Manage Business Partners: Merge, Archive and Track Changes
Under Business Partners, you manage all created contacts in one central place. You can merge business partners, archive them, and review the change history.
Depending on your role, different actions are available:
Administrator
Accountant
Requester
Merge contacts
If a business partner has been created more than once, you can merge the duplicate entries.
How to merge contacts
Open the Business Partners menu.
Select the contacts in the list that you want to merge.
Click Merge contacts.
Review the selected contacts in the window that opens.
Choose which contact should remain.
Alternatively, enter a new name for the merged business partner.Confirm the merge.
Carefully review the master data of the selected contacts before merging them. After the merge, the data will only remain with the selected target contact.
Example:
A supplier was created once with the full company name and once with a shortened version. By merging the entries, you prevent duplicate bookings and maintain clean master data.
Archive a business partner
If you no longer actively work with a business partner, you can archive the contact. The contact remains in the system but no longer appears in the active list.
Option 1: Archive via the list view
Open the Business Partners menu.
Select the desired business partner in the list.
Click Archive business partner.
Option 2: Archive via the detail view
Open the relevant business partner.
Click Archive in the edit view.
Tip: Archive business partners when the collaboration has ended but you still need access to existing bookings for documentation or accounting purposes.
Reactivate an archived business partner
You can reactivate archived business partners at any time:
Open the Business Partners menu.
Switch to the Archived tab.
Select the relevant business partner.
Click Activate business partner.
The business partner will then appear again in the active list.
View the change history
Each business partner includes a history. In the history, you can see:
what change was made
who made the change
when the change was made
The history is available for changes made on or after August 1, 2024.
Please note: Changes made before August 1, 2024 are not displayed in the history.
Example
You notice that a business partner’s bank details have changed. In the history, you can track who updated the information and when the adjustment was made.