SAP Business One

Updated on Jan 18, 2024

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Developer(s) SAP AG Platform x86 / x64		Stable release 9.2

Operating system Microsoft Windows / Linux (Server), Microsoft Windows (Clients) Type Enterprise resource planning Website http://www.sap.com/businessone

SAP Business One is business management software (ERP) designed for small and medium-sized enterprises, sold by the German company SAP SE. As an ERP solution, it aims to automate key business functions in financials, operations, and human resources.

History

SAP Business One was initially launched in Israel in 1996 under the name "Menahel" or "TopManage" in English. The company was founded by Reuven Agassi (CEO) and Gadi Shamia (VP of sales, marketing and product). The product was designed by Gadi Shamia and the head developer was Hilla Mazinter. In its first years TopManage was sold in the Israeli market only and was the first Windows/Mac business management product to be offered in the Israeli market. In 2000 TopManage started its global expansion into markets in Europe and Latin America. In March 2002, SAP purchased TopManage Financial Systems and branded their system as SAP Business One. TopManage founders Reuven Agassi and Gadi Shamia, took key executive positions at SAP following the acquisition. A year earlier TopManage's sister company TopTier, was also acquired by SAP. TopTier was founded by Reuven Agassi's son Shai Agassi.

The acquisition allowed SAP to reach out to the small market through its partners and also to gain additional business from the smaller subsidiaries of its enterprise customers.

Releases

Prior to SAP Business One 2004 specific country versions called 6.x existed until the first global release in 2004

Features (modules)

SAP Business One is arranged into 14 functional modules, covering the typical functions in a business organization. The most widely used modules are Financials, Sales Opportunities, Sales – A/R, Purchasing A/P, Business Partners, Banking and Inventory.

Administration, where setup of the various core settings in the application are done

Financials, where definition of Chart of Account are set up and the core Journal Entries can be created

Opportunities, where Lead generation are used to keep track of potential Sales and Purchases

Sales - A/R, where the sales flow (Quotation > Order > Delivery > Invoice) are managed

Purchasing - A/P, where the purchase flow (Quotation > Order > Delivery > Invoice) are managed

Business Partners, where master data of Leads, Customer and Supplier are maintained

Banking, where payment of Incoming (sales) and Outgoing (purchase) payments are created

Inventory, where master data of goods to be sold/purchased are maintained and their quantity/value in warehouses are tracked

Resources, where master data of resources (machines and people) to be used in production are defined (capacity and planning) [only SAP 9.1 and higher]

Production, where Bill of Materials master data are maintained and Production orders are created

Project Management, where you define projects (what you do when) [only SAP 9.2 and higher]

Material Requirements planning (MRP), where forecasts of needed items in sales/production are defined in order to make purchase order recommendations

Service, where management of service contracts are maintained and service calls are created

Human Resources, where employee master data (Names, contract information, roles, etc.) are maintained

Each module handled specific business tasks on its own, but is linked to the other modules where applicable. For instance, an invoice from the billing transaction of Sales & Distribution would pass through to accounting, where it will appear in accounts receivable and cost of goods sold.

Architecture

SAP Business One is a typical Client–server model software product

Client software, is primarily the SAP Business One client that is a Microsoft Windows-based product that connects to a back-end server. SAP also offer clients for phones and tablets (iOS and Android) that contain a subset of the full features aimed at sales employees.

Server software, is run on either a Microsoft SQL Server database (Windows) or SAP HANA database (Linux)

Partners and Community

SAP Business One are delivered through its global partner network (SAP PartnerEdge) consisting of the following partner types:

Value Added Resellers (VAR), is an SAP partner that sells, implements and supports the product to end customers

Software Solution Partners (SSP), is an SAP partner that creates horizontal or vertical standard solutions on top of the SAP Business One platform with the SAP Business One SDK and sells them via the VAR partners

Extended Business Member (EBM), is a smaller partner that sells SAP Business One via a VAR Partner instead of direct partnership with SAP

Extensibility

Custom development (called Add-ons) are done using the SAP Business One SDK. It is COM-based development done in Microsoft Visual Studio with C# or VB.NET.

SAP Business One SDK consist of:

Data Interface API (DI-API), where you can create new business object around the normal SAP Business One client but still adhere to the core business rules

User interface API (UI-API), where you can modify existing SAP Business One client screens, create new screens and change/block the normal event flow

SAP Business One Integration Technology (B1i), where you can visually create Business flows using XML/XSLT

Service Layer for SAP HANA, where you can, using OData, create business objects

Code samples

Sample #1 - DI-API: Create an A/R Invoice in the system (company)

Sample #2 - UI-API: Add button to existing SAP Business One Screen (form)

Examples of type of Add-ons developed by VARs and SSPs can be found at the SAP Application Development Center and the SAP Store

References

SAP Business One Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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