SAP S/4HANA Simple Logistic Customer Master Data changes

From the logistic perspective, the main master data are customer master data and vendor master data. The first thing we learn in S/4HANA is customer-vendor integration (CVI) which is also called business partner.

What is a business partner?

As we know in SAP ECC solution both customer and vendor master data divided into three views.

Customer master data

1.  General view
2.  Finance view
3.  Sales view

Vendor master data

1.  General view
2.  Finance view
3.  Purchasing view

Both are the business partner but there are many business partners thinks of real estate sector, who is the business partner for them.

•  The landlord is a business partner
•  The tenants are a business partner
•  The broker is business partner
•  The lender is a business partner for them.

All of them might not need sales data, finance data or purchasing data. The might need the different set of data. The new dimensional module like CRM, SCM, SRM need the more integrated view of all business partner. The old model for having one particular model for customer and one particular model for vendor no longer holds good for these new dimensional modules.

So SAP has created a shell around customer and vendor data called Business partner. First, we created a business partner where basic data like name, address etc., stored and then if we want to extend this business partner as a customer/vendor we extend the Role of that business partner to customer/vendor or both. Business partner is not new in S/4HANA it is there even before S/4HANA. The only difference is in S/4HANA is that business partner is mandatory. It is a prerequisite.

IN ECC

customer and vendor master data created these ways

Customer master data created with transaction XD01, VD01, FD01

Vendor master data created with transaction Xk01, Fk01, Mk01

And also with business partner with transaction is ‘BP’

With S/4HANA

‘BP’ remains there but transaction for customer  XD01, VD01, FD01, and vendor created Xk01, Fk01, Mk01 are obsolete. When you try to create customer or vendor with these transactions the system redirects you to transaction ‘BP’.

The main difference in S/4HANA is ‘BP’ is mandatory.

Creation of Business Partner for Customer and Vendor:

The first step to creating customer or vendor is through the creation of business partner. The transaction to create business partner is ‘BP’. There are three ways you can create a business partner.

1.  Person
2.  Organization
3.  Group

These are called business partner categories and they are hard coded.

You create a business partner with basic data.

Then this business partner extends to customer or vendor. How do you do that you go to change mode and add a BP role?

If you want to extend a business partner to customer master, you add these BP roles

•    FLCU00 (Finance view)
•    FLCU01 (Sales view)

If you want to extend a business partner to Vendor Master, you add these BP roles

•    FLVN00 (Finance view)
•    FLVN01 (purchasing view)

Data Structure Similarity between Business Partner and Customer/Vendor master

We know the customer and vendor master has three views and data of these three views stored in these tables

Customer master data table

1. General view- KNA1
2. Finance View- KNB1
3. Sales view -KNVV

Vendor master data table

1. General view- LFA1
2. Finance View- LFB1
3. Purchasing view –LFM1

IN S/4HANA world Business partner is a mandatory function. Any time new business partner created data store in this table BUT000. There is no customer/vendor it just a business partner with some basic details. You might be thinking of a question.

what will happen to all the existing data, all the existing data for customer master, vendor master etc. what happens to data stored in these tables?

The goal of S/4HANA is not to fail the program, in fact, its emphasis is to bridge more simplified word meaning compatibility is major criteria. So everything that works in old ECC will work for new world S/4HANA. That means data should be stored in these tables or new views should be created. So that data could be stored in these tables.

When you created Business Partner (BP) the table BUT000 represent the data either in customer/vendor general data. There is no data stored in general, finance and purchasing view of the table. That is why we call business partner as a shell. So how data stored in these tables (in a case as a vendor) General view- LFA1, Finance View- LFB1, Purchasing view –LFM1. When we extend the business partner as a vendor we add a role to business partner let say FLVN00- Finance view as soon we extend the business partner this role the data also store in General view- LFA1, Finance View- LFB1, of vendor master and also vendor get a number different to a business partner. We add another role FLVN01- purchasing view we get the data filled in Purchasing view –LFM1 table.

The same criteria apply to customer master data tables.

The key difference to note is business partner has a different number as oppose to when you extend particular business partner to customer/vendor number.

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