Business Partner Approach in SAP S/4HANA

青旅半醒 2022-09-10 11:27 3阅读 0赞

As part of the SAP S/4HANA Business Partner (Central Master Data) development team, we come across many concerns during the migration from ERP to SAP S/4HANA. It is vital to understand the business partner approach before migrating to SAP S/4HANA. This blog attempts to give you the latest information on business partner approach, customer/supplier integration, and conversion process. This blog is also inspired from the top simplification list items.

## **Business Partner Approach** ##

In SAP S/4HANA, Business Partner is the leading object and single point of entry to maintain Business Partner, Customer, and Supplier (formerly known as Vendor) master data.

This is to ensure the ease of master data maintenance and to achieve harmonization between them. Compared to classical ERP transactions, maintenance of Customer and Supplier master data via Business Partner has many advantages:

*  A legal entity is represented with one Business Partner.
 *  Business Partner allows maintenance of multiple addresses with corresponding address usages.
 *  In classical transactions, one customer can only be associated to one account group. But in Business Partner, multiple roles can be associated to the same Business Partner.
 *  Maximal data sharing and reuse of data which lead to an easier data consolidation.
 *  General Data available for all different Business Partner roles, specific data is stored for each role.
 *  Maintenance of multiple relationships to the same Business Partner.
 *  Maintenance of Time Dependency at different sub-entities roles, address, relationship, bank data etc.

## **Customer Supplier Integration (CVI)** ##

There are redundant object models in the traditional ERP system. Here the vendor (now, supplier) master and customer master is used. The (mandatory) target approach in SAP S/4HANA is the **Business Partner Approach**. Customer Supplier Integration is a perquisite to move to SAP S/4HANA.

![e2e10704798ecf57b57842e72d513ee0.png][]

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

It is planned to check the introduction of the **CVI** in the pre-checks and the technical Conversion procedure of SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition 1511, 1610, and 1709. A system where the customer/supplier integration is not in place will be declined for the transition.

## **Changes in Business Process ** ##

Only SAP Business Suite customer with Customer/Supplier integration in place can move to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise(**Conversion** approach). It is recommended but not mandatory that BuPa ID and Customer ID/Vendor ID are the same.

The user interface for SAP S/4HANA is **transaction BP**. There is no specific user interface for customer/supplier like known from SAP Business Suite (the specific SAP GUI transactions like XD01, XD02, XD03 or VD01, VD02, VD03/XK01, XK02, XK03 or MK01, MK02, MK03 etc. are not available in SAP S/4HANA on-premise)

<table> 
 <tbody> 
  <tr> 
   <td style="vertical-align:top;"><a href="https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/sic/itemSet%28'%20rel=" rel="nofollow">Transaction not available in SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition</a></td> 
   <td style="vertical-align:top;">FD01, FD02, FD03, FD06, FD0<br> FK01, FK02, FK03, FK06<br> MAP1, MAP2, MAP3<br> MK01, MK02, MK03, MK06, MK12, MK18, MK19,<br> V-03, V-04, V-05, V-06, V-07, V-08, V-09, V-11, V+21, V+22, V+23<br> VAP1, VAP2, VAP3<br> VD01, VD02, VD03, VD06<br> XD01, XD02, XD03, XD06, XD07<br> XK01, XK02, XK03, XK06, XK07</td> 
  </tr> 
 </tbody> 
</table>

For further information on the modified functionalities and features, refer to [SAP S/4HANA Product Assistance][SAP S_4HANA Product Assistance] > Cross Components > Central Master Data > SAP Business Partner.

## **Activities** ##

***Whether the Business Partner ID and Customer-ID /Vendor ID should be the same in the S/4HANA System? *** The keys for a smooth synchronization of the ERP customer/vendor into the SAP S/4HANA system with the business partner as the leading object are beside Business Partner Know-How also consistent customer/supplier data and valid and consistent customer/supplier and Business Partner customizing entries. For this reason, the customer/supplier data has to be cleaned up before it can be converted into the SAP S/4HANA Business Partner.  
  
SAP has delivered a standard centralized guided cockpit called **CVI Cockpit**, that helps seamless integration to all the required process components, in the intended sequence. This would enable customer/consultant community to perform CVI Synchronization in a hassle-free manner, assisted by a cognitive Cockpit, and get a holistic view of end-to-end conversion process.

The cockpit offers  holistic platform for all the conversion activities from prerequistes, preparation to post conversion steps. You can use transaction CVI\_COCKPIT for accessing it.

For more information, see [New CVI Cockpit – Enabling Movement to SAP S/4HANA through seamless BP Synchronization][New CVI Cockpit _ Enabling Movement to SAP S_4HANA through seamless BP Synchronization]

### **Industry Specific Actions** ###

**IS-OIL Specific Actions:**

*  In S/4HANA all the IS-OIL specific fields (including customer BDRP data fields) have been adapted as per the new Framework of BP.
 *  The IS-OIL Fields related to Vendor and Customer now have been moved to BP under the roles FLCU01 (Customer), FLVN01 (Vendor).

**Retail Sites Specific Action:**

*  Customers and vendors assigned to Retail sites are not handled by CVI synchronization (MDS\_LOAD\_COCKPIT) on SAP ERP as described in this note, but by a specific migration process during SAP S/4HANA conversion. See SAP Note [2310884][] for more information.

**Finance**:

*  Refer to the blog [Business Partner approach: Customer Vendor Integration to Business Partners (CVI)][Business Partner approach_ Customer Vendor Integration to Business Partners _CVI]

## Additional Information ##

*  SAP Note [2265093 ][2265093]– Business Partner Approach
 *  
 *  SAP Note [1923393][] – Contact Person Synchronization
 *  SAP Note [2399368][] – Cockpit Excel Upload
 *  SAP Note [2363892][] – Business Partner as one legal entity
 *  SAP Note [2336018][] – BP S4HANA : Suppress Mandatory BP field
 *  SAP Note [2345087][] – Missing values in required entry fields cause posting termination
 *  SAP Note [2400445][] – Customer Company Data – Deletion/archiving/block not visible in BP transaction
 *  SAP Note [2349671][] – Supplier Company Data – Deletion/archiving/block not visible in BP transaction

[e2e10704798ecf57b57842e72d513ee0.png]: /images/20220829/7574c4e9425940c6a4eb2f5ab27895c6.png
[SAP S_4HANA Product Assistance]: https://help.sap.com/viewer/p/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE
[New CVI Cockpit _ Enabling Movement to SAP S_4HANA through seamless BP Synchronization]: https://blogs.sap.com/2019/10/29/new-cvi-cockpit-enabling-movement-to-sap-s4hana-through-seamless-bp-synchronization/
[2310884]: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/0002310884
[Business Partner approach_ Customer Vendor Integration to Business Partners _CVI]: https://blogs.sap.com/2016/12/19/business-partner-approach-customer-vendor-integration-to-business-partners-cvi/
[2265093]: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2265093
[1923393]: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/1923393
[2399368]: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2399368
[2363892]: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2363892
[2336018]: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2336018
[2345087]: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2345087
[2400445]: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2400445
[2349671]: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2349671