address management

E-invoicing in Germany: How to implement the obligation with SAP Business One

Address management administers all address data. With the help of a CRM system classic contact data, but also individual profiles are created in databases in which information such as product interests are stored. In addition to uniform storage and effective sorting, address management is used in dialogue marketing, direct marketing and contact management. In this way, it significantly supports customer loyalty (customer relationship management) and customer orientation. The data protection can be offered by the CRM solution.

Addresses in SAP Business One refer to the structured location information of business partners (customers, suppliers, interested parties) that is managed directly in their master data and is crucial for logistical and financial processes.

Area of application and relevance in SAP Business One

The system basically distinguishes between two address roles: The Billing address (Bill To) is used for the dispatch of bills and credit notes, while the Delivery address (Ship To) controls the physical dispatch of goods. This separation is particularly important for integrated financial accounting. As a result, the delivery address significantly determines the tax calculation and G/L account determination, as the system determines the correct G/L account based on the country (domestic, EU or third country) and the VAT number.

Unlike simple contact data in CRM systems, addresses in SAP Business One are firmly integrated into the business logic. While the payment address (Pay To) is used for suppliers, the principle remains the same. Furthermore, companies can create any number of billing and delivery addresses per business partner. Contact persons also have their own addresses.

Practical benefits

Employees define addresses via the Addresses tab in the Business partner master data. The use of descriptive address IDs (e.g. „Main warehouse Hanover") is recommended to facilitate correct selection in sales documents. Furthermore, the system automatically copies the standard addresses into the document when creating sales orders, whereby clerks can adjust these manually without affecting the master data. In addition, the system uses the addresses for external communication such as the e-mail dispatch of documents.

SAP B1 blog