Technical Articles
SAP S/4HANA HCM – Employee as Business Partner-Implementation steps & tips
SAP S/4HANA implementations are happening across globe. Employee master data is required in various SAP S/4HANA modules other than traditional on-premise HCM Solutions.The new data model in SAP S/4HANA is based on business partner (BP) Concept.Employee is treated as business partner as per the new data model.
SAP has released various KBA’s/How to guides on implementation of Employee as business partner.
The intent of writing this blog post is to provide a ‘ready reckoner’, few tips and tricks for implementing this solution.
Implementation steps & tips:
Know your customer system :
The prima facie for implementation of Employee as Business partner is to know the current customer HR System. The implementation considerations vary based on the type of HR system/software.
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- KBA 2340095 will give more details on process to be followed for implementing employee business partner concept in SAP S/4HANA system with an integration to SAP Successfactors or SAP ERP
- If the Customer is on non-SAP system for HR Processes then, there should be an integration established to fetch the employee mini master information/data into SAP S/4HANA system
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Basic HCM configurations that needs to be in place for creating employee :
Below is minimum HCM Configuration that’s needed
- Enterprise Structure
- Personnel Structure
- Infotype Configuration (HCM Mini Master)
- Infotype 0000 – Actions
- Infotype 0001 – Organization assignment
- Infotype 0002 – Personal data
- Infotype 0006 – Address (for vendor role)
- Infotype 0009 – Bank details (for vendor role
Activation of Integration switches specific to Employee as Business partner creation
Table T77S0 should be configured to activate the inter/intra modular integration in SAP
Here is the snap shot of switches need to be activated
Tip 1 : Activation of these switches will automatically create an employee as business partner (Employee would have been created using transaction PA40 in the same system).
- Report “/SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_EMPL_SINGLE” should be executed in following scenarios
- Employee data is integrated from Successfactors/different SAP HCM system/third party system then, this report should be executed after employee replication
- If any BAdi is implemented to replace/default/edit data of employee BP then, this report should be executed to view/update the changes
- The initial conversion of employee as business partner (as part of cut over activities)
- Regular update of employee BP(background job to be scheduled)
Concepts explained above should suffice, to create Employee as business partner with BUP003 (Employee role) & 000000 (Business partner general role)
Extended requirements on employee business partner
A) Employee business partner to be extended to a vendor role :
Employee should be created as vendor in scenarios where employee’s expenses/salaries/loans are paid using employee vendor account.
The additional configuration that needs to be done to extend the employee BP role to Vendor role are :
- Reconciliation accounts for employees in Role FI Supplier : Reconciliation account is mandatory to create the vendor account. Hence, we need to define company specific reconciliation accounts here
- Default vendor data for employees in role FI Supplier : In SAP ERP, we had an option to default the values from reference vendor while creating employee as vendor using PRAA transaction. However, that concept won’t hold good for SAP S/4HANA. Refer KBA 2397684 to get more information on business partner synchronization replaces PRAA transaction in SAP S/4HANA. SAP has provided a table in SAP S/4HANA to configure the reference vendor. This is company specific and client dependent table. Hence, a new transaction ‘BUPASYNC_LOCAL’ is provided. Refer KBA 2601253 on how to activate this transaction
Tip 2 : Configure this table if, the customer has the requirement to have reference vendor for every company code
- Default house bank specific to the country/company code : employee BP creation program reads HR Feature TRVHB to default house bank in vendor account. The feature needs to be configured based on the house banks provided by customer for every country and company code combination.
B) Employee BP number and Employee Vendor number should be same as employee number with a prefix of alphabet/alpha numeric value :
This is the common requirement in most of the implementations.
follow the steps mentioned here to achieve this requirement
- Create employee number ranges using PA04 transaction. For example, number range : 00000000 to 99999999
- Configure the employee business partner number range with prefix for example, ‘9P’ in Customizing (SPRO) -> Cross application components -> SAP Business partner -> Basic settings
- Create number range
- Assign the number range to BP grouping
- Configure the number ranges for vendor and assign it to vendor account group in SPRO -> Financial accounting -> Accounts receivable and payable -> Vendor accounts
- Create vendor number ranges
- Assign the number range to account group
- Assign account group to BP Grouping in SPRO -> Cross application components -> SAP Business partner -> Basic settings
- Assign business partner subgroup in the table T77S0
Tip 3 :the code for employee number range, BP Grouping, vendor number range and vendor account group should be same. in our example it is ‘E3’
C) Extend Employee BP to Customer role :
This requirement might not be common in all implementations. If we have this requirement then, this can be fulfilled with the following configuration steps
- Configure number ranges for customer and assign it to customer account group in SPRO -> Financial accounting -> Accounts receivable and payable -> Customer accounts -> Master data
- Create vendor number ranges
- Assign the number range to account group
Tip 4 :Customer role will not be created automatically when employee is created or when the BUPA sync program is executed. This role will get created automatically, if the reference vendor assigned in transaction ‘BUPASYNC_LOCAL’ has customer role
Tip 5 :The code for customer number range and account group should be same as BP and vendor number range. in our example its is ‘E3’
D) Vendor should not be created for few company codes :
if vendor should not be created for few company codes/countries, then do not configure below
- Company code to reconciliation account assignment
- House bank configuration in HCM Feature for specific company/country
- Assignment of reference vendor to company code
Tip 6 : Vendor role will get created with out ‘vendor’ number generation and assignment. Implement BAdi ‘BADI_FITV_VENDOR_SYNC’ to restrict vendor role creation
This blog post is based on my implementation experience in SAP S/4HANA projects. The steps mentioned in this blog post will help to configure employee BP and extend the employee to vendor and customer roles
Hi Swathi,
Very well-written blog !! Thanks for sharing the info.
Regards,
Danya
Very detailed and informative read Swathi!
Very well explained. Much needed document to know about BP.
Thanks for sharing this.
Nice Blog !! Thanks for Sharing
Very nice and informative.
Great post! Much appreciated!!!!
Dear Swathi,
thank you for the post. Do you know how to create BP for employees hired via PA40 with future date?
I can set up sync job program /SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_EMPL_SINGLE, this program picks all new hires at current date. But if job is running daily it creates new BP record everyday.
how to set up a job which would synchronized data only once?
Regards
Petra
Hi Naga Swathi ,
Currently for BP creation - Std grouping 0001 is determined by the system after running the programme. How can I make system to determine the particular BP grouping (ZEMP in my case) so that desired BP & associated Vendor NR is picked up for creation.
Currently BP is created with std SAP BP grouping '0001'
Hi Renuka
Please check the section B in this blog post.
Hi Naga Swathi,
Thanks for sharing your knowledge to us.
I'm new in this kind of scenario, and your blog certainly helped me in begin to understand this topic.
Please, I have one question regarding this scenario and would like your help.
Rehire, Rehire With New Employments and Global Assignment are common Scenarios between all customers. I would like to know if there's any difference on how this integration treats the IDs for these employees, or if the configuration you've presented here would be able to cover all of these scenarios.
This doubt has came up because employees that are included on above mentioned scenarios might have been different IDs on Employee Central.
The common existente IDs in EC are: person-id-external, username, user account, user id and payroll id.
Thanks in advance!
Best Regards.
Thiago Eva
BP is created against PERNR and not PERS-ID. check the KBA https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2741465
as long as PERNR is different, a new BP is created.
You may check the configurations and mappings between EC and S/4 for more details
Hi Naga Swathi ,
Our business partner is created by default as “Face”, is there a setting that allows you to configure the creation of a business partner as “Organization”?
Can you elaborate more on your question?
all the likes for this article! Thanks a lot Naga! Great Job and thanks for sharing! 😀
Thanks for the kind words! 🙂
Hello,
Thanks for your article.
I have a question about that.
In my company we have decided to create PA30 for employee and external employee ( for a same company)
The Bp creation doesn't filter to create only vendor role BP for internal employee.(FLVN00)
Have you got a solution please ?
Thanks for your help
Have a nice day
Can you please explain in detail about the issue u r facing?
Hello,
I’ll try to explain in detail my issue.
In my company we have employee and external personal ( consultant, service provider…) In PA30 transaction, we have employee and external personal but the only one difference is employee group
When I save, I would to create Business Partner with role FLVN00 only for employee not for service provider.
It’s possible to distinguish the role FLVN00 creation on Employee Group ( I found only for the company code)
Thanks for your help
Have a nice day
It’s possible with a BADI
We had similar request from customer and we were able to solve using BADI
Hi,
Can you give more details about using a Badi ?
Thank you
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2057825
Dears,
thank you for very nice overview of integration.
when creating new HR no. in synchronization to new BP no. we are missing some values:
Any hints what to do ?
Regards,
Tilen
(has been answered here)
https://blogs.sap.com/2019/09/02/employee-to-business-partner-synchronization-during-s4hana-system-conversion/#comment-496426
Hi Naga Swathi ,
Thanks for sharing your knowledge to us.
I have a question about that.
In my company we have business partner that doesn’t employee.
Now, this business partner will are emplooyee and have employee rol (BUP003).
¿How assign the personal-id and username SAP to business partner existent without creating a new business partner?
Thanks in advance!
Anderson Rendón.
Hi Andreason, how are you? I also have this same scenario at the company I'm working for. How did you manage to solve it? Grateful
Dear Naga Swathi T J
I don't know what version you tested but in the 1809/02 I checked and the infotypes below can create a BP. But of course if we think in AP scenario doesn't make sense create without 0009 bank details but the BP is created.
I tested running synchro program.
Regards.
João Paulo Almeida
Hi
may I know what is the inference of your message?
my blog never says that BP can’t get created automatically
the blog is on tips and tricks on various scenarios
Be more specific about your communication
swathi
Parabéns, muito bom seu post.
Thank you Naga. Very informative. I have a follow up question for a specific application of BP. In S4 for Supplier Maintenance (formerly SRM functionality) I am trying to setup an employee as BP but do not have HCM setup in the system I am working in (and no HCM resources to help...)
when in the Fiori app Maintain BP I have created an employee BP. It is now my understanding that I need to assign the SU01 user ID to the BP - I think to the role employee. However I do not see the role employee in the drop down but I do see it in the BP IMG config. Is this missing role due to the setting
The HR integration switch in SAP S/4HANA is de-activated via the system table T77S0 with the configuration switches HRALX/HRAC and HRALX/PBPON?
Fundamentally my real issue is when creating a purchasing category I get the error "Employee does not exist or is not authorized as purchaser responsible error in Fiori app" My understanding of this error is that I need an employee BP with my user ID associated to it but I am having an issue associating the user to it.
Thanks
Dennis
Since we do not have HCM the HRAC value is blank
We are also facing same issue. Do you have a solution for this?
Hi Naga Swathi,
This blog is very useful. Thanks for sharing this information.
Regards,
Raju
Hi Naga Swathi,
About your comment, I only want to say that you mentioned that the infotypes that it is necessary to create employees are below and the 0009 infotype isn't necessary in the creation proccess. But it is necessary for FI payments.
João Paulo Almeida
Hi Naga Swathi
Thanks for the valuable information.
I have other questions related to Employee as a Business Partner.
Is there a specific type of authorization requirements for managing Employee business partners?
e.g. BP employee data can always Create/change by HR directly in HCM and BP employee created in MDG automatically so, do they need to go to MDG system and do anything in the MDG side?
If yes they need to update anything from MDG side then what kind of authorizations are required?
Can you help me with this?
Regards
Viral
Hi Naga,
Thanks for the valuable information.
I would like to know the process for creation of employee as vendor in S4-HANA 1909 version.
Step 1: I have hired the employee through PA 40.
Step 2: Do I need to manually create the vendor through BP with similar number range ? If Yes, how these two will be linked ?
Rite now, this report /SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_EMPL_SINGLE is giving error ie "R212 Grouping doesn't exist" but i am not creating any record through transaction BP , i have understanding this report will automatically link the employee record with BP. Let me know in case, I am correct here.
Please let me know the complete process, my dead line is approching and not able to set the employee as vendor in the system till now.
Thanks and Regards.
Kindly check the switches in T77S0 table.
do respective configurations for BP and vendor
please read the article and you get the step by step approach
Do we need to create the BP through transaction code: BP or it will be autocreated through the report /SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_EMPL_SINGLE ??
I have the done the configuration as per the given article only but still facing the issue. Not able to execute the report /SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_EMPL_SINGLE it is giving as "grouping doesnt exist."
Thanks and Regards
Hi! Swathi,
Excellent post and very informative.
When we execute this program we observe that it is updating demographics SU01 and is not allowing to edit any information except email address. Do you have any idea if it is a normal behavior? How can we update email address as well as part of the same execution?
Also which information does it sync together from where to where?
Regards,
AQIB
Hello Naga,
I have followed your document and must say you were a life saver, thank you!
If you know, does the BP appear anywhere in the PA tables once generated?
If not is there a table that stores the cross reference of PERNR and BP numbers?
Thank you for your time. And again great job!
Jessica
Nevermind, I knew I would find it as soon as I submitted the question. I can connect the PERNR ID through table BUT0ID when using IDType HCM001
Thank you and sorry couldn't respond earlier
nice
Hi Naga we are in a migration project from ECC tho S4, the bp have been created automatically, but when I change the user sap in 105 Infotype subtype 0001 and execute /SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_EMPL_SINGLE when I go to SU01D the new sap user is not relationed with the bp do you know what else I have to do?
Thank you so much
Hello Naga Swathi,
Very informative document, thank you!
What is your recommendation/best practice from experience for the start date/effective date of the employee record in s/4, considering that:
- s/4 project go live is on 01.01.2021, while the business partners are expected to be ready earlier in the system for some additional preparations. Firmer to its limitations, the synchronization program works only with active employees, while as per sap recommendations we started replication from SF Employee Central as of go live data of s/4 Hana project, which is 01.02.2021 in our case.
have you already had such scenarios and what would you recommend from experience.
thank you in advance!
All the best,
Ralitsa
Hello Swati,
Its an excellent blog!!!
I have problem with extending employee to Customer role (FLCU01). like you have mentioned in TIP 4, I have maintained customer role(FLCU01) for Reference vendor. when I ran employee to BP syn program (/SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_EMPL_SINGLE). The FLCU01 role is extended to BP but not sales data is getting populated. and yes i have maintained sales org, dist channel, division in reference vendor – customer role(FLCU01).
Hello Naga
Dear, I hope you can help me, I have made the procedure and the recommended settings for employee synchronization and BP synchronization, now I do not know what I am doing wrong that the employee's email is not reflected in the BP and this is in the corresponding infotype . Your help please.
Tengo el siguiente problema, ya realicé todas las configuraciones indicadas pero al momento de ejecutar el programa /SHCM/RH_SYNC_BUPA_EMPL_SINGLE en BP no actualiza el correo (Infotipo 105 Subtipo 10).
Hi Karim,
Please check the configuration for Email in the Table "TBZ_V_EEWA_SRC".
Hope this works.
Regards,
Suresh Ganesh Prabhakaran
Hi,
we are synchronizing our employees to business partner. Now we don't need some employee groups as business partner. Is there a way to configure which employees are cerated as BP? Is there a BADI? Or is it really needed to have ALL employees (HR-master data) as BP?
Thanks and regards
Michael
Hi Naga,
Employee is hired and Employee as Vendor as created (General Data) but once i switched to Company Code Date (BP Role FLNV00), Company code and Reconciliation GL is not maintained. screen shot attached. Recon GL is already define in > Personal Management > SAP S4 Hana for Human Resource > Define Reconciliation Accounts for Employee in FI Role
Please follow step by step process. you will have to assign the reconciliation account to company code
Hi Naga Swathi T J ,
thank you really much for that detailed blog, that helped us a lot! I have a short question: How can we assure, that a normal person can check for exampele BP-Debitor data, but not BP-HCM data? We already used the authorization object B_BUPA_ADR with SENSTVT = ' ' and we kicked out BUP003 from the authorization object B_BUPA_RLT. But the problem is, that the personal HCM data (you also mentioned it in your blog) is also stored in the general BP-Role 000000.
We are glad about any hint!
Thank you in advance and best regards
Daniel
Hi,
This blog is really helpful!
However we are facing the problem as following:
When we run the syn job, the system is showing this error message and no BP will be created.
Do you maybe know where we can maintain this default set up?
Thank you in advance!
Best regards
Cheng
HI,
yes this is a very good blog.
If i start the program with variant over night,
what do i have to enter in the filed "Inbound Destination"
We had a lot of personalnumber (70000).
we have only one entry in this "QD_ED_LOCAL"
but the porgram does nothing.
What do you have to do here so that runs in the batch?
Thanks
pig 2
Inbound Destination
Hi everybody,
how works the integration between the HR Minimaster and BP Employer if the employer left the company. Which kind of fields in HR Minimaster hast to be maintaned with the intention to block the vendor on the company code level?
Thanks
Hi everybody,
missing bp role 000000 after report “/shcm/rh_sync_bupa_empl_single”. Do you have some idea?
Thank you in advance and best regards
Tereza
Hi Swathi, it's me Arasu, hope you'd remember me...
It's been a very long time though..!!! I have a question here, and also stuck with it..
Here's my requirement.
an IDOC is coming in.. (Inbound processing) --> In the inbound function module they're calling this report /shcm/rh_sync_bupa_empl_single (in background by creating a batch job suffixing the PERNR with job name) in a SUBMIT and RETURN statement to update BP after making changes in HR side, for Ex. in HR, IT 006 address change segment is being changed, but when the job runs, it finishes, but job log shows error (which we can also see in SLG1) but that error will be like, LAND1 for Vendor missing like that, which is still OK for me. What is happening in my current scenario is, after posting the IDOC system issues an error message that "Update of But is there any other way to update BP once HCM update is done? I should be able to handle the errors and to continue the IDOC posting somehow, due to this BP SYNC error message, the IDOC is posted but it gives the error message as "/SHCM/EMPLOYEE_BL(044): Update of Businesspartner for Employee &1 failed"
TIA..
Arasu.
We have weird Case we are importing the data from Workday if i import 100 employees 70 employees are getting the BP record created and 30 employees are not created, not sure what is wrong and why system is inconsistent in creating the BP for few and not for all, when we process the utility report it gives the hard error in SLG1 error: Business partner GUID is blank
Hi Kanuku,
Please check the below note -->
Message R11119 "Business partner GUID is blank" appears in SLG1 log
Please find the solution to this issue described in KBA 2580964
Please find the original document at https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2578294
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Suresh Ganesh Prabhakaran
Sir, Very happy to see you., hoping all is great., let me know how to be in touch with you.
I studied and tried all the options in this KBA 2578294, not quite useful, this KBA has lot of grey areas.
Great Blog, thank you!
I have a question concerning:
"Employee BP number and Employee Vendor number should be same as employee number".
In the new emloyee business partner model, the vendor role is not by the same BP that have emloyee role. In such case those 2 BP have to have 2 different numbers.
What scenario then have you described?
BR
Tomasz
The blog was written in 2019 and holds good for old employee BP model
Hi Naga, does the standard Mini Master integration covers all the data needed to create the Employee as Business Partner being the Employee Central as source of truth?