Some items such as unique jewellery or patented medicines can only be purchased from a specific vendor, but these are rare examples. Most goods are supplied by multiple vendors and brands while having the same or very similar qualities – e.g., matches, paper clips, or hamburger buns. In the case where you have an item in your inventory that you purchase from multiple vendors, or supply to various customers, you may have to use inventory codes assigned by each vendor or customer in marketing documents.

To enable you to maintain different inventory codes per vendor or per customer and keep managing inventory for the single item, SAP Business One allows you to define multiple Business Partner (BP) catalog numbers for each item:

You can define catalog numbers for multiple items per business partner and select the checkbox “Print BP Catalog Number in Documents” if needed or set multiple catalog numbers per item for multiple business partners. The BP catalog number can be displayed in the respective column in all marketing documents, and in the Form Settings window you may select/deselect the option “Print BP Catalog Number”:

The BP catalog numbers are not like the unique code you assign to each item – you can change them any time. If mass update is needed, you can use the “Global Update to BP Catalog Numbers” feature, where you can update the BP catalog numbers by various ranges:

Available in Web Client for SAP Business One 10.0, and SAP Business One 10.0 version for SAP HANA. Please get in touch if you would like to upgrade to version 10.0.

We hope that you find this tip useful. For more information on Business One, please visit our webpage.

Source: Ari Schapira | SAP Business One – The Tip of the Week