Everything you must know about Business Partner concept in SAP

This blog post covers what every SAP technical and functional consultant must know about the SAP business partner concept. Here's a summary of what is important to know about the types of business partners, business partner category, business partner grouping, BP roles, BP Role exclusion groups, BP relationships, BP related SAP tables and the data Business partners can hold.

What is a Business Partner?

It is an entity which has interest in the business.


Types of Business Partners

1. Account - The party with which there is a business relationship
        A. Individual
        B. Corporate
        C. Group Account
2. Contact - A person with which there is a business relationship.
3. Employee - A member of company

What is Business Partner Category?

  • The classification of business partner as a Person, Org or a Group is called Business Partner Category.
  • BP Category cannot be changed once a Business Partner has been created. 

What is Business Partner Grouping?

  • On BP creation, the number assignment is determined by Grouping.
  • The internal number assignment is default. 
Standard groupings can be defined in customizing:
SAP IMG -> Cross Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic Settings -> Number Range and Groupings
1. Define number ranges(Tcode BUCF)
2. Assign number range to groupings

BP Role Concept

  • The role defines the functions a BP has and the business transactions in which it can be involved.
  • It controls which assignment blocks will be available.
  • To view and define new BP roles, follow the customizing path:
Cross Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic Settings -> Business Partner Roles
Examples of BP roles:
Sold-to Party, Ship-to party, Bill-to party, Payer, Consumer, etc.

In addition to the above, the BP role category in CRM maps to Account Classification in ECC and thus, is useful in data exchange between CRM and ECC.

BP Role Category
Customer
Consumer
Prospect
Competitor
Sold-to party
x
Ship-to party
x
Bill-to party
x
Payer
x
Consumer
x
Prospect
x
Competitor
x

BP Role Exclusion Groups

BP Role exclusion Group defines which roles cannot be simultaneously assigned to a business partner. 

Lets understand this with an example of a Sales and Marketing Scenario.

A company carries out a marketing campaign for a product/service and captures some Prospects (those entities who have shown some interest). Now the company approaches these prospects to demonstrate its products/services. It is when any of these prospects buy the product/services from the company that it becomes a customer and is no more called a prospect.

So, in the above example, the business partner can either have the business role 'Prospect' or 'Customer' but not both. In such a case, a BP role exclusion group can be created with these business roles so that no business partner can be assigned more than one role from the group.

To create a BP role exclusion group, follow the customizing path:
Cross Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic Settings -> Business Partner Roles -> Define BP Role Exclusion Groups

Business Partner Relationships

  • BP Relationship represents a business connection between 2 Business Partners.
  • SPRO Path for Customizing:
Cross Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner Relationships
  • To create a BP Relationship between 2 BPs, Business Partner Relationship Category needs to be assigned to the BP Relationship.
  • The BP Relationship can be time bound.


Account Hierarchy

Account hierarchy in SAP CRM maps to customer hierarchy in SAP ECC. Account hierarchy is particularly helpful in pricing. Look at the self-explanatory example below:
This graphic is explained in the accompanying text.

Business Partner related tables

Below is the list of only the most frequently used tables in projects:
  • BUT000: BP General Data - ID, Category, BP type. First Name, Last Name
  • BUT010: BP Roles
  • BUT020: BP addresses - contains address numbers, using this address number the address can be fetched from the table ADRC.
  • BUT050 : view relationship between 2 BPs
  • BUT0BK: BP Bank details - Bank Acc no, Bank Key, etc.
  • BNKA : Bank Master data
  • BUT100: BP roles
  • TB003 lists all available roles
  • TB003A lists the BP role categories
  • ADR2 : Telephone numbers
  • ADR6 : Email addresses
  • ADRC - contains addresses

Business Partner Data

Business Partners can be created and maintained in SAP GUI using transaction 'BP' in SAP GUI. Examples of what information can be stored in 'Address Overview' and 'Payment Transaction' tabs is given below:

Address Data

A business partner can have multiple addresses stored against multiple address types. One of these addresses can be marked as a default address i.e. standard address. The standard address is used as a default address in transactions.

Apart from the SAP delivered address types such as 'Goods Receipt', 'Send Order' etc., you can create your own address types by following the path:

Cross Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic Settings -> Address Determination -> Define Address Types.

The addresses are stored against any BP in ADRC table. You will need to enter in ADRC table the address number of the address which you can find in table BUT000.

Bank Data

  • The bank account of a customer can be identified using country key of the bank, bank key and the account number.
  • The bank details are time-dependent.
  • Using the BP Number and Bank Detail ID, details such as Bank Account Number, Account Holder’s Name, and Name of Bank Account etc. can be obtained from the table BUT0BK.


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