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name: s4hana-create-business-partner description: Create business partners (BPs) in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public or on-prem private edition via OData V2 A_BusinessPartner deep-insert at API_BUSINESS_PARTNER. Supports suppliers (vendors with FLVN00/FLVN01 roles), customers (FLCU00/FLCU01 roles), AND combined customer+supplier BPs (sells AND buys) in a single POST. Use whenever the user wants to create, post, add, generate, seed, onboard, or clone business partners, suppliers, vendors, customers, debtors, creditors, or trading partners on S/4HANA — phrases like "create a supplier", "add a customer", "onboard vendor X", "make me a BP that's both a customer and supplier", "seed BP demo data", "clone these BPs from on-prem". Handles full BP + Address + Role + Supplier (PurchOrg + Company) + Customer (SalesArea + Company) deep-insert in one POST, master-data lookup (PurchOrg, SalesOrg, CompanyCode, recon accounts), and tenant-specific BP grouping/numbering (BP02 = internal, BP03 = external). Do NOT use for one-time vendors (CPDS grouping differs), employee BPs, or role extension on existing BPs (those need PATCH on A_BusinessPartnerRole).

s4hana-create-business-partner

Create business partners on SAP S/4HANA — suppliers, customers, or combined. Verified production-ready against SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2026-05-12: BP 1000080 (supplier), 1000081 (customer), 1000082 (combined customer+supplier), plus 73 prior bulk-migrated suppliers.

Phase 0 — Setup check (MANDATORY, no exceptions)

Before any API call, before any tool use, do this check. Even if you already know credentials from earlier in the conversation — IGNORE that knowledge and re-check from scratch each invocation.

1. Announce: tell the user "Checking for SAP credentials in <current cwd>..."
2. Check ONLY these two sources:
   • A .env file at ./.env (in the current working directory — NOT parent dirs, NOT ~/.env, NOT any memory file)
   • Shell-exported env vars: SAP_HOST AND SAP_AUTH_MODE both present
3. If neither: auto-create ./.env from the bundled template (curl from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ilia-inovaflow/s4hana-create-record-skills/main/.env.example), append .env to .gitignore if not already there, tell the user clearly what to fill in (auth mode + host + creds), and wait for them to say "ready" before making any API call. Never overwrite an existing .env.
4. If credentials are present: report back to the user: "✓ Loaded credentials for <host> in <auth-mode> mode. Proceeding with [task]."

Never use credentials from conversation memory, from another project's .env, or from any tenant the user previously worked with in a different session. Each project gets its own .env. See shared/setup-check.md for the full rationale and edge cases.

When to trigger

Verbs: create / post / add / generate / seed / onboard / clone Objects: BP(s), business partner(s), supplier(s), vendor(s), customer(s), debtor(s), creditor(s), trading partner(s) Counts: 1 to ~100 records.

Hard rules (never violate)

1. Always do a 1-record live POST per BP type as a probe before bulk (≥3 records).
2. Never invent master data IDs — verify CompanyCode, PurchOrg, SalesOrg, recon accounts, GLAccount exist in target.
3. If a required field has no sensible default and the user didn't specify → ask once, then auto-pick.
4. Scripts go in <cwd>/.s4hana-tmp/create-bps-<YYYYMMDD-HHMM>/. Never commit, never modify .env.
5. POSTs are sequential with 200ms delay; halt on 3 consecutive failures.

Endpoint

• Service path: /sap/opu/odata/sap/API_BUSINESS_PARTNER/A_BusinessPartner
• Method: POST (deep-insert with nested Address, Role, Customer, Supplier and their sub-entities)
• Communication scenario: SAP_COM_0008 — "Business Partner Replication"

Phases

Phase 1 — Parse: what kind of BP?

Want	Roles	Sub-entities
Supplier only	FLVN00 (vendor) + FLVN01 (vendor extended)	to_Supplier (with to_SupplierPurchasingOrg + to_SupplierCompany)
Customer only	FLCU00 (FI customer) + FLCU01 (extended)	to_Customer (with to_CustomerSalesArea + to_CustomerCompany)
Combined (sells AND buys)	All four roles	Both to_Supplier and to_Customer blocks

User intent maps:

• "vendor" / "supplier" → supplier
• "customer" / "debtor" / "client" → customer
• "trading partner" / "both customer and supplier" → combined

Phase 2 — Tenant defaults

Cache via tenant memory. For <your-tenant>:

Setting	Value
BP grouping (internal numbering, 7-digit IDs)	BP02
BP grouping (external numbering, manual ID required)	BP03
Supplier recon account	21100000 (Payables Domestic)
Customer recon account	12100000 (Receivables)
Default payment terms	0004
Customer Group	01
Sales Organization	1010 · DistributionChannel 10 · Division 00
Purchasing Organization	1010 · PurchGroup 001
Company Code	1010 · GLAccount expense 11001040
Languages on address	EN or DE

Use BP02 by default — internal numbering means the system auto-assigns the BP number (next 7-digit ID like 1000083). If user wants a specific 8-digit ID like 20500001, use BP03 and supply BusinessPartner explicitly.

Phase 3 — Build payload

Supplier-only (verified)

{
 "BusinessPartnerCategory": "2",
 "BusinessPartnerGrouping": "BP02",
 "OrganizationBPName1": "<name>",
 "to_BusinessPartnerAddress": {
 "results": [{ "Country": "DE", "CityName": "...", "PostalCode": "...", "StreetName": "..." }]
 },
 "to_BusinessPartnerRole": {
 "results": [{ "BusinessPartnerRole": "FLVN00" }, { "BusinessPartnerRole": "FLVN01" }]
 },
 "to_Supplier": {
 "to_SupplierPurchasingOrg": {
 "results": [{ "PurchasingOrganization": "1010", "PurchaseOrderCurrency": "EUR", "PaymentTerms": "0004" }]
 },
 "to_SupplierCompany": {
 "results": [{ "CompanyCode": "1010", "ReconciliationAccount": "21100000", "PaymentTerms": "0004" }]
 }
 }
}

Customer-only (verified)

{
 "BusinessPartnerCategory": "2",
 "BusinessPartnerGrouping": "BP02",
 "OrganizationBPName1": "<name>",
 "to_BusinessPartnerAddress": {
 "results": [{ "Country": "DE", "Language": "EN", "CityName": "...", "PostalCode": "...", "StreetName": "..." }]
 },
 "to_BusinessPartnerRole": {
 "results": [{ "BusinessPartnerRole": "FLCU00" }, { "BusinessPartnerRole": "FLCU01" }]
 },
 "to_Customer": {
 "to_CustomerSalesArea": {
 "results": [{ "SalesOrganization": "1010", "DistributionChannel": "10", "Division": "00", "CustomerGroup": "01", "CustomerPaymentTerms": "0004", "Currency": "EUR" }]
 },
 "to_CustomerCompany": {
 "results": [{ "CompanyCode": "1010", "ReconciliationAccount": "12100000", "PaymentTerms": "0004" }]
 }
 }
}

Customer-specific required fields you'd miss otherwise:

• Language on to_BusinessPartnerAddress — error FSBP_ECC/030: Standard address doesn't have a language, needed for customer
• Currency on to_CustomerSalesArea — error CVI_API/003: Currency (KNVV-WAERS) is a required entry field

Combined customer + supplier (verified)

Same as customer-only but ALSO include the supplier blocks. Both deep-inserts go through in one POST.

Phase 4 — POST

Standard CSRF flow — see ../s4hana-create-po/references/csrf-flow.md. Single POST creates BP + Address + Roles + Customer + Supplier + their org/company assignments — typically 10-15 child entities in one transaction.

Phase 5 — Verify

$expand=to_BusinessPartnerAddress,to_BusinessPartnerRole,to_Customer,to_Supplier on the new BP to confirm structure.

Cross-tenant migration notes

• Source IDs do NOT carry forward — Cloud auto-assigns with BP02. Build a source-ID → target-ID mapping CSV.
• Country distribution and BP-name patterns can be preserved.
• For customers, propagate language preferences from source addresses.

Cleanup quirks (Cloud-specific)

• A_BusinessPartner DELETE is blocked (CI_DRAFTBP_MESSAGE/032). To retire a test BP: PATCH BusinessPartnerIsBlocked=true + rename OrganizationBPName1=_TEST_DELETE_ME.
• A_Product POST is blocked on Cloud (API_PRD_MSG/009). For migrations involving new materials, reuse the existing HAWA/FERT/SERV pool — don't try to clone materials.

Output structure

<cwd>/.s4hana-tmp/create-bps-<YYYYMMDD-HHMM>/
├── payloads.json
├── create-log.jsonl
├── results.json
├── source-target-mapping.csv # for cross-tenant migrations
└── verify-sample.json

Reference files

• references/bp-roles-and-groupings.md — full role catalog (FLCU/FLVN/BUP/etc.), grouping conventions, numbering policies
• references/customer-vs-supplier.md — side-by-side comparison of required fields per role type
• references/cross-tenant-migration.md — the pattern for cloning BPs from on-prem to Cloud with ID remapping
• scripts/bulk-bp-poster.mjs — reference implementation