Lesson 2 of 5
Suppliers as business partners
9 min
In SAP ECC, a vendor was maintained in vendor transactions (XK01, FK01, MK01 and their change and display counterparts), stored mainly in tables such as LFA1, LFB1 and LFM1. In SAP S/4HANA the business partner is the leading object for suppliers and customers. You maintain a supplier in transaction BP or the Fiori business partner apps, and the old vendor transactions redirect to BP.
How a supplier looks now
A business partner has general data at client level (name, address, tax numbers, bank details) and roles that add business-specific data. For suppliers, the two standard roles are:
| Role | Level | Typical data | Contoso example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 000000 Business Partner (general) | Client | Name, address, communication, tax numbers, bank details | Lakeside Components, address, bank account |
| FLVN00 FI Vendor (Supplier, financial accounting) | Company code | Reconciliation account, payment terms, payment methods, withholding tax | Lakeside in company code 1710 with reconciliation account for trade payables |
| FLVN01 Supplier | Purchasing organization | Order currency, purchasing payment terms, Incoterms, GR-based invoice verification, partner functions | Lakeside in purchasing organization 1710 |
Business partner roles for a supplier.
Behind the scenes, customer/vendor integration (CVI) keeps the classic vendor tables in sync with the business partner. When you create a business partner in a supplier role, the system creates the vendor master record in the background. The vendor account group is derived from the business partner grouping, and a CVI setting ("Same Numbers") decides whether the vendor number equals the business partner number or comes from the account group's number range.
Why CVI must come first
For a system conversion, every vendor (and customer) must already have a business partner before the conversion runs. That means CVI is set up and the existing vendors are converted to business partners in ECC, as a pre-conversion project. It is often the longest preparation task, because it surfaces data problems that ECC tolerated: missing or invalid tax numbers, bank details without an account holder, inconsistent addresses, duplicate vendors and vendors in account groups that do not map cleanly to a grouping.
- PreparationDesign the mappingGroupings, account groups, number ranges, role assignment, field mapping
- CleansingFix vendor data in ECCTax numbers, bank data, duplicates, obsolete vendors archived or blocked
- SynchronizationConvert vendors to business partnersMass synchronization in ECC; errors analyzed and fixed
- ConversionSystem conversion runsSimplification item checks confirm every vendor has a business partner
- After go-liveMaintain in BP onlyUsers trained on BP; roles and authorizations adjusted
What users will notice
- Supplier maintenance happens in BP with roles and a time-dependent view, not in XK01 screens.
- Authorizations are role- and field-group-based for business partners; old vendor authorizations need redesigning.
- A supplier needs at least one supplier role (FLVN00 or FLVN01) to be created as a supplier.
- Supplier and customer data for the same company can live in one business partner, which helps intercompany cases such as Contoso Parts Distribution LLC.
What to test for suppliers
Supplier tests after conversion cover three things. First, maintenance: create a new supplier with both roles, change bank details and payment terms, block a supplier for purchasing, and check that the vendor number follows the agreed rule. Second, use: converted suppliers such as Lakeside Components appear in purchase orders, invoices and payment runs with the same data they had in ECC. Third, control: a purchaser cannot change bank details if that is reserved for the master data team, and changes are logged in the business partner change documents.
What would you do?
After the first test conversion, Contoso's AP team finds that 140 suppliers have business partners but cannot be used in payment runs. The bank details are missing on the business partners. What is the most likely cause and fix?
- Suppliers are business partners in SAP S/4HANA; vendor transactions redirect to BP.
- Standard supplier roles: FLVN00 at company code level and FLVN01 at purchasing organization level.
- CVI keeps vendor tables in sync; grouping, account group and number rules matter.
- Vendor-to-BP conversion with data cleansing is a pre-conversion project.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. What replaces separate vendor master maintenance in SAP S/4HANA?
2. Which supplier role holds purchasing organization data?
3. When must vendors be converted to business partners in a system conversion?
4. What decides whether the vendor number equals the business partner number?