SAP SD Partners in the Sales and Distribution Process

Implementation Options

The following shows how partner determination is used in sales and distribution processing. The procedure is divided into two parts:

1. Creating master records
2. Creating sales documents

Prerequisites

You have implemented the settings described in the section Partner control in Customizing.

Process Flow

I. Creating Master Records

1. If you create a customer master record, you must first of all decide which functions this customer fulfills in the business process. Then you select the account group for the customer.

If your customer merely acts as the ship-to party, create a master record for a ship-to party. In this case the system automatically proposes the account group 002. The partner can then only occur as the ship-to party.

You can find further information on the account group under Account groups.

2. Then you can determine which other partners are involved in the business transactions and which functions these partners fulfill, for example, additional ship-to parties, contact persons or forwarding agents.

3. In the screen Partner functions sales area assign the possible functions to the customer and enter the other partners and their functions. All of the partners that you enter here must already have a master record.

If you create a master record for a sold-to party, the sold-to party is automatically added to the mandatory partner functions Ship-to party, Bill-to party and Payer. You can however overwrite the partners, if the partner functions have been defined in Customizing as changeable.

Example

The following table contains some examples of the partner combinations which can occur on the market and which activities you execute in the R/3 system, in order to show these relationships in the customer master record.

Scenario:	Activities	Prerequisites
The partner issues orders, receives the goods and the invoice and pays.	You create a sold-to party master record for the customer (account group 001).
Customer A has three partners, to whom goods can be delivered.	You create a sold-to party master record for customer A. In the screen Partner Functions Sales Area enter all three possible ship-to parties.	There are master records for the three partners with the possible partner function SP. You have not defined the function SP as definite in Customizing.
Customer 101 is the sold-to party, the invoices are paid for by customer 102 (e.g. central payment point)	You create a master record for the sold-to party. In the screen Partner Functions Sales Area change the default Customer 101 to Customer 102 in the field Payer PY.	A master record exists for customer 102 with the possible partner function PY.
Forwarding agent T is generally commissioned with deliveries to customer 4.	In the screen Partner Functions Sales Area enter the additional partner function SP and the forwarding agent creditor number.	A vendor master record exists for the forwarding agent.

II. Creating Sales Documents

1. When you create a customer sales order, enter the sold-to party.

You can also enter a ship-to party first. The system then uses this to determine the sold-to party.

2. Using the sold-to party the system extends the partners created for the functions on the partner screen in the customer master record. These have been determined for the corresponding document type in the partner determination procedure (if it was not determined in
Controlling partner origin in the partner determination procedure, that specific functions are not dependent on the sold-to party but are replaced by another partner function)

If several partners have been created in a customer master for a function, a screen appears on which you can choose the valid partners for this document.

If no partner has been defined in the customer master for a partner function, this function is not automatically transferred into the document. You can enter this function manually onto the order partner screen.

If a partner function has been defined in the partner determination procedure as a mandatory partner function, but no partner has been defined in the customer master, you must enter the partner manually or else the order will be incomplete.

3. If required, change the partner in the partner screen for the document header or the document items. This is only possible, if the functions in the partner determination procedure are defined as changeable.
4. If required, enter other functions in the partner screen. The functions, which you add, must be contained in the partner determination procedure.

Result

The required partners are automatically copied into the subsequent order documents (for example, the bill-to party in the billing document).