In iDempiere, business partners are all the different entities you will deal with in your business. Business Partners maybe customers, employees and vendors. Business partners are not mutually exclusive. A Business Partner may be a customer, employee and/or vendor at the same time. iDempiere assumes that these have more or less the same attributes (ex. name, location, tax identity etc.) and deal with it in one “Business Partner” window. In the Business Partner Window, you can add a specific Contact, Location and Bank account tied to the specific partner.
Business Partners can be grouped via the “Business Partner Group” window. This “Business Partner Group” window allows accounting specifications set in the group level i.e. all the accounting specifications for business partners under the group are set with the group specifications. If needed, you can update the default account specific for a business partner under the group level. Business Partners should be entered before any transactions are created. Vendor information is needed for products and purchase orders. On the other hand, customer information is needed for order transactions.
See http://wiki.idempiere.org/en/Business_Partner_(Window_ID-123) for more details.
See http://wiki.idempiere.org/en/Business_Partner_(Window_ID-123) for more details.