Growing organizations that control more than one legal business entity are sometimes faced with the challenge of how to share data between partner companies.
Master data such as item masters and business partner master data should be in sync across all organizations, so that the same data is used across the companies. This establishes a common frame of reference for analyzing the performance of a business unit, interpreting reports from two different subsidiaries, and gaining a consolidated view such as aggregate spend or inventory holdings across all operations. Having common master data eliminates the manual effort associated with aggregating data across your organizations.
The intercompany solution supports the replication of essential master data across partner companies such as Freight Master, Currency Master, Payment Terms, Item Master Data, Business Partner Master Data, etc.
In this blog, we are covering following broad sections on master data replication and content sharing:
With the Company Template configuration, user can specify which master data can be sent from or received in a SAP Business One Company. For each master, user can also specify the field list to be replicated between the SAP Business One Companies.
The user can create and customized the company template from the intercompany administration console.
The customized company template can be assigned to the branch companies configured in the landscape.
For the item master data, business partner master data, bill of materials and price list masters, the user can choose which specific records are to be shared between SAP Business One companies.
The following check box fields have been added on the Item master, Business Partner, Bill of Material and Price list:
Selecting these check boxes on these master replicates the master to all branch companies for use in interbranch transactions.
Users can define data distribution templates to replicate specific global business partner, global item master, global bill of materials, and global price lists masters to specific branch companies.
The global data distribution template can be created using following steps:
After you have created a global data distribution template, you can assign the template to the following masters:
Global data authorization allows administrators to define users who will be allowed to add, update, or remove global master data.
With the help of authorizations feature in SAP Business One, administrator can restrict the user to view, create, and update the complete masters. However, the authorizations feature in SAP Business One cannot be used specifically to add, update or remove the Global masters. The Intercompany Global data authorization feature help you to achieve this.
To assign the global data authorization to the user, Go to Administration -> Setup -> Intercompany -> Global Data Authorizations.
On Global data authorization screen, a list of all users is displayed on the left hand side and on the right hand side, system provide the Add, Update and Remove authorizations. Assign the relevant authorization to the user and choose update.
The intercompany solution caters to service oriented scenarios by replicating:
These are replicated across companies based on company operations.
In Intercompany Landscape, User can select the operation type for the company from following options:
Note:
The Intercompany integration solution enables you to replicate UDF data across branch companies. You can choose to replicate custom UDFs on item master data, business partner, and marketing documents supported by the document exchange cycle. Users can also choose to replicate custom UDFs on journal entries and journal vouchers during consolidation processing.
The UDF replication is supported for the following objects and sub-objects:
The administrator can configure the User Defined Fields (UDFs) replication from the preferences option of intercompany administration console.
The UDFs must meet the following criteria to support the replication of data across branch companies:
The administrator can configure the solution to replicate UDTs data between branch companies similar to the master data replication process.
The administrator can configure the User Defined tables (UDTs) replication from the preferences option of intercompany administration console.
By default, intercompany solution replicates following masters in all localizations of SAP Business One.
Master Data |
Freight |
Currencies |
Customer Group |
Vendor Group |
Item Group |
Price Lists |
Period and Volume Discount |
Special Prices for Business Partners |
Discount Groups |
Exchange Rates |
Length and Width UOM |
Weight UOM |
Account Classification |
Payment terms |
Cash Discount |
Countries |
States |
County |
Dimensions |
Profit Center Setup |
Distribution Rules Setup |
Profit Center Type |
Contract Templates |
Item Master Data |
Business Partner Master Data |
Bill of Materials |
Customer Equipment Card |
Service Contract |
Manufacturers |
Item Property |
Projects |
Unit of Measure Groups |
Units of Measure |
Package Types |
User can use company template configuration feature to replicate following additional masters.
Master Data |
Shipping Type |
Credit Cards |
Business Partner Priorities |
Business Partner Properties |
Bank Charges Allocation Code |
Service Codes |
Customs Group |
Payment Blocks |
Material Group |
Address Format |
NCM Code |
DNF Code |
Service Group |
Dunning Terms |
Holiday Dates |
Sales Person |
Commission Groups |
Language |
Payment Methods |
File Format |
Document Type |
Portfolio |
Instruction |
Indicators |
Banks |
House Bank Accounts |
Fuel Group |
Beverage Commercial Brand |
Fuel Code |
Beverage Group |
Beverage Table |
Beverage Combination |
Name |
Income Nature Setup |
SPED Profile Setup |
Occurrence Code |
Movement Code |
CNAE Code |
Product Source Codes |
Translation |
Industry |
E-Mail Group |
Replication of master data properties
Using company template configurator, at any given time user may enable the field replication for any master which is not replicated by default.
To know how to enable the field, Let’s take the example of Item master where we enable the replication of shipping type field and then we assign the template to Branch companies.
Steps to enable the field replication on Item master:
(This blog content was created by the development team of the intercompany integration solution for SAP Business One)
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