what is the purpose why we define partner determination

[Former Member]

hi

my question is what is use of partner determination. How many partner functions we should create in customer master. Is there any thumb rule we have create sd,bp,py,sh

thanks in advance

[Former Member]

Hi,

We sell the goods to the customer who places the order. In SAP this ordering customer role is played by the sold to party. Similarly the shipping address is the ship to party used while creating the delivery. While creating the invoice we require the bill to party and for receiving the payment payer function is required. Hence partner determination procedure is very important in SD from the sales flow point of view otherwise if you create the customer without any partner function then you will not be able to create even the sales order.

SP, SH, BP & PY are the basic partner functions. Apart from this you can create partner function for commission agent, notifying party, sales employee, etc. You will find this in IMG-sales & distribution - basic functions - partner determination - set up partner determination. Click here and you will see

1.Set Up Partner Determination for Customer Master

2.Set Up Partner Determination for Sales Document Header

3.Set Up Partner Determination for Sales Document Item

4.Set Up Partner Determination for Delivery

5.Set Up Partner Determination for Shipment

6.Set Up Partner Determination for Billing Header

7.Set Up Partner Determination for Billing Item

8.Set Up Partner Determination for Sales Activities (CAS)

Just go through the documentation below. You will get a clear picture on how to do the partner determination procedure for a customer.

<b>PARTNER DETERMINATION PROCEDURE</b>

<b>First go to OBD2</b> – create customer account groups. Here you make new entries, click whether it is a one time customer, description. Also you can do the field selection here for general data, co. code data and sales area data.

<b>Now go to IMG</b> – logistics general – business partner – customers – control – define & assign customer number ranges. Here you define the number range that you want and assign it to your customer account group.

<b>Now go to VOPA</b> – here the selection will be on customer master, click on partner procedures, create the partner determination procedure. After saving it double click on it then you will face with a screen. Here you enter the partner function and you can select if you want the function as mandatory and not changeable.

<b>Then go back</b>, click on procedure assignment, enter your account group in the lower left corner of the screen, press enter then in front of that select your partner determination procedure. Then save it.

<b>Then click on go back 2 times.</b> Here you can see partner functions, click on it, then go to environment in the upper menu and select Acct. grp assignment. Here just select your partner function and in front of that you select your customer account group. Then save it. Now you have completed the pre requisites to create the customer master.

<b>Then go to XD01</b> and create your customer master.

<REMOVED>

Regards,

Allabaqsh G. Patil

Message was edited by:

Yathish K

[Former Member]

Hi Nag,

Yes, we should have partners to be determined for all the sales procedures.

If we want to sell a product or buy a product then there should be a person who will be buying or selling to us. Then unless we dont maintaine that person as our customer then we cant go further.

To create a inquiry, quotation, order etc. we need a customer who is involved in that. Then we have to maintaine a customer master record for that customer, so that we can use that data for all our sales process in SAP.

Coming to the partner functions, we can have as many as partner functions we want. But the concept is

1. There should be one customer who should place an order with our company i.e., sold to party ( you can have your own name, but he should have the attributes or characteristics of sold to party in SAP)

2. Like way there should be one customer who receives stock i.e., ship to party.

In this way we can have partner functions payer, bill to party, vendor, sales rep, one time customer...etc, according to our requirement.

But these are the basic partner functions in SAP to work with.

Thumb rule in SAP is, it should have a customer with pfs like Sold to party. By default, in SAP, sold to party will have all the partner functions like ship to, bill to and payer. If you want to put your own partnerfunctions for sold to party then you can do.

All these can be maintaned at partner determination.

We have to maintaine these Partner Determination for customer master, sales documents, delivery document, shipping and billing etc.

Hope this gives you some idea.

<REMOVED>

Regards,

Pravin

Message was edited by:

Yathish K

[Former Member]

Hi Nag,

The partner determination tells us the partner functions that are allowed during a particular transaction like creating a customer master record, order, delivery and so on. Once you have done the configuration system would automatically propose the mandatory partner functions and would also list the allowed partner function for the particular transaction.

The number of partner functions vary as per the client's business. However the four standard Partner function mentioned needs to be maintained while creating a customer master record.

Regards

Nadarajah Pratheb