Like normal GL master, customer and vendor master also have segments. Both these masters have two segments i.e. general data and company code specific data. Information under general data can be accessed throughout the whole organization whereas company code specific data will be specific to a company code.
Company code that wants to do business with a customer or vendor has to create its company code specific data for customer and vendor master respectively. With this segment creation the customer and vendor account created for different company codes will be extended to your company code.
One can use report RFBIDE10/RFBIKR10 to transfer customer or vendor master data maintained in a source company code to another company code.
In addition to all these segments, a customer account has to be created with its sales area data which will be related to a sales area that wants to do business with the customer. Such segment will contain all the sales area specific data and it must be created at least for the sales area that is assigned to the company code.
Sales area segments specifically created for a particular sales area can not be used by other sales area.
So a customer master in sap will have three segments;
- General data at the client level
- Company code data at company code level
- Sales area segment at sales area level
Similarly vendor account has to be created with its purchasing organization data which will be specific the purchasing organization. Segments created for a particular purchasing organization can not be used by other purchase organization.
Like in the case of customer, vendor master in sap will have three segments i.e.
- General data at the client level
- Company code data at company code level
- Purchase organization segment at purchase organization level
Segments are created for easy use of master data and to minimize the storage space in sap. A customer or vendor master without any of these segments will be treated as an invalid master record.