Business Process in SAP Credit Management Part 2: Credit Master Data


…Credit master data contains all of the business partner’s data that is required for monitoring the business partner’s credit risk using the SAP Credit Management functions. SAP Business Partner in the UKM000 role (Credit Mgt Business Part) is used to store this data in SAP Credit Management.

… The credit master data consists of credit profile data (credit-relevant data that is universally valid for the business partner) and credit segment data (credit-relevant data that is valid for the business partner only in a certain area – in the credit segment).

• The credit profile contains data such as: the procedure for determining the creditworthiness and credit limit; the business partner’s scoring and (if necessary) external ratings; the risk class; the check rule for controlling the credit limit check for a business partner’s order; and notes and further information about the business partner (for example, negative characteristics, credit insurance, or collateral).

• The credit segment data contains all data that is required for the credit check when accepting a sales order (check of the credit limit utilization and other criteria) and the resulting credit decision about the order (decision regarding order release and payment conditions).

Credit Segment Concept


SAP Credit Management allows you to use credit segments to manage several credit limits for a customer (one credit limit for each credit segment). Depending on how it is configured, a credit segment can correspond (for example) to a business area, a sales division, a company code, or a region. This credit segment is assigned to a main credit segment, which can be used to define an overall credit limit for the customer at organization level, in addition to the individual credit limits at “subsegment level.” In terms of the credit limit check, when a sales order is created:

• The customer’s credit limit utilization is checked in the corresponding credit segment (the customer’s credit limit in this segment minus the customer’s obligations assigned to this credit segment).

• The customer’s credit limit utilization in the main credit segment is checked (customer’s credit limit in the overall organization minus all of the customer’s obligations that are generated across the whole company).

  Credit Segment Data

  

When an order is created for a business partner, the system uses the business partner’s corresponding credit segment data to check:

• The current credit limit utilization (credit limit – total liability, including credit insurance and collateral)
• The manually set credit block (if necessary)
• The payment history This is the basis for the credit decision on the order for the business partner. This decision determines whether the order is accepted and specifies the payment and delivery conditions, including the payment target (lending).

Information about the business partner’s payment behavior is summarized in the payment behavior summary, which contains (for example) information about the highest dunning level, the oldest open item, the last payment, and key figures such as the average period outstanding or the average customer sales.

Relationships


You can maintain relationships between different SAP business partners. The following relationshiptypes (maintained in each case at credit segment level) are available in SAP Credit Management:

• You can use the relationship categories Higher-level Credit Management account of (FUKM001) or Lower-level Credit Management account of (TUKM001) to define customer hierarchies (up to a maximum of 10 hierarchy levels). The liability data for the lower-level credit management accounts is totaled to form the liability data of the respective higher-level credit management account.

• You can use the relationship category in Credit Management is managed by (TUKMSB0) to assign credit analysts, who are responsible for the business partner (for each credit segment). The credit analyst must be created as an SAP business partner (person) in the Employee role.

• You can use the relationship category is in credit analyst group (TUKMSBG) to organize credit analysts into groups.

• An integral part of SAP Credit Management is credit master data, which is stored in SAP Business Partner and consists of credit profile data and credit segment data.

  Summary

• The credit profile serves as a central storage location for data that is relevant to the risk analysis of the customer (scoring, risk class, external rating, and credit check rule).

• Credit segments represent different areas of an organization (for example, sales areas, countries, or company codes). They are used to manage credit limits (and their utilization) for specific areas, and provide information about the customer’s payment behavior (payment behavior summary). When an order is created within an organizational area, the corresponding credit segment data is used for the credit check.

• You can use relationships to build customer hierarchies.