Business Partners

Under Master data → Business partners (/parties) you manage all customers and suppliers. A business partner always has a type:

• Customer
• Supplier
• Both — e.g. a supplier you also occasionally sell to

The type determines which number ranges a business partner gets (more on that below) and which form sections even show up — e.g. debtor no. and default clerk only appear for customers, creditor no. only for suppliers.

In the list you can filter by All / Customers / Suppliers and Active / Inactive / All, and search by name, address, customer or supplier number.

The number ranges

Every business partner is automatically assigned one or more numbers when saved. These fields are read-only: numbers are never entered manually, never reused, and can't be changed afterwards either — not in the form, not anywhere else in the app.

Number	When?	Format
Address no.	always, regardless of type	A-00001, A-00002, …
Customer no.	only if type is Customer or Both	numeric, from 10001
Supplier no.	only if type is Supplier or Both	numeric, from 70001

Customer and supplier numbers sit in the DATEV-style account range for subsidiary accounts: customer numbers start right after the debtor collective account 10000, supplier numbers right after the creditor collective account 70000. The number can double directly as the accounting account — see the next section.

If you change an existing partner's type later (e.g. from Customer to Both), the missing number is assigned automatically on the next save — without changing the existing customer number.

Debtor/creditor number (accounting account)

In addition to the customer/supplier number, every business partner has an accounting account (debtor no. for customers, creditor no. for suppliers) — the account number used to post documents in the general ledger / DATEV export.

By default this is identical to the customer/supplier number and is filled in automatically on save. This section is hidden by default in the form — for an existing partner, reveal it with the "Show debtor/creditor number" toggle.

Assigning a different number manually

Only when creating a new partner can you enter a different number, via the "Set debtor/creditor number manually" toggle — for example when importing from a legacy system, to keep an account number already in use there.

Two things to keep in mind:

• Not recommended without checking with your tax advisor — a deviating subsidiary account must fit your existing chart of accounts.
• Cannot be changed after saving (GoBD requirement, German bookkeeping law): once assigned, accounting numbers must not be altered afterwards.

Leaving the field empty despite the toggle being on has, by itself, no effect — the number is still auto-filled from the customer/supplier number on save. It only stays genuinely empty — and therefore permanently falls back to the collective account — in combination with the following setting.

Global setting: fully separate ranges

Settings include the option "Manage debtor/creditor numbers separately". When enabled, the accounting number is never auto-filled from the customer/supplier number — it must be consciously assigned for every partner at creation time. If left empty there, that partner's documents permanently post to the collective account (10000 for debtors, 70000 for creditors) instead of an individual subsidiary account — this can't be changed afterwards, since the field is read-only once saved. Relevant only if your bookkeeping maintains account ranges independent of the business partner numbers.

General

The partner's basic details:

• Company / name — required.
• Additional line / Additional line 2 — e.g. department, "attn.", "c/o".
• VAT ID — see Pricing & tax below: entering it here drives automatic tax-class detection.
• Email, phone, fax, website — the partner's general contact details (separate from individual contacts).
• Language — the partner's stored language (German/English), regardless of type.

Address

Street, postcode, city and country make up the main address. The country field is a searchable select covering every country in the world — Germany, Austria and Switzerland sit at the top of the list as the most common cases. The main address also appears as a quick summary in the form's right-hand column.

Billing address

Customers only (including "Both").

Invoices go to the main address by default. The "Different billing address" toggle lets you set a separate billing address (name, street, postcode, city, country) — e.g. for a central accounting department that differs from the delivery/main address. Turning the toggle back off clears any billing-address fields you'd entered.

Terms

Payment & shipping

Customer- and supplier-related fields are clearly separated here — for a partner that's both, they're stacked with a divider line between them.

For customers (and the top block when the type is "Both"):

• Payment term and Shipping method — defaults for this partner.
• Invoicing interval — None, Weekly, Monthly, or Quarterly. Controls how often this partner gets billed — not to be confused with a consolidated invoice (one invoice covering multiple orders).
• Payment term (invoicing interval) — only appears when the invoicing interval isn't "None"; its own payment term specifically for the invoices generated on that interval, independent of the regular payment term.

For suppliers (and the bottom block when the type is "Both"):

• Payment term (supplier) — the terms the supplier grants us, independent of the payment term we grant as a customer. Shipping method and invoicing interval don't apply to suppliers and aren't shown here.

Pricing & tax

Customers only (including "Both").

• Default discount (in %) and discount reason (free text) — a standing discount for this partner.
• Price display — Net or Gross, sets whether invoices to this partner are shown as a net or gross invoice.
• Tax class — Domestic, EU B2B (reverse charge), or Export (tax-free). Auto-detected from the VAT ID as long as "Manually overridden" isn't checked: a German VAT ID sets Domestic, a VAT ID from another EU country sets EU B2B. Without a (recognized) VAT ID the tax class stays unchanged — e.g. for Export, which isn't auto-detected and must be set manually together with "Manually overridden".
• Default clerk — empty means the currently logged-in user is preselected on the document.

Bank accounts

Only available for already-saved partners (contacts and bank accounts can only be added after initial creation).

Per bank account: account holder, bank, currency, IBAN and BIC (IBAN is required and shown masked in the list, e.g. DE12 **** **** **** **89), an optional note, and a SEPA direct debit mandate with mandate reference, signature date, mandate type (One-off/Recurring), and status (Active/Revoked).

Checking "Default bank account" marks the partner's preferred account — note that there can only ever be one default bank account per partner. Trying to mark a second one as default is rejected by validation.

Contacts

Also only available after saving. Per contact: salutation, first/last name, position, email, phone, and up to four role checkboxes: Invoice contact, Order contact, Reminder contact, and Primary contact (marked with a small star icon in the list). If none of these roles is set, the card shows "General" instead.

Just like with bank accounts: there can only ever be one primary contact per partner — a second one is rejected on save.

The email address invoices go to follows this order: the invoice contact's email first (if present), then the primary contact's email, then the partner's own general email address.

Notes

Free-text field for internal notes about the partner — doesn't appear on documents.

Status, address & history

In the right-hand column (or in the Type section up top on narrow screens):

• Status — Active/Inactive toggle. Active partners can be used on documents; inactive ones are locked for new documents (existing documents are unaffected).
• Address — quick summary of the main address.
• History (existing partners only) — creation date and last-changed date.

If someone else has saved the same partner in the meantime, "Save" rejects your own change and shows a notice at the top of the form with a "Reload page" link. Your own input stays in the form, so you can note it down (or copy it) before reloading and re-entering it.

In short

• Address no. — technical identifier of the master record, every partner has one.
• Customer no. / supplier no. — the "business" number, appears on quotes, orders, invoices.
• Debtor no. / creditor no. — the accounting account; mirrors the customer/supplier number by default, but can be independent when needed, and is fixed once saved.

All five numbers share one rule: once assigned, they're fixed for good — none of them can be edited afterwards, whether directly or through a later type change.