Business Partner

Introduction

Business Partner is the generic name for all the people/companies with a business relationship with your tenant/client: that includes, vendors, customers, employees and so on. Sometimes we need to configure groups, taxes and other specific properties for invoicing or to manage them properly, so please be sure that you understand the following capabilities for them

Creating a Business Partner

The Business Partner window allows you to define any partner with whom you perform transactions.
There are different types of Business Partners, these include: Customers, Vendor or Suppliers, Employees and Sales Representatives each one of these represent a different role and function within the company. Menu: Partner Relations -> Business Partner Rules -> Business Partner

Customers

Introduction

A customer is a subject or entity that accesses resources, products or services provided by another. For business, the customer is the individual who, through a financial transaction, acquires a product and / or service of any kind (technological, gastronomic, decorative, furniture or property, etc.). A customer is synonymous with a buyer or consumer. A customer corresponds to a business partner with whom the company makes sales transactions and of which special information such as account statements, credit quota, discounts granted, price list, among others are needed. In iDempiere, the qualification of the Customer is granted to a business partner created, for which you will see that the windows and the concepts will always refer to the Business Partner. The above means that a Business Partner can be marked as a customer and in turn as an employee and as a vendor (supplier).

Business Partner Group

The Customers are created first instance as business partners and selecting the Customer field. A business partner group must be assigned to the registry. Menu: Partner Relations –> Business Partner Rules -> Business Partner Group In iDempiere it is possible to group the business partner by similar characteristics through this group option of third parties, either to generate reports or carry out massive processes such as changes in accounting accounts, price lists and discounts. You can create N groups of business partners in iDempiere for example: PARTNERS, VIP CUSTOMERS,INTERNAL CUSTOMERS, STAR SUPPLIERS .. As an example, the following Customer registry is created:

Configuration of a Customer

In the following window you will see a sample all fields are required

The marked Customer checkbox (on the right side) is necessary, then you will see new Sections and Tabs appear on the screen related to the customer functionality.

Essential Fields for Customer: Name, Business Partner Group.

Additional fields (not mandatory) with impact on sales are: a) Section Customer Information

Invoice Rule: The Invoice Rule defines how a Business Partner is invoiced and the frequency of invoicing.
Invoice Schedule: The Invoice Schedule identifies the frequency used when generating invoices.
Payment Rule: The Payment Rule indicates the method of invoice payment.
Payment Term: Payment Terms identify the method and timing of payment.
Delivery Rule: The Delivery Rule indicates when an order should be delivered. For example should the order be delivered when the entire order is complete, when a line is complete or as the products become available.
Delivery Via: The Delivery Via indicates how the products should be delivered. For example, will the order be picked up or shipped.
Price List: Price Lists are used to determine the pricing, margin and cost of items purchased or sold.
Discount Schema: After calculation of the (standard) price, the trade discount percentage is calculated and applied resulting in the final price.
Flat Discount %: Flat discount percentage
Dunning: To determine times and schedule for creating dunning notes to the customer if he has open invoices.

b) Section Document Preferences

In this section there are some preferences to configure the language for documents, the greeting used, the invoice print format, number of copies for the documents and some reference information.

c) Section Sales Information

This gives direct access to information on business with the customer, a.o. actual life time value and first sale.

d) Tabs with further connected information

There are a number of tabs to select below the basic data: Contact (User) with subtabs Interest Area and BP Access, then other main Tabs for Location, Bank Account, Shipping Accounts, Customer Accounting and Printed Form Control.

For aspects like accounting and Form Control usually general data is sufficient, but for the Location usually every Business partner needs specific data.

Configuration of a Vendor or Supplier

Introduction

A vendor (supplier) can be a person or a company that supplies other companies with stocks (items) or services necessary for the development of the activity. The Vendors (Suppliers) correspond to the business partner with whom the company makes Purchase transactions and of which we need to know special information such as account statements, discounts granted to us, price list among others. Depending on the type of items or service provided by our vendor (supplier), we can differentiate them into e.g. 3 types (or more):

• Vendor(Supplier) of goods: this would be in charge of providing the company with articles and tangible objects.

• Service Vendor: this type of supplier does not provide material but provides a service or activity so that their clients can in turn perform their functions in the company. For example, as suppliers of generic services that every company needs would be telephone companies, water and electricity.

• Vendor(Supplier) of resources: these would be in charge of covering the economic needs of the company, for example, banks or financial entities.

Details for Business Partner Group has beend described above.

In Idempiere, the qualification of the vendor is that granted to a business partner registry created, for which we will see that the windows and the concepts will always refer to Business Partner. The above means that a Business Partner can be marked as a vendor (supplier) and in turn/same time as an employee and as a customer.

Configuration of a Vendor/Supplier

Mark the Vendor checkbox, you will see that new Tabs appear on the screen related to the vendor functionality. Essential Fields for Vendor: Tax ID, Surname.

Below you will find the Section Vendor information

It contains some dedicated fields. None of these fields are mandatory but have an impact on the purchasing processes that are executed in iDempiere.

Payment Rule: The Payment Rule indicates the method of purchase payment.

PO Payment Term: The PO Payment Term indicates the payment term that will be used when this purchase order becomes an invoice.

Purchase Price List: Identifies the price list used by a Vendor for products purchased by this organization.

PO Discount Schema: Schema to calculate the purchase trade discount percentage.

Is Manufacturer: Indicate role of this Business partner as Manufacturer.

General usage of the tabs below e.g. for location is the same as for customers. Also additional tabs will appear for vendor accounting. When creating a new vendor or changing contents we proceed to save the record with the disc-icon.

Outlook

This part can be further completed. Please feel free to do so.

Perhaps some remarks on relationships to prices, marketing, services and requests as important relationships for business partner data.

Note

Some parts of this text are adapted from materials created by Pedro Rozo and SmartJSP, shared under the GNU General Public License. Used with permission for this project.