Business Partners in SAP S/4HANA

... Acknowledgments ... 13

... Foreword ... 15

... Preface ... 17

... Goals of This Book ... 18

... Target Audience ... 18

... Structure and Content ... 19

... Conclusion ... 22

1 ... Introduction ... 23

1.1 ... Concept of a Business Partner ... 23

1.2 ... Benefits of a Business Partner Approach ... 28

1.3 ... Business Partner in SAP S/4HANA ... 29

1.4 ... Structure of a Business Partner ... 30

1.5 ... Business Partner and Customer-Vendor Integration ... 34

1.6 ... Summary ... 36

2 ... Vendors ... 37

2.1 ... Customizing Vendor Account Groups ... 38

2.2 ... Customizing a Business Partner ... 43

2.3 ... Customer-Vendor Integration ... 52

2.4 ... Additional Business Partner Customizations ... 60

2.5 ... Summary ... 64

3 ... Customers ... 65

3.1 ... Customizing Customer Account Groups ... 66

3.2 ... Customizing a Business Partner ... 71

3.3 ... Customer-Vendor Integration ... 80

3.4 ... Additional Business Partner Customizations ... 88

3.5 ... Summary ... 91

4 ... Customizing for Customer-Vendor Integration ... 93

4.1 ... General Checks ... 94

4.2 ... Business Partner Customer Checks ... 99

4.3 ... Contact Person ... 105

4.4 ... Business Partner Supplier Checks ... 111

4.5 ... Summary ... 112

5 ... Conversion from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA ... 113

5.1 ... Business Partner Approach ... 114

5.2 ... Customer-Vendor Integration Implementation Approach ... 115

5.3 ... Basic Customer-Vendor Integration Customizing ... 117

5.4 ... CVI Cockpit Overview ... 121

5.5 ... Preparation ... 128

5.6 ... Customer-Vendor Integration Load ... 172

5.7 ... Upgrade Preparation ... 206

5.8 ... Post-Conversion ... 208

5.9 ... Customer-Vendor Integration Reports ... 216

5.10 ... Additional Tips and Tricks ... 222

5.11 ... Summary ... 232

Jawad Akhtar is an SAP logistics and supply chain management expert with a focus on business sales and delivery. He earned his chemical engineering degree from Missouri University of Science and Technology in the United States. He has 20 years of professional experience, 14 of which have been spent working with SAP systems. He has experience working on several large-scale, end-to-end SAP project implementation lifecycles, including rollouts. He works with SAP clients to help them identify root causes of business issues and address those with the appropriate SAP products and change management strategies. He now focuses on next-generation SAP products such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP IBP, SAP Ariba, and SAP Hybris.

Akhtar is also a technical advisor to SAPexperts, an ASUG speaker, and a contributor to SearchSAP, where his "Ask the Expert" column shares real-life lessons and best practices gleaned from SAP implementations, ways to avoid common project pitfalls, and features of various SAP products that solve key business issues.