/3, you must create it as a customer, vendor, employee or competitor. The partner type you choose determines what kind of
master records are created, and, later, what partner functions this partner can take on.You must create a partner separately for each type that is relevant. For example, if your company both buys from and sells to Star Electronics, you must create Star as a customer and a vendor.
In CRM, a partner automatically takes on all partner functions unless you specify (by creating business partner relationships) that other partners should take on these functions for the first partner. This feature simplifies maintenance of master data because there is no need for you to enter partner data repeatedly.
For example, you enter Claremont Enterprises as a business partner, but do not enter any relationships for them. You create a sales order with Claremont as the sold-to party. The system is set to determine partner based on the relationships of the sold-to party. Because the system does not find any relationships for Claremont, it enters Claremont as the ship-to party, bill-to party and payer in the sales order.