SD Important Discussion

Is it right to have Bill to Party different from Sold to Party?

Hi Sap consultant,
Recently one of existing Sold to Party requested the invoice to be addressed to another address
different from
Sold To Party, which means need to create Bill to Party, right? This sold to party has few ship to
party and now requested for different bill to party.
Apparently this is first time my company encountered such request.
our accountant and other colleagues have adviced it is not right to have Bill to party different from
Sold to party, despite Master Data team reverts that it possible to have few Bill to linked to one Sold
to party account.
Reasons:
1) sold to party place orders, thus invoice should be billed to sold to party
2) if bill to party different from sold to party, where will the outstanding invoice reflect to? In sold to party
account or bill to party account?
3) Sales Agreement between seller and sold to party, seller may involved in tax evasion if auditor traced
invoice is bill to another company other than Sold to party.
please advice under which circumstances can we have Bill to Party different from Sold to Party?

Ans : Bill-to Party is only for Billing address, means an address where invoice need to be sent.
Whereas, sales terms, pricing, shipping condition are part of sold to party and payer is for making
payment. Thus, in sales there is fair chance that one customer can play role of all the partner or
individual role can have individual sales partner.
For your situation, in SAP we do have temporary and permanent solution both.
Temporary solution, in partner tab you can manually update the Bill-to Party address and this will not
change customer master data address at all. But, before you can try this approach, make sure your
Output program should be able to dynamically pick address from ADRC table for this approach.
As permanent, you can have new master data for the same. This approach should only be adopted, if the
business partner change permanent and for that master data maintenance is must.
1) sold to party place orders, thus invoice should be billed to sold to party

2) if bill to party different from sold to party, where will the outstanding invoice reflect to? In sold to party account
or bill to party account?

As already mention, bill-to party is just for billing address. Outstanding will reflect against Sold-to Party or Payer(if
the payer is not same as sold-to party).

3) Sales Agreement between seller and sold to party, seller may involved in tax evasion if auditor traced invoice is
bill to another company other than Sold to party.

Generally, taxes are determined based on Ship-to party and departure plant.
please advice under which circumstances can we have Bill to Party different from Sold to Party?

This is totally depends on individual business requirement or process. Say for example, you order
goods. Even though you are going to pay, but you want delivery to be done to your partner and
same partner should receive a copy of Invoice in their address. In this case, you play roles pf Sold to

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 SD Important Discussion

party and payer, whereas, you partner play roles of Ship-to Party and Bill-to Party in your vendor's
system.
There can be another scenario, where based on your favorable relationship with Vendor, you only
order for your partner. But, this delivery of goods is made to your partner and they pay too. In that
case, you are only sold-to party and your partner will be ship-to party, bill-to party and payer in your
vendor's system.