Setting up Business Partner S/4 HANA

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 1610/1709/1809.
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 Proces

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

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.
How to convert existing Vendor/Customers while doing 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%20Coo
kbook%20Customer%20Vendor%20Integration.pdf
Brought to you by the S/4HANA RIG
Thanks
Ajeet Agarwal

Product Expert- SAP S/4HANA RIG- APJ