Use
In sales and distribution there are:
- Business partners
A customer master record must be created for business partners.
- Contact Persons with the Business Partner
Data on contact persons is stored in the customer master record of the respective business partner. A separate master record for contact persons is not created. A new number is assigned to each contact person within a customer master record.
Business partners
A business partner can be a natural or legal person who is directly involved in a business transaction with you. The following partner functions are defined in the system:
- Sold-to party
- Ship-to party
- Payer
- Bill-to party
Sold-to party
For the sold-to party, data on sales is necessary (for example, the assignment to a sales office or to a valid price list).
In most cases, the company which places an order for the delivery of goods or the rendering of services is at the same time ship-to party, payer and bill-to party. For this reason in the SAP R/3 System the function sold-to party includes all these other functions.
Ship-to party
For the ship-to party only data required for shipping is necessary (for example, unloading point and goods receiving hours).
Payer
A payer is a company or person who settles the invoices for delivered goods or rendered services. For the payer data on billing schedules and bank data is necessary.
Bill-to party
For the bill-to party you need the address, data on output and possibly data on electronic communication.
Contact Persons with the Business Partner
In your customer's company there are always one or more contact persons with whom you are in contact either by phone, in writing or personally to carry out business transactions. Often, the information you need about the contact persons is not the same as the information you need about the customer. The most important data of the contact person is name, telephone number, and department. Since the contact person is part of the customer's company, you enter this data in the respective customer master record. Thus, you do not need a separate master record for contact persons.
However, in the standard version of the SAP R/3 System you can only enter the data on the contact person in the customer master record of the sold-to party, since only contact persons from this master record are proposed for selection in the sales order.
Dividing Partner Functions
The company or person who places an order is often the same company or person who receives both the goods and the invoice, and also pays. In this case the customer fulfills all predefined functions. It is also quite common, however, that subsidiaries place orders, and the head office settles the respective invoices. In this case the partner functions are divided among different companies.
If a customer fulfills all functions at the same time, only one master record is necessary, in which all data required for these functions is entered. In this case you create a master record for the sold-to party.
If the functions are divided among different companies, a corresponding number of master records is needed. In one master record you enter, for example, the address of the sold-to party for correspondence, in another one the address of the ship-to party for the delivery. Only in the customer master record of the sold-to party is a link between the individual partners established, and this is done by entering the customer number of the respective partners.
Screen and Field Selection for Partner Functions
When you enter a customer master record for the ship-to party, you need special data for shipping (for example, the unloading point and goods receiving hours). In this case, data on sales or billing is not necessary, providing the ship-to party is not the payer and sold-to party at the same time.
You can limit the screens and fields accessed in the customer master record so that only the necessary data is entered. You do this using account groups. The function of a customer is defined by assigning an account group.
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