S/4HANA Business Partner - Customer-Vendor Integration

[Ajeet]

Setting up Business Partner S/4 HANA

(Updated on 23th Aug 2021 )

This blog is based on S/4HANA 1511 release , however most of the concept of the setting up the business partner remains same for all the subsequent releases of S/4HANA i.e upto SAP S/4HANA 2020

This blog is aimed to give you most of the information you want to know for setting up Business Partner for new implementation or System conversion from ECC to S/4HANA.

There are redundant object models in the traditional ERP system in which  the vendor master and customer Master were used and with aim of principal of one SAP has simplified this approach and has introduced BP as mandatory target object in S/4HANA.

Business Partner is now capable of centrally managing master data for business partners, customers, and vendors. With current development, BP is the single point of entry to create, edit, and display master data for business partners, customers, and vendors

 

Customer/Vendor Object Model Limitations

• Only one single address


• No relation between a vendor and a customer for the same real world entity (no role concept)


• No time-dependency

Business Partner – SAP Strategic Object Model

• General data are shared across different roles


• One business partner could perform multiple roles, e.g., customer and vendor (supplier)


• One business partner could have multiple addresses


• Time-dependency object attributes and relationships


• Provide harmonized architecture


• Customer/Vendor Integration (CVI) component ensure the synchronization between the Business Partner object and the customer/vendor objects

Dependencies/Pre-requisites

Business partner has been mandatory with S4 Hana Enterprise Management version i.e 1511 and 1610 & old transactions related to Vendor and customers have become obsolete.

It´s recommended but not mandatory that BuPa ID and Customer-ID / Vendor ID are the same.

The Business Partner Approach is not mandatory for the SAP Simple Finance 1503

Check and activate Business Functions

CA_SUPPLIER_SOA

CA_BP_SOA Switch 'VENDOR_SFWS_SC1' and switch 'VENDOR_SFWS_SC2' have to be active for the vendor contact person’s data to be synchronized with BP contact person’s data



The appropriate specific transaction like XD01,XD02, XD03 or VD01, VD02, VD03 / XK01, XK02, XK03 or MK01, MK02, MK03 etc. are not available in SAP S/4HANA Enterprise management Version i.e. 1511 and 1610

Currently mass maintenance for customers and vendors via transaction MASS is not available.

Before you begin the BP conversion from an SAP ERP system to an SAP S/4 HANA system, you have to answer the questions Whether the Business Partner ID and Customer-ID /Vendor ID should be the same in the S/4 HANA System?

Business Partner Master Data Setup Process

Open Fiori App Manage Business Partner Master Data 

With this app you can manage business partner master data. You can create, change, search, display, and copy business partner master data. You must have assigned the business role Master Data Specialist - Business Partner Specialist SAP_BR_BUPA_MASTER_SPECIALIST 

Lets see how to setup one time customer and vendor master using this Fiori App.

1. Setup BP General Data

 

Select General Business Partner Role and Grouping, here this grouping is linked with customer/ vendor Number range and this Grouping is key in linking the Vendor/Customer & BP groups as well as number ranges which is explained below in detail.

Table BUT000 will be updated once General BP role is completed.

 

2. Setup FI Vendor

 



BP Role FLVN00 FI Vendor extension enables Invoice to be posted directly in FI.

Here vendor master table LFA1 and LFB1 will be updated.

FI document can be posted but cannot create PO as purchasing data is not yet extended so for extending purchasing data use ROLE  FLVN01

Table LFM1 will be updated once the BP Role is extended to Supplier BP Role

Once BP is extended to Purchase Organization using BP Role FLVN01 the vendor can be used PO can be created.

 

Setting up Customer

 

Table KNA1 will be updated once BP Role is extended to FI Customer and Finance can start posting directly in FI for example FB70 etc.

Extend Customer to Sales Area

BP Role FLCU01 is extended to sales area.

 

 

Table KNVV updated with Sales view details and henceforth Customer can be used in sales area.

Extend Customer to Credit Segment

 

Table UKMBP_CMS_SGM updated

Note- S4 Hana credit Management setting should be enabled to check the credit limits for customers

Maintaining Tax details

You can add customer Tax  details in Identification tab of BP which will enable you to enter tax details with tax category and tax number and once you save this detail in BP the same you can see in KNA1 table , you can check whether these tax categories exists in table V_TFKTAXNUMTYPE  & V_TFKTAXNUMTYPEC  & also check field BP status that these tax number fields are optional/mandatory not hidden..

 

 Customizing

Business Partner Customizing

Activate the PPO Request for the synchronization object Business Partner

Cross-Application Components--> Master Data Synchronization --> Synchronization Control--> Synchronization



Active Synchronization between Customer/Vendor and BP is active



 

Define BP Roles

Assign BP Role to BP Role Category

Cross-Application Components--> SAP Business Partner-->Business Partner--> Basic Settings --> Business Partner Roles-->  Define BP Roles



This setting is already available in standard delivered system for standard roles.

Account Group /Number Range Mapping

I am explaining below with an example of requirement for setting up One Time Vendor and One Time Customer Account and as a summary we need to setup Vendor/Customer Account group & assign number ranges to respective Vendor/Customer account group as it was required in classic ERP environment.

Additionally BP grouping is mapped with Vendor/Customer account group

 

Define Account Groups Vendor

Financial Accounting (New)--> Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable--> Vendor Accounts--> Master Data--> Preparations for Creating Vendor Master Data



Assign Number Ranges to Vendor Account Groups



Similarly for Customers we need to define Account Group and assign number range to Customer account groups.

 

Define Number Assignment for Direction BP to Vendor/Customer

Cross-Application Components--> Master Data Synchronization-->Customer/Vendor Integration --> Business Partner Settings --> Settings for Vendor Integration --> Field Assignment for Vendor Integration--> Assign Keys

Define Number Assignment for Direction BP to Vendor

Define BP Number Range and assigning to BP Grouping

Cross-Application Components--> SAP Business Partner--> Business Partner--> Basic Settings -->Number Ranges and Groupings

Define Number Ranges-BP



Define Groupings and Assign Number Ranges



 

Create Number Ranges for Vendor/Customer

Financial Accounting (New)--> Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable--> Vendor Accounts--> Master Data --> Preparations for Creating Vendor Master Data

Create Number Ranges for Vendor Accounts

 



Similarly create Number Ranges for Customer Accounts.

 

How to maintain Field Status ?

Refer SAP KBA Note 2565164 to know how to maintain field Status for BP

This will enable to start work with new Business Partner in S4 Hana Enterprise Management Environment.

Do you want to know how to convert existing Vendor/Customers while doing system conversion from ECC to S/4HANA ?

Very detailed information for deep dive you can refer this CVI cookbook link from Christoph Dutz, Michael Foo and Alexander Roebel which focuses on BP conversion from ECC to S4HANA

https://support.sap.com/content/dam/SAAP/SAP_Activate/S4H.0781%20SAP%20S4HANA%20Cookbook%20Customer%...

Also refer SAP note 2265093 which explains the conversion process of existing customer /vendors to business partners in detail - must refer the atttached PDF within this note you will find following very useful information :-

CVI_MIGRATION_PRECHK

This report performs the necessary business checks for customer and vendor master data if you are intending to migrate to SAP S/4HANA. This report gives an upfront overview of master data consistency that is required for conversion to business partner master data

CVI_UPGRADE_CHECK_RESOLVE

You can use this report to perform the necessary checks per client. It also provides Customizing resolution program, where you can find out missing customizing entries and the solution to create/correct these entries for each client.

PRECHECK_UPGRADATION_REPORT

This report performs the necessary checks for Business Partner before upgrading to S/4HANA. The prechecks that the report executes are listed here:-

• BP roles are Assigned to Account Groups


• Every Account Group BP Grouping Must be Available


• Customer Value Mapping


• Vendor Value Mapping


• CVI Mapping


• Contact Person Mapping


• Checking Direction from Customer to BP


• Checking Direction from Vendor to BP

MDS_LOAD_COCKPIT

You can use this report for the following purposes:-

• Synchronize the customer/supplier data into SAP business partner during conversion from S/4HANA to S4/HANA


• Create or update a corresponding SAP business partner for the customer and supplier data for general data, addresses, role data, bank details and so on

MDS_PPO2

You can use this report for the following purposes:-

• View the error state of Business Partner, Customer and Supplier synchronization


• Set the error log statuses to Completed after resolving the error

Do you want to know how to handle custom fields added in customer/vendor master in ECC during conversion to S/4 ?

In SAP Business Suite (ERP 600 and Enhancement Packages), customer master data and vendor master data transactions such as FD01, FD02, FD03, XD01, XD02, XD03, FK01, FK02, FK03, XK01, XK02 and XK03 have been enhanced by customers with additional fields using BAdI. In the customer and vendor master dialog transactions, these fields were integrated by adding additional sub-screens to the existing screens.

Moving to a SAP S4HANA release, traditional customer/vendor master transactions are made obsolete and replaced by the business partner transaction BP. Because of this, all extension-specific fields have to be integrated into the business partner.

PDF document attached with OSS note 2309153 provides a guideline how customers can transfer the enhancements they have made in the customer/vendor transactions to transaction BP, so that a maintenance of these fields remains possible after the upgrade to a S4HANA release.

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2309153

Brought to you by the S/4HANA RIG

Thanks

Ajeet Agarwal

Product Expert- SAP S/4HANA RIG- APJ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shashank_agarwal]

Very nice document....

[Former Member]

Nice compilation..good work!!

[venkatanagendrakumar_vara]

Nice document, well articulated.

[former_member345179]

Very useful document. Excellent work!

 

[Former Member]

Ajeet - Great job.Thanks for your contribution.

 

[Former Member]

Nice job.thank you for sharing

[Former Member]

Thanks for the above.

One question: Is it possible in BP to extend the customer or vendor to another company with reference? We have the FI vendor and customer role and what to extend the BP now to a new company code with reference data from an existing company code. How can I do that in BP?

With FK02 or FD03 that was possible.

Thanks!

 

[former_member454851]

Dear Gurus,

While creating vendor in the t-code BP (Create in BP Role field - 000000 Business partner (Gen) option is not appearing into my system). Please let me know am i missing something or i need to configure anything more in order to get this?

Your valuable inputs will be appreciated.

many thanks in advance.

[Ajeet]

 

There is no such functionality available with S/4HANA 1610

Thanks

[former_member209616]

Super document. Just one query though. How is the sensitive field configuration impacted as the transactions FK08 is blocked based on what is written in the 1610 simplification list. Need to understand if I want to make certain fields as sensitive should I do it in the vendor account group or in the BP role field mapping. But the concern is that certain fields as appearing in the vendor account group may not be available in the BP field mappings. Moreover, if FK08 is missing and I define some fields as sensitive in account group, how are changes approved or rejected?

[chirdeeprastogi]

Hi Ajeet

What remediation steps we can carry out if we miss to do these suggested migration steps and complete the migration from FCC system to S/4 HANA 1610?

Regards

[former_member208541]

Hi Ajeet, Very nice document. I recently have been put in a HANA project. Iam SD consultant. My questions.

 

1) My understanding is that before customers and vendors are moved from ECC to HANA box, the above config settings for BP  needs to be in place in HANA box. And when customers /vendors are moved from ECC 6 to HANA, a BP for each customer and vendor is created in HANA system. This process is called Integration .   Is my understanding correct ?

2) How are customers/vendors moved from ECC to HANA System ?

3) Simplifi cation list is bit difficult to understand. When else I can check for detailed steps in sequence  to be done for customer and vendors integration  if I stuck up somewhere ?

 

4) What about Partner functions. How they are moved from ECC to HANA. We can have Z partner functions attached to a customer or vendor in ECC

regards

sachin

 

[former_member476626]

Hi AJeet

 

your article seems to  be for the case where there is Greenfield HANA implementation and all config explained in your article seems to be done in HANA system.

can you pls advice if we have existing ECC system and we need to upgrade it to HANA. In that case we will already have number ranges and account groups defined for customers in ECC. So do we need to do all BP related config in ECC only ?

secondly how existing customers in ECC 6 be converted into BP and at what stage ?

 

regards

sachin

 

 

[former_member485912]

Hi Ajeet,

 

How to enhance the BP with vendor master custom fields for LFM1 and LFM2 in Hana 1610

We have new requirement to enhance BP transaction with vendor master custom fields for LFM1 and LFM2. Please let us know if any customer exit or BADI available for screen enhancement to update those custom fields using CREMAS IDOC.

Thanks

Ramesh M

 

[former_member190949]

Hello Sachin,

In that case you just dont do the action mentioned in the last screenshot of the blog as in your case , the number ranges  are set up for the customers.

BUT you need to do all the configuration related to BP. (you use BUC2 and BUCF  for he number .ranges for BP)

IF you want the BP to be created with the same number as the Customer click on the SAME indicator in the path below as mentioned in the post

         Define Number Assignment for Direction BP to Vendor/Customer

         Cross-Application Components–> Master Data Synchronization–>Customer/Vendor Integration          –> Business Partner Settings –> Settings for Vendor Integration –> Field Assignment for                   Vendor Integration–> Assign Keys

          Define Number Assignment for Direction BP to Vendor

You can use transaction FLBPC1/ FLBPD1 to create BP from Vendor/ Customer.

But for mass creation you could use the MDS_LOAD_COCKPIT to create BP from existing vendor/customer.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Kavita

[Former Member]

Hi dear,

 

My first post ever here.I  am working with the The new S/4 hana Finance (1610) .

I have to exercise an end2nd order to cash proces:

I need to create a bp and assign different roles to it. May I ask why SAP created different roles like customer (new) , customer (fi) , customer , sold-to party , and so on . What is the difference between sold-to party?

As I do not have authority to change the settings or do any configuration, there is customer ID created in background while assigning the role 'Sold-to party' to my newly created bp.

The customer ID differs from my bp number. Please guide me how I can search for the customer ID knowing my bp number. I need the customer ID, to create a sales order in order to proceed further.

 

Thanks

arslan

 

[Former Member]

Hi Ajeet,

Thanks for the Post.. I have one doubt regarding Tax assignment in BP - Customer. Could you please suggest .

[Ajeet]

Hi Jyoti

You can add customer Tax  details in Identification tab of BP which will enable you to enter tax details with tax category and tax number and once you save this detail in BP the same you can see in KNA1 table , you can check whether these tax categories exists in table V_TFKTAXNUMTYPE  & V_TFKTAXNUMTYPEC  & also check field BP status that these tax number fields are optional/mandatory not hidden.

 

 

 

[Former Member]

 

Hello Ajeet,

 

With this Business Partner approach, how is the vendor master/customer master setup for intercompany stock transport order process, so that the STR is generated with vendor (i.e. supplying plant) info?

Should the supplying plant be maintained in Business Partner (FLVN01 Vendor) > Purchasing > Additional Purchasing Data?

Thank you,

MK

[Ajeet]

 

Hello Kong

Yes this plant should be setup as BP for STO process.

Regards

Ajeet

[former_member516123]

Hi Ajeet,

 

I have one question.

In our project we have maintained external number range for both BP and Vendor.

So for example let's say I have BP123 business partner and VN123 Vendor then how can I find the relation using one of the number?

Means I have VN123 Vendor with me and I want to know which BP is associated with this Vendor then from which Table I can find the relation?

[Ajeet]

 

There was a missing functionality of creating customer/vendors with reference which is now available with 1610 FPS02 release . The process for creating customer/vendor with reference is explained below.

Once  you select a BP role which belongs to a "Customer" or "vendor" type BP role category in the "Create in BP role" field, the "with Ref." button will show up behind the "Group" button at the top left corner of the screen.

[Ajeet]

Tables are same those were in ECC i.e for BP its BUT000 and vendor LFA1, LFB1 etc.

Regards

Ajeet

[Former Member]

We are about to migrate to S/4HANA, we discovered that there are existing vendors with the same assigned number as that of the existing business partners, what would be the solution for this?

[mainroad]

Hello Ajeet.

 

I have been working with S4 HANA 1610, and requier a BAPI to create a BP with several roles, currently the Customer is created in Point of Sales, and i have to reply to SAP.

Any help will be fine to me..

 

Ben.

[Ajeet]

 

Hi Ben

You can use transaction LTMC which provides most of the cutover master data and cutover data upload standard functionality , this includes creation of business partner with respective Customer/Vendor roles.

Hope this helps

Regards

Ajeet

[Vikash1]

Hi Ajeet,

 

Earlier we used to create every company code in SAP as a customer and a Vendor for Intercompany with unique no and now in S/4 1610 with BP SAP recommend to have the same number for Customer/vendor as BP no.and if this is the case than how we are going reconcile as the transaction is both way..So isn't that for ICY there should be separate number for Customer and Vendor for BP?

If some one has done something in past, please share.

Regards,

Vikash

[Vikash1]

Hi Ajeet,

 

Good document on Business partner however I have a query with regard to Intercompany set up in 1610. In ECC we used to have a separate customer and Vendor created for each Intercompany entity with TP assigned in their master data and this helped in reconciliation the transactions. With BP SAP recommend that we should have the same number for BP and customer and Vendor and if this is the case than it becomes very difficult to manage the reconcialition.

Can you please help what is the best practice for ICY customer and Vendor in 1610?

Regards,

 

Vikash

[Former Member]

Hi Ajeet,

We are trying to integrate the customer master in ECC to S/4 HANA wherein ECC is the source of customer master data. In S/4 HANA, does it have any download functionality like the transaction R3AR2/R3AR4/R3AR3 using object CUSTOMER_MAIN in SAP CRM to pull the customer master data in ECC? Or is there any existing ALEs/BAPIs/BOLs that can be used to push the customer master data from ECC to S/4 HANA or vise versa? If none, can you suggest any method that can be used to cater the integration of customer master between the two systems, please?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much!

Regards,

Mike

[Former Member]

Hi Ajeet

as i created customer but not able to extend  to vendor is this possible ? because as i am extending to mm vendor role its showing this error

You cannot create a vendor with grouping X001

x001 is my internal grouping code for customer

please guide on this

[Former Member]

Hi Ajeet,

 

Our system is S4HANA 1610 FPS02, however, "with Ref." button is not displayed.

Do we need to activate some customizes?

Could you show the screen shot of the button is displayed on this page?

[former_member419267]

Dear Ajeeth Garu,

It's really a very helpful document for beginners learning SAP HANA - The BP Configuration.

Very nice.

[Former Member]

Hi Ajeet,

 

Thank you very much for the elaborate document on BP.

I have a question on how to create and assign the partner functions to BP, if a particular customer has multiple ship to parties, bill to parties and Payer for the same Sold to Party. Do we have a different BP role available in 1610 to achieve this functionality or is this handled in a in a differ way.

 

Thanks,

Sudarshan

[former_member288761]

How to link up existing customer master data with business partner to get worklist in collection managment

[ahmet_berk]

Hi

I create a business partner(for customer data) and I want to extend it to customer for sd.

I selected customer(New) in Create in BP Role field but sap (version16.10) said to me business partner 90000053 already exits. I thought that I can create it but it said it already exist.

In ECC, I could extend to customer data(customer number) in sd area company code in the past.

Does BP funcionality be so different from the ECC version?  I thought that They are in the same rule.

Can you help me to understand this bp functionality?

 

 

[Ajeet]

 

Hi Ahmet

Once you created BP then you have to just select roles to be extended using same BP number for which you want to extend to other roles for example SD Customer / Supplier etc , however the Number for all the roles would be same which you already have created and now just extending to other roles.

[Former Member]

Hi Ajeet,

Very helpful document.

I am checking one field "LFA1-STCD1" in BP . In field status for the Account Group of the BP in T-code OBD3  the field maintained as Optional under "General Data" > "Control Data" Hierarchy.

I am unable find the value if I go to BP.

Can you put some light on this.

Regards

Rakshith

 

 

 

 

[Ajeet]

 

Hi Rakshith

You may refer below screen which may helpful.



You can add customer Tax  details in Identification tab of BP which will enable you to enter tax details with tax category and tax number and once you save this detail in BP the same you can see in KNA1 table , you can check whether these tax categories exists in table V_TFKTAXNUMTYPE  & V_TFKTAXNUMTYPEC  & also check field BP status that these tax number fields are optional/mandatory not hidden.

 

[Former Member]

Hi Ajeet,

 

We currently have existing vendors/ customer numbers in SOH, the problem is when we need to migrate to S/4 HANA, we need to externally assign the BP number range. Can you share your idea on that?

 

Thanks a lot!

[Former Member]

Hi Kavita,

 

Just a quick question, can we assign BP with external number range, meaning we will not automatically assign it from the customer/ vendor?

Thanks in advance!

[flaviojr69]

Hi Ajeet,

 

In System Conversion Project, what happens with the open items of customers and vendors?

[Former Member]

Hi Ajeet,

I'm quite new to this CVI(Customer-Vendor Integration) for the new Business Partner, just wanted to know if it is possible to view a standard report(for customer or vendor) in SAP by using the business partner relationship.

Scenario:

- I have a parent company called "Audi Global"

- It has subsidiary business partner below it named "Audi EMEA" and "Audi ASIA"

Desired Outcome:

- I'll be posting to "XYZ EMEA" and "XYZ ASIA" but I wanted it to reflect as well in the "XYZ Global" customer since it is their parent organization

Is this possible? I've created the relationships in the BP but i think i haven't customized it correctly

Hope to hear from you if you knew the answer. 

[Former Member]

Hello Ajeet,

Appreciate your post !

Kindly clarify whether we can control suppress/optional/required features for account group wise Define Account Groups with Screen Layout (Vendors) (Tcode: OBD3) where i tried hide a particular field which is not getting hiding. This means these field status groups will not work any more?. We need control only role wise?

 

Thanks,

[Former Member]

Maybe I'd add how to hide a single field, without removing a whole section. Here is a step by step guide on how to do it: http://www.datavard.com/en/blog-how-to-customize-business-partner-on-sap-s4hana/

[Former Member]

Hello Ajeet,

 

Thank you so much for the informations, they are so helpful.

 

I'm doing a conversion from a non-SAP system to SAP S/4HANA and I'm trying to migrate the BP data. My doubt is similar to the question made by Angela, it is about the number assignment.

In the SAP S/4HANA 1610 is it only possible to assign external number ranges to the BP data migrated? Are there any way to assign internal numbers? If yes, how could I do this?

 

Thank you so much!

Regards,

Amanda Bezerra

[former_member544329]

it was very nice Document Thank you Ajeet.

[former_member190949]

Yes.

You definitely can. Sorry for the delay.

[former_member190949]

 

Hello Angela

In an initial load where one creates new BPs, most cutsomer would want the BP number to be the same as that their existing Vendor. Thus the tick of Same in CVI & external number range.

In case this is not true for you, Please assign an internal number range for the BP grouping mapped to the Vendor Acc group. This way the number will be generated internally.

Hope it helps

Thanks

[former_member190949]

Hello Amanada,

In an initial load where one creates new BPs, most cutsomer would want the BP number to be the same as that their existing Vendor. Thus the tick of Same in CVI & external number range.

In case this is not true for you, Please assign an internal number range for the BP grouping mapped to the Vendor Acc group. This way the number will be generated internally.

Hope it helps

Thanks

 

[former_member446237]

 

Hello Ajeet,

Thanks for the post. It is very useful. can you please also clarify how we can control  suppress/optional/required features based on account groups or Business Partner Groupings.  Is it only possible to control field status via BP roles / types?

I am involved in a Greenfield S/4 implementation and this is a very big concern for us at the moment as there is a definite requirement to control field statuses based on different account groups. Appreciate your help!

Thanks,

Ankit Periwal

Accenture