Groups

vs
SAP Partner
Functions

Introduction
In very broad terms:
Business partners are all the people or companies involved in
a transaction. They may be customers, vendors (such as
carriers), employees (such as CSRs or sales people), contact
people,
When you create a new customer master, you have to select
a customer account group [master data]
Once the customer master is created, you assign them a
partner function that identifies their roles and responsibilities
within the sales transactions [transaction data]

| SAP CUSTOMER ACCOUNT GROUP VS SAP PARTNER

FUNCTION | O2C PROCESS BOARD | DEC 2012 | BUSINESS

What is a Customer
Account Group?
When you create a new customer master, on the initial
screen, you have to select a customer account group.
Typically, there are 4 major customer account groups
important in sales
0001
0002
0003
0004

Sold-to Party
Ship-to Party or Goods Recipient
Payer
Bill-to Party

There may be and are typically more account groups. For

example:
Sales Person, CSR, Affiliates,

| SAP CUSTOMER ACCOUNT GROUP VS SAP PARTNER

FUNCTION | O2C PROCESS BOARD | DEC 2012 | BUSINESS

What is a Customer
Account Group?
The customer account group determines a number of things:
What number range (NR) is assigned to it? For example: this means
that the Sold-to NR could be different from the Ship-to NR making
them easier to identify on the transaction level (useful trust me ;))
Is the customer number internally assigned or does the user need to
assign it? For example: Affiliate (Intercompany Customers) usually
have external NR assigned. Others are normally internally assigned.
What screens and fields are required, optional or hidden? For
example: a ship-to party will never pay bills, so no payment or billing
screens or fields need to be maintained. They can be hidden.

Which customer account groups exist, can and will vary in each
project. The examples here are the standard delivered account
groups.

| SAP CUSTOMER ACCOUNT GROUP VS SAP PARTNER

FUNCTION | O2C PROCESS BOARD | DEC 2012 | BUSINESS

Show me some examples of

Customer Account Groups
SHAPE Sandoz SAP System

OPEX Ciba Vision SAP System

This illustrates how they can and will be different in 2 different

systems.
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What is a Partner
Function?
A partner function refers to the rights, roles and
responsibilities a business partner can take on in a
business transaction
Examples:
SP
BP
PY
SH
ZB
ZS

Sold-to party
Bill-to party
Payer
Ship-to party
Sales Budget Owner
Sales Rep

A customer account group is configured to take on one or

more partner functions

appear to be the same. How

are they related?
An example may help:
A customer that is created as a Sold-to party (customer account
group 0001) can play different roles in a transaction.
They can act as the Sold-to [SP]
They can also act as a Ship-to [SH]
They can also act as a Payer [PY]
They can also act as a Bill-to [BP]

Great, so what does that really mean?

It is important from a master data maintenance perspective.
Instead of having to maintain 4 customer masters records each
with their own customer account group (Sold-to, Ship-to, Payer,
Bill-to), we can create a Sold-to (customer account group =
0001) that acts as a Sold-to (SP) Ship-to (SH), Payer (PY)& Billto (BP) in the transactions.

| PRESENTATION TITLE | PRESENTER NAME | DATE | SUBJECT

| BUSINESS USE ONLY

appear to be the same. How

are they related?
Great, so what does that really mean (cont)?
So that means less customer master maintenance.
It also means that you can configure customer master account
groups that play different roles. Example: Patient Master
When the contact lenses are shipped to the optometrist, the patient number
can be included as an information only partner function on an order line item
When the contact lenses are shipped directly to the patient (DTP), the
patient could be the Ship-to party partner function

We can also limit the roles a partner function can take in a

transaction. For example: A customer created as a Ship-to (account
group = 0002) location, cannot be assigned a partner function of
Sold-to, Payer or Bill-to.

Note: If you look at transactions (orders, deliveries, invoices) you

will only ever see partner functions, not customer account
groups.

| PRESENTATION TITLE | PRESENTER NAME | DATE | SUBJECT

| BUSINESS USE ONLY

required to complete a Sales

Transaction?
Sold-to Party
In SAP this is the master customer. It is typically on the Order,
Delivery and Billing document. A lot of data on the order defaults
from the sold-to party master. Only 1 sold-to can be on an order.

Ship-to Party / Goods recipient

In SAP this is the main partner for shipping (deliveries, return
deliveries, shipments, ). It determines where the goods will be
delivered. Only 1 Ship-to can be on a delivery.

Payer
In SAP this is the main partner for billing (invoices, credit
memos,..). It is also the party responsible for paying the bill. So
they are important from an AR and credit management
perspective. Only 1 Payer can be on an invoice.

| PRESENTATION TITLE | PRESENTER NAME | DATE | SUBJECT

| BUSINESS USE ONLY

required to complete a Sales

Transaction?
Bill-to Party
In SAP, the Bill-to is the address that the invoice is sent to
(physical or electronic). So the bill-to is also a main partner
for billing. It is typical for the Bill-to to equal the Payer (but
does not have to be). For example: An Optomitrist has several
stores. He may be responsible for the bill (the Payer) but
require the individual stores to receive the invoices to verify
them (the stores would be the bill-tos). Only 1 Bill-to per
invoice

| PRESENTATION TITLE | PRESENTER NAME | DATE | SUBJECT

| BUSINESS USE ONLY

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