As per the standard SAP, a customer master will be maintained with four major partner functions, as described below: The basic customer master records that will be created are
- The Sold to party record – Sold to Party is the one who places the sales order
- The Ship to party record – Ship to Party is the one to whom the goods are shipped
- The Bill to party record – Bill to Party is the one to whom the invoices are billed
- The payer record – Payer is the one who settles the invoice
In general, the above-mentioned partner functions refer to only one customer. In case the ship-to party or the bill-to party or the payer is different from the sold-to party, a separate master record needs to be createdand assigned to that sold-to party.
At the time of sales order creation, the system will prompt to choose the required ship-to party and/or bill-to party and/or payer from the available list if any of these partner functions is maintained more than once in the sold-to party.