Master Data · Daily operations · 8 min read

Create and release a party

Create a shared legal identity in the Master Data app, release it to your company and others, and suspend or archive it.

Before you begin

A party is the shared legal identity behind a customer or supplier. Each company reaches a party only through its own release. A company never sees parties released to others, and superusers are no exception: a party that is not released to your company answers 'Party not found.'

You need mdm.steward. If a party is shared and you want to change its legal name, you also need mdm.release.

Adopt your existing partners

If the company already has customers and suppliers:

1. Open Master Data > Master Data > Dashboard.
2. Press Adopt N partners as parties. The button only shows when partners without a party exist.

Each partner becomes a party (PTY-000001), released to this company. A partner with a tax id gets an active, unverified VAT registration. Two partners with the same TRN become two parties; they are not merged. The scan for duplicates will find them.

Create a party

1. Open Master Data > Master Data > Parties and press New party.
2. Enter the Legal name (required, up to 160 characters). Add the Arabic legal name, trading name, legal form and website if your company has made them visible.
3. Choose the Entity: Company or Person.
4. Tick the Roles: Customer, Vendor or both. 'A party is a customer, a vendor or both.' if none is ticked.
5. Choose the Market: B2B or B2C.
6. Enter the Registration number and Registration country if known. Spaces are removed; the country is two letters.
7. Press Save.

What happens next

• The party record opens with the status Released. A partner of the right kind (customer, supplier or both) with an automatic code is created in your company.
• The registration number also becomes an active, unverified VAT registration on the Registrations & banks tab.
• The new partner is scanned for duplicates at once.

Add contacts and addresses

On the party record press Add contact (name, job title, email, phone, mobile, preferred channel) or Add address (use: billing, shipping, legal or delivery; line 1; country; emirate; city). Addresses follow the same geography rules as the Contacts app: a city outside the chosen emirate is refused.

Release the party to another company

1. Open the party and press Release to a company.
2. Choose the company from your other companies. You must hold mdm.release there.
3. Press Release.

The other company gets its own partner with its own code and payment terms of 0 days. The Companies tab lists the releases and Shared changes to Yes. Releasing again is refused: 'The party is already released to that company.'

Edit, suspend, archive, reinstate

• Edit identity changes the legal name, trading name, legal form and website. For a shared party the legal name needs mdm.release: 'Renaming a party released to several companies needs the mdm.release permission.' The dialog sends the legal name back on every save, so a shared party can be refused even when you only changed the website. Ask someone with mdm.release.
• Renaming the partner in Contacts when its party is shared with other companies is refused: change the name or tax number in Master Data.
• Suspend here marks your company's release as suspended. At present it does not stop new documents.
• Archive here makes the partner inactive in your company. Existing documents stay, new ones are refused. When no release remains live, the party becomes archived.
• Reinstate reverses suspend or archive.

Good to know

• Two people who edit the same party at once: the second save is refused with 'This record changed since you opened it. Reload it and try again.'
• The Companies tab names only your company and companies you belong to.
• Opening a party by partner id for a partner that has no party creates one, even for a view-only user.