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How to make trading partner a required entry

(Part I)
� Thursday, 10 March 2016 � Ashish Sampat � Controlling 2016, � 3801 Hits � 0 Comments

Trading Partner: Definition

Trading Partner is a term used in trade and commerce and can be generally defined as “one of
the two or more participants in an ongoing business relationship”1

Trading Partner (Company) setup

Trading Partner has a similar meaning in the context of SAP Finance and Controlling, it speaks about the
business relationship among company codes. Trading Partner (field VBUND) should be captured at relevant
master data and transactional data – this can be a key requirement for intercompany design. This data can then
be used to consolidate financial statements as well as reporting. Some of the transactions include elimination of
intercompany sales / purchases, intercompany accounts receivable / payable.

Trading Partner field is defined in the configuration node for “Company” (field RASSC) and is stored in table T880
- Transaction OX15 – Define Company (updates table T880)
- Transaction OX16 – Assign Company Code to Company

Trading Partner maintenance on master data

Trading Partner is maintained on intercompany customer and vendor masters, as well as GL accounts that are
used exclusively for intercompany postings. (Whereas there usually are dedicated vendor and customer masters
for intercompany transactions, there may not always be dedicated GL accounts for intercompany transactions.)

The following transaction codes are used for maintenance of trading partner on respective master data elements:

Transaction FK02 – Vendor Master (updates table LFA1, field VBUND)

Transaction FD02 – Customer Master (updates table KNA1, field VBUND)
Transaction FS00 – GL Account Master Data (updates table SKA1, field VBUND)

Trading Partner information flows automatically to the transactions, once trading partner is maintained at master

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How to make trading partner a required entry (Part I) - SAP FICO, Financials, Controlling blog by Erpcorp

data level (i.e. on relevant intercompany customers, vendors and GL accounts).

However, there may be instances where a GL account may have transactions for both intercompany as well as
third-party scenarios (example: Interest on loans and advances – organization can receive interest on loans from
external / third party entities or from intercompany entities). It may not always be possible to define separate GL
accounts for each scenario, doing so may lead to proliferation of GL Accounts.

Since the trading partner is not maintained on GL account master data and does not automatically flow to
transaction data, trading partner will need to be explicitly entered at the transaction processing level. As one can
imagine, it is possible that trading partner may be missed on certain transactions, thereby leading to
inconsistencies and downstream impact on consolidations. Trading partner may be missed due to lack of
discipline among users, lack of system checks or simply due to the quality of data sent by interfacing systems –
SAP or non-SAP.

Stay tuned later this week for Part II.

References:

1 Trading Partner definition from BusinessDictionary.com. Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/trading-

partner.html.

Tags: #SAP Trading Partner, #Controlling 2016, #Controlling 2016 Speaker, #Book Authors,

� SAP Customer Case Studies at Controlling… How to make trading partner a required ent… �

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ashish Sampat
View author's profile More posts from author

http://www.erpcorp.com/sap-controlling-blog/how-to-make-trading-partner-a-required-entry-part-i[17/10/2016 04:24:43 p.m.]

How to make trading partner a required entry (Part I) - SAP FICO, Financials, Controlling blog by Erpcorp

Ashish Sampat is a qualified finance and costing professional with nearly two decades of
industry experience in the SAP Finance and Controlling space. Ashish has been an SAP
consultant for most of his career with various consulting organizations and now works as an
independent SAP FI/CO consultant. He has provided solutions in several areas of SAP Controlling including
product costing, material ledger, and cost center accounting to global clients in consumer packed goods, life
sciences, and industrial sectors. Born and educated in India, Ashish now lives in suburban Chicago with his wife
and two kids. Ashish is the author of a book published by Espresso Tutorials First Steps in SAP Controlling
(CO). Ashish Sampat is a featured speaker at Controlling 2016. Learn more about his sessions:

Case Study: How Mondelez International effectively tracks costs and variances

Expert tips to boost productivity in SAP Controlling

Recent posts

� How to make trading partner a required entry (Part II) 10 March 2016

� How to make trading partner a required entry (Part I) 10 March 2016

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How to make trading partner a required entry

(Part II)
� Thursday, 10 March 2016 � Ashish Sampat � Controlling 2016, � 3188 Hits � 1 Comment

How can we make Trading Partner a required entry while posting financial
accounting documents for certain GL Accounts?
There are three possible alternatives to achieve this goal: Field Status Groups, Document Types
and FI Validation. We will look at each of these options below.

1) Field Status Group

Field status groups can be used to make certain fields required, optional, display, or suppressed by using field
status definition. There is a general belief among the SAP community that field status group can be used for
Trading Partner as well. However, not all fields are available in field status group – trading partner is one such
field that is not a part of field status group.

Trading Partner (field VBUND, data element RASSC) can be enabled in Field Status Group by adding it in table
TCOBF (Coding Block: Assignment of Modif and Field Names from COBL). With this change, field status groups
can now be leveraged to influence Trading Partner (suppressed / required / optional). However, this option is
generally not recommended by SAP. It may create inconsistencies while posting FI documents (OSS Note
1397715 “Adding VBUND to the coding block”2)

Transaction OBC4 – Field Status variants (GL Account level)

Transaction OB41 – Field Status Groups (Posting Key level)

2) Document Types
Document types can be configured such that Trading Partner will be available for input. Following fields need to
be activated in Document Type setup.
- Transaction OBA7 – Document Types (underlying table T003)
o Partner Company can be input (T003-XMGES)

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How to make trading partner a required entry (Part II) - SAP FICO, Financials, Controlling blog by Erpcorp

o Cross-company (T003-XGSUB)
This setup will open up Trading Partner at document level. However, it does not make Trading Partner a required
entry.

3) FI Validation
FI validation can be used to prevent document postings where Trading Partner is missing for certain GL
accounts. A validation in FI has three sections: Pre-requisite, Check and Message. These sections are explained
below with example.
- Transaction OB28 – Financial Accounting validation (configuration transaction)
- Transaction GS01 – Create set (master data transaction, generally not transported)
- Transaction GS02 – Change set (master data transaction, generally not transported)

Prerequisite:
For certain set of accounts (defined in set “ZGL_TRAD_PART_REQD” – figure 2)
For certain sets of users (defined in set “ZUSR_TRAD_PART_REQD” – figure 3)
For certain document types (defined in set “ZDOC_TYPE_TRAD_PART_REQD” – figure 4)

Check:
If Trading Partner is blank
Message:
Return an error with appropriate message

The implication of this validation: the user cannot move forward with this transaction until the Trading Partner is
entered.

Conclusion

Given the shortcomings of Field Status Group and Document Type options, these two options are generally
not preferred.
FI validations are easy to configure and maintain (they normally do not require ABAP programming unless
a user-exit or table-lookup are to be used).
A simple validation like the one shown in this example can go a long way in ensuring data consistency and
accuracy

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How to make trading partner a required entry (Part II) - SAP FICO, Financials, Controlling blog by Erpcorp

Figure 1: OB28 – FI Validation for missing Trading Partner for certain GL Accounts, Users and Document Types

Validation details (figure 1)

Prerequisites:
BSEG-HKONT IN ZGL_TRAD_PART_REQD AND
BKPF-USNAM IN ZUSR_TRAD_PART_REQD AND
BKPF-BLART IN ZDOC_TYPE_TRAD_PART_REQD

Check:
BSEG-VBUND <> ''

Message:
Error Z1 032 Trading Partner is required for GL

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How to make trading partner a required entry (Part II) - SAP FICO, Financials, Controlling blog by Erpcorp

Figure 2: GS01 / GS02 – Create / Maintain Set to define GL Accounts that should be checked for Trading
Partner

Figure 3: GS01 / GS02 – Create / Maintain Set to define Users that should be checked for Trading Partner

Figure 4: GS01 / GS02 – Create / Maintain Set to define Document Types that should be checked

References:

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How to make trading partner a required entry (Part II) - SAP FICO, Financials, Controlling blog by Erpcorp

SAP Note 1397715 - FI: Adding VBUND to the coding block from https://service.sap.com

Tags: #Book Authors, #Controlling 2016 Speaker, #SAP Trading Partner,

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ashish Sampat
View author's profile More posts from author

Ashish Sampat is a qualified finance and costing professional with nearly two decades of
industry experience in the SAP Finance and Controlling space. Ashish has been an SAP
consultant for most of his career with various consulting organizations and now works as an
independent SAP FI/CO consultant. He has provided solutions in several areas of SAP Controlling including
product costing, material ledger, and cost center accounting to global clients in consumer packed goods, life
sciences, and industrial sectors. Born and educated in India, Ashish now lives in suburban Chicago with his wife
and two kids. Ashish is the author of a book published by Espresso Tutorials First Steps in SAP Controlling
(CO). Ashish Sampat is a featured speaker at Controlling 2016. Learn more about his sessions:

Case Study: How Mondelez International effectively tracks costs and variances

Expert tips to boost productivity in SAP Controlling

http://www.erpcorp.com/sap-controlling-blog/how-to-make-trading-partner-a-required-entry-part-ii[17/10/2016 04:30:20 p.m.]