Account groups for customer and vendor can be either created or one can use sap default account group. While creating a vendor or customer master, we enter these account groups on the initial screen. After creation of a vendor and customer master you can not change such a/c groups i.e. you can not reassign any other account group to your vendor or customer master.
A/c groups for a customer and vendor master manages three things;
- Number range
- Field status
- Account is one time customer or vendor
Number ranges are assigned to the account group. You define these number ranges at a different place and assign it to the account group. While creating a vendor or customer master data, sap uses this number range and assign it to the master record. Number range can be external or internal.
Also Read:
Customer and vendor master records have three segments which are used for posting a transaction. Account group in sap is used to control the fields of these segments. Based on your requirement you can mark these fields to be required entry, displayed or optional. For example; to ensure that all customer and vendor master data has complete address information you can make the fields as required entry by changing the field status of this field in account group.
Also Read: Segments of customer and vendor master
However account group’s field status is not the only criteria in determining the fields of a particular transaction. Sap will compare field status that is maintained for account group (account group specific field status), transaction (transaction specific field status) and company code (company code specific field status). After comparison the field status that has highest priority will be used. Like, if you have set a particular field to be displayed in any of these three places then that will be given priority even in other places you have used optional option.
If you want to use only field status at the account group level then set the fields in transaction-specific and company code-specific to optional entry. By doing this your field status in account group will have priority.
Also Read:
- What is field status group for transaction posting in SAP
- How field status of a document entry is managed in sap
Onetime vendor or customer is an option in sap where you do not want to create master data for your customer or vendor as you rarely do business with them. Onetime vendor or customer master will not have any specific data related to it as you can use this account for more than one vendor and customer. Customer or vendor specific fields for these account groups should be hidden.
Also Read: Difference between normal and one time customer or vendor account