Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

 S/4HANA Business Partner Setup. In this providing some basic configuration steps required
in case we must customize our own Business Partners (Customer/Vendor).

 SAP ERP Transaction codes (like XD01, XD02, XD03 or VD01, VD02, VD03/XK01, XK02, XK03
or MK01, MK02, MK03 or VAP1, VAP2, VAP3 etc) related to Customer/Vendor are Obsolete in
S/4HANA and we will be using the transaction code: BP for creating Business Partners
(Customer, Vendor, Contact etc.)
 BP Number will be generated separately for each Business Partner created and in the
background Customer/Vendor number will be generated based on Customer-Vendor Integration
settings. It is recommended to have same BP ID (Business Partner Number) & Customer
Number /Vendor Number but not mandatory, it is detailed at step no’s 6 & 7.

Business Partner:
Business Partner is the party with whom we have a business interest.
Business Partners can be Accounts, Contacts & Employees.
1. Accounts: Any account with which we have a business relationship. That can either be

 Individual Accounts (Private Individuals) OR

 Corporate Accounts (i.e., Company(ies) or Organization(s)) OR
 Account Groups (Any Groupings)

2. Contacts: A Contact is a person with whom we have business relationship.

3. Employees: An employee is a member of your company, who is involved in the interactions
between your company and customers, vendors and other parties.
Business Partner Role: Business Partner Role is used to distinguish the business partner in
business terms. The Roles you assign to a Business Partner will define the business transactions in
which that particular partner is involved. i.e. Customers, Vendors, contact persons, employees or
other parties.
Business Partner (BP) Setup:
In this step, we will be performing the configuration setup required to define Business Partner Roles
and Customer-Vendor Integration Points which are required to create customer, vendor or contact
person using BP Approach in SAP S/4HANA.
Example: In case you want to setup multiple BP Roles like Sold-To, Ship-To, Bill-To, Payer, Contact
Person, Vendor etc. as per the business needs. we have to follow the below steps to create those
Roles in SAP S/4HANA.
1. Activation of Synchronization Objects:
To synchronize the BP with Customer/Vendor or Customer/Vendor with BP, this indicator must be set.
Configuration Path – Synchronization Object Activation:
SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> Master Data Synchronization -> Synchronization Control -
> Synchronization Control -> Activate Synchronization Options.
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

2. Activation of PPO (Postprocessing Office) Requests:

We will activate this setting to decide whether a PPO transport should be written in the event of an
error for each platform Object. This will help us in error handling.
Configuration Path – Synchronization Object Activation:
SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> Master Data Synchronization -> Synchronization Control -
> Synchronization Control -> Activate PPO Requests for Platform Objects in the Dialog.

3. PPO Objects:
In this step, we will be activating/deactivating the Postprocessing Orders creation. If we activate this,
then all messages from a business process for the same object are combined under a main message.
This will then be collected by Postprocessing Office for mass processing of messages.
Configuration Path – Activate Creation of PPO Orders:
SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> General Application Functions -> Postprocessing Office ->
Business Processes -> Activate Creation of Postprocessing Orders

Steps mentioned below are to be performed for both Customer & Vendor as well.
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

4. Creation of BP Roles:
Before creating BP roles, we must create BP Role Categories and define the category of each
business partner using the below path.
In S/4HANA, we have 3 different categories of BP’s.

 Organization – Can be a company, association, department etc.

 Group – Married Couple, shared partners etc.
 Person – Individuals.

Once BP Role categories are defined, BP Roles will be created and each Role is linked with one BP
Role category.
Configuration Path BP Role Category:
SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic
Settings -> Business Partner Roles -> Define BP Roles -> BP Role Categories.

Configuration Path BP Role:

SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic
Settings -> Business Partner Roles -> Define BP Roles -> BP Roles.
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

For certain BP’s, Company Code Data or Sales & distribution or Purchasing org data are not required
and, in few cases, only General Data is required, such cases can be handled using SAP standard
views.
But for some BP Roles, we will be needing all the views (General Data, Company Code Data, Sales &
Distribution, Purchase Org Data), such requirements can be configured by defining our own views &
maintaining the relevant screen sequences, sub-header id’s, data sets, calling applications.
We will create this BP views using the transaction code BUSD and assign these views to relevant BP
role under Interface control sub screen during BP Role creation (see above screenshot).
Tcode: BUSD
Create new BP view:
Here we will define our own View and do the required assignments as per business need.
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

Assign Data Sets:

Data sets is nothing but the sub-screen/tab which we want to include in our BP role like Additional
data tabs, Data set will be created by ABAP consultant.

Screen Sequences:
To have multiple screens/views for each BP Role (i.e., Company Code Data & Sales and Distribution
data & Purchase Org Data), we will have to add screen sequences as shown below.
This will enable calling of all views in single BP role.

Sub-header ID:
We have to add sub-header IDs, in order to get options to navigate to different screens for same BP
Role.
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

5. Number Ranges and Groupings:

In this step, we will be defining new number ranges for each BP Role.
Configuration Path Number Range Creation:
SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic
Settings -> Number Ranges and Groupings -> Define Number Ranges.

BP Grouping –
For BP configuration we have BP grouping, these BP grouping will be linked to account groups (refer
step 7).
We will create BP groupings (Number Range Grouping) and assign the number range Ids in this step.
Configuration Path Defining Grouping and Assign Grouping to Number Ranges:
SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic
Settings -> Number Ranges and Groupings -> Define Groupings and Assign Number Ranges.

6. Create Account Groups for Customer or Vendor (as in SAP ECC):

As part of S/4HANA BP setup, we also create customer/vendor account groups (like in SAP ECC) and
link it with BP number groupings created in the above step.
There are 2 ways of creating BP and Customer/Vendor.

 We will create BP first and in the background customer/vendor will be created automatically.
 We will create customer/vendor first and in the background, system will create BP automatically.
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

This creation will be controlled by the settings present in step 7.

 Customer Account Groups Setup:

Configuration Path – Create Customer Account Groups:

SPRO-> Financial Accounting -> Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable -> Customer Accounts -
> Master Data -> Preparations for Creating Customer Master Data -> Define Account Groups with
Screen Layout (Customers).

Similarly, we have to create Vendor Account Group using the path:

Configuration Path – Create Vendor Account Groups:
SPRO-> Financial Accounting -> Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable -> Vendor Accounts ->
Master Data -> Preparations for Creating Vendor Master Data -> Define Account Groups with Screen
Layout (Vendors).

 Number Ranges for Customer Accounts:

In this step, we will create number ranges as per the Customer/Vendor Account Groups.
Configuration Path – Create Number Ranges for Customer Accounts:
SPRO-> Financial Accounting -> Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable -> Customer Accounts -
> Master Data -> Preparations for Creating Customer Master Data -> Create Number Ranges for
Customer Accounts.
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

In order to have same number generated for Business Partners & Customers/Vendors, we have to
define the customer/vendor account number ranges as external and also we have to enable the check
box for same number while assigning direction for BP to customer (which is shown in step 7).
Below is the path to create number ranges for Vendor Account Groups:
Configuration Path – Create Number Ranges for Vendor Accounts:
SPRO-> Financial Accounting -> Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable -> Vendor Accounts ->
Master Data -> Preparations for Creating Vendor Master Data -> Create Number Ranges for Vendor
Accounts.
In the below step, we will assign the number ranges to customer account groups.
Configuration Path – Assign Number Ranges for Customer Accounts:
SPRO-> Financial Accounting -> Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable -> Customer Accounts -
> Master Data -> Preparations for Creating Customer Master Data -> Assign Number Ranges to
Customer Account Groups.

Similarly, we have to assign the number ranges to vendor account groups using below path:
Configuration Path – Assign Number Ranges for Vendor Accounts:
SPRO-> Financial Accounting -> Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable -> Vendor Accounts ->
Master Data -> Preparations for Creating Vendor Master Data -> Assign Number Ranges to Vendor
Account Groups.
7. Number Range Assignment from BP to Customer Master:
In this step, we will assign BP grouping to customer account group to ensure that the customer is
updated at the same time as the business partner is processed as part of customer integration.
In this step, we can also choose whether the customer master record is created with an account
group with internal or external number assignment or with identical numbers for the BP created.
Configuration Path – Assignment of Number Range from BP to Customer:
SPRO -> Master Data Synchronization -> Customer/Vendor Integration -> Business Partner Settings -
> Settings for Customer Integration -> Field Assignment for Customer Integration -> Assign Keys ->
Define Number Assignment for Direction BP to Customer.
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

Similarly, we have to assign number range from BP to vendor using below path:
Configuration Path – Assignment of Number Range from BP to Vendor:
SPRO -> 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.
8. BP Role Category for Direction:
In this step, we will define the direction of BP role category. i.e. whether customer to be created from
BP creation or BP creation should happen when the Customer is created.
Configuration Path – Set BP Role Category for Direction:
SPRO-> Master Data Synchronization -> Customer/Vendor Integration -> Business Partner Settings -
> Settings for Customer Integration -> Set BP Role Category for Direction BP to Customer.

Similarly, we have to set BP Role Category of vendor for direction using the below path:
Configuration Path – Set BP Role Category for Direction:
SPRO-> Master Data Synchronization -> Customer/Vendor Integration -> Business Partner Settings -
> Settings for Vendor Integration -> Set BP Role Category for Direction BP to Vendor.
9. BP Role Exclusion Groups:
In case, if we do not want to extend any business partner to another BP Role (or to restrict one
business partner to one BP role), then those BP roles must be maintained in BP role exclusion group.
While changing business partner, system will not display the BP Roles other than the one under which
business partner has created.
In this step, we will define BP exclusion group and add BP Roles in it.
Configuration Path – Define BP Role Exclusion Group:
SPRO -> Cross-Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic
Settings -> Business Partner Roles -> Define BP Role Exclusion Groups -> Define BP Role Exclusion
Groups
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

Configuration Path – Assign BP Roles to BP Role Exclusion Group:

SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic
Settings -> Business Partner Roles -> Define BP Role Exclusion Groups -> Assign BP Role to BP
Role Exclusion Group

10. Contact Person:

In order to create contact person business partner in S/4HANA, BP role category for BP role (contact
person) should be set as “Person”.
We will have to activate the contact person assignment using the path:
Configuration Path – Activate Assignment of Contact Person:
SPRO -> Master Data Synchronization -> Customer/Vendor Integration -> Business Partner Settings -
> Settings for Customer Integration -> Field Assignment for Customer Integration -> Assign Attributes
-> Contact Person -> Activate Assignment of Contact Persons.

Using transaction BP, we must create contact person business partner as a person. Once BP contact
person is created, assign this contact person to any of business partners (Customer, Vendor) as “Has
a contact person” under relationships tab.
Once the contact person business partner is saved, this BP will be automatically synchronized to
contact person via Customer-Vendor integration and to check the contact person number in SAP table
after integration takes place, we must execute the transaction code: MDS_LINKS to find the contact
person mapped to a BP number.
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

11. Field Status Group Settings:

In S/4HANA, field status group settings will be done using the below path.
To perform fields status group settings, we will have to create field attributes for BP Roles.
Configuration Path- Field Status Group Settings:
SPRO-> Cross-Application Components -> SAP Business Partner -> Business Partner -> Basic
Settings -> Field Groupings -> Configure Field Attributes per BP Role -> Configure Field Attributes for
Each Role Category.

Once BP Role is added, we will get all the Datasets mapped to BP Role view and we will have to
make the fields Mandatory/Optional/Suppress/Not. Specific as shown in below screen.

12. Partner Determination:

We can define our own partner determination procedure and assign it to the customer/vendor account
groups as in SAP ECC.
Configuration Path- Setup Partner Determination (Tcode: VOPAN):
SPRO-> Sales and Distribution -> Basic Functions -> Partner Determination -> Set Up Partner
Determination.
Similarly, by using the below path we will have to setup partner determination for Vendor Account
Groups.
Configuration Path- Setup Partner Determination (Tcode: VOPAN):
Business Partner Setup in SAP S/4HANA

SPRO-> Materials Management -> Purchasing -> Partner Determination -> Partner Settings in
Purchasing Documents -> Define Partner Schemas.
BP Creation:
Transaction code: BP
Click on Organization & BP Customer creation screen will appear. Select the desired BP Role you
have created & create the BP Customer.