Business Partner
Creditors and debitors become business partners
If you want to switch to S/4HANA, you can't get around your business partner. With the business partner SAP does not really bring a new concept into the ERP world.
Anyone who already uses other SAP solutions, such as GTS or CRM, is already familiar with it. But what does the Business Partner bring to your company and what advantages does it already offer you?
Why become Business Partner?
In today's SAP ECC, a business partner, i.e. a company, a person or group in which you as a company are interested, can appear in several processes. Unfortunately, the same master data source is not used for all processes, although there is information that is identical in every process.
Therefore you are forced to keep general valid data redundant. If one maintains both sales and purchase relations with an entity, then a supplier and a customer must be created and maintained in the system. If generally valid data change, both data records must be kept up-to-date accordingly.
Advantages of the Business Partner
The SAP Business Partner is a centrally maintained entity with which your company maintains relationships. As a superordinate entity, it contains all generally valid information and passes this on to existing customers and suppliers.
The maintenance of redundant data is eliminated thanks to the Business Partner. Where previously several transactions were necessary to keep master data up-to-date and of high quality, there is now only one. The knowledge about business relationships becomes more transparent and shifts away from the business departments.
Since creditors and debitors still exist technically, the question arises whether the business partner concept has already been fully implemented or whether it is just a first step that will be continued in the coming years. A speculation that can certainly have an influence on the way the business partner is implemented in your own system.
The CONSILIO Business Partner Conversion
You have deliberately decided against a greenfield approach and want to convert your old SAP ERP system to S/4HANA? The requirements of the SAP business partner are not yet completely clear to you and you are encountering problems in both the
technical and business implementation? With our CONSILIO approach to Business Partner Conversion we can help you making the technical preparations and successfully activate the business partner on your system.
The conversion can basically be played through in two scenarios
Technical conversion
- All master data to be converted is converted 1:1 to one business partner each. Possible corrections are only carried out after the conversion during operation
Conversion with harmonization
- You check your master data for consistency and correct it if necessary. Customers and suppliers that will represent the same entity (if not already done) are linked. Duplicates are identified and excluded from conversion
We would like to work out which approach is the best for you and which factors continue to play a role in a joint workshop with you. Based on your system constellation and requirements, we can show you the optimal path towards S/4HANA and provide you with comprehensive support.
SAP BUSINESS PARTNER: HOW TO GET YOUR INDIVIDUAL BUSINESS PARTNER CONCEPT
Anyone switching to S/4HANA cannot avoid the business partner. To ensure that this supports the individual processes in the best possible way, you should familiarize yourself with the possibilities and the current restrictions at an early stage.
In this webinar, we will introduce you to the most important of these and show you the way to an individual business partner concept.
