SAP: Customer Master Account Groups and Partner Functions –

Overview

SAP customer partner functions can be confusing, especially for us GL guys who deal mostly in journal

entries and rarely see any sales order action. This stuff is old hat for SD and finance guys. These are

some notes on this topic as I’m trying to get my arms around the customer master. Here are notes on

how our company is using the account groups/partner functions:

• VD01 is t-code for creating customers

• SAP is favoring the term “business partner” over customer

• First thing to understand, when talking about a Customer number in SAP, you are generally

talking about a Business Partner record that has been assigned a particular account group which

controls the information and functions that business partner can have. Business partners can be linked

to other business partners through partner functions.

• The 4 most basic partner functions are: Sold-to, Ship-to, Payer, and Bill-to

• Depending upon the account group assigned to a business partner, it can function as one or all

of those partner functions for itself or any other business partner in your system

• Account groups determine which fields in the customer master record are required, optional, or

suppressed. By turning off certain field in an account group, you limit which partner function it can

perform

• The 4 basic account groups and the partner functions they generally serve:

o Sold-to (SP) account group – can function as following partner functions: Sold-to (SP), Ship-to

(SH), Payer (PY), or Bill-to (BP)

o Ship-to (SH) account group – can function as following partner functions: SH

o Payer (PY) account group – can function as following partner functions: PY or BP

o Bill-to (BP) account group – can function as following partner functions: BP or PY

Customer Account Group

The master records in the customer hierarchy are controlled by their account groups. You can

use the same account groups for customer hierarchies as those used for partner determination in

sales and distribution.First thing to understand, when talking about a Customer number in SAP,

you are generally talking about a Business Partner record that has been assigned a particular

account group which controls the information and functions that business partner can

have.Depending upon the account group assigned to a business partner, it can function as one or

all of those partner functions for itself or any other business partner in your system.

What happens to the customer number when I change an customer account group?

Answer - When you change the account group (menu sequence: ‘Sales and Distribution ->

Master Data: -> Business Partner -> Customers -> Change Account Group’, the customer

retains their old number although the new account group is assigned to a different number

range.

Even when the account group is changed to a different number range, the customer number is not

changed.

Due to other dependencies in the system, such changes are not posssible.

The system displays the warning message F2 691:

‘Customer & not in account group (new) – number range (from) – (to)’

Customer Group

How to create new Customer Groups in SAP ? – SAP Training

Step No. 1 : Go to [ spro -> IMG ->Sales and Distribution -> Master Data -> Business Partners -

> Sales -> Define Customer Groups ]

Step No. 2 : Using new entries, create your own customer groups.

Create SAP Price list types here. You would be required to have SAP Access to practice on the

same.

Maintaining Customer Groups

Use

In this Customizing activity, you define customer groups that will be assigned to the relevant customers

in the customer master data.

Customer groups are used to apply similar listing and/or exclusion settings to a large number of

customers.

Procedure

1. In Customizing for Sales and Distribution, choose Master Data Business Partners

Customers Sales Define Customer Groups.

2. Choose New Entries.

3. Enter the following data:

Field Name User Action and Default Values

CGrp Enter an ID (2-digits) for the new customer

group.

Example: Z1

Name Enter a description for the new customer

group.

Example: DSD-Cust.Group

4. Save your entries.

Result

Customer groups are now defined and are available for assignment in customer master records (Sales

Area Data, Sales tab, and Customer Group field).