Definition

A business partner is a business object that consists of a person, organization, group of persons, or group of organizations in which a company has a business interest. A business partner may also be a person, organization, or group within a company.

A business partner can have several functions at one time. Functions are characterized by function categories. A function category, for example, may be a sold-to party, interested person, payer, or payee.

A business partner can have relationships with other business partners. Relationships are characterized by relationship types . For example, relationship types can include the following: "is a subsidiary of," "is the contact person for," or "is identical to." A business partner can have several addresses. Addresses are defined by address types. An address type, for example, can consist of a delivery address or correspondence address.

A business partner can be assigned other business partners using the function determination. These business partners can then act on behalf of the original partner in their respective roles. For example, a business partner can be defined as a payee for another business partner.

For more information about business partners, refer to the documentation Basic Functions and Master Data in Sales and Distribution .

Use

In a notification, you can record all partners who are involved with subject matter/problem described in the notification. This includes the person who reported the subject matter/problem, the persons responsible for processing the notification, and those responsible for processing individual notification tasks. The partner data that you can maintain in a notification is predefined in Customizing for each notification type.

The following graphic shows how partners are used for notification processing.

Structure

Partner type

Partners can be:

Partner function

The various partner types can be subdivided into partner functions . The partner function defines the rights, responsibilities and tasks of each partner when a business transaction is processed.

Partner determination procedure

The partner determination procedure specifies whether partners can be assigned to a notification and which partner functions can be used to process various business transactions. Your system administrator defines the partner determination procedure in Customizing.