Of all the many standards that are commonly used in SAP systems (such as ANSI, EDIFACT, and SAML), one of the least-well-known is the Data Universal Numbering System (D-U-N-S) number. It is a unique, randomly-generated, nine-digit number that is assigned to any business entity that registers with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B), the international customer information company. The D-U-N-S number is closely associated with business partners such as vendors and customers. This unique numbering scheme helps businesses reduce and eliminate errors caused by duplication of business partners in companies’ records. It has gained global acceptance since its inception in the 1960s. In fact, in certain jurisdictions and governments, having a D-U-N-S number is mandatory for transacting business — one of the requirements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is that any entity that wants to receive stimulus money from a US federal government agency must have a D-U-N-S number. Given that many companies are currently vying for stimulus, the use of the D-U-N-S number is likely to increase in SAP systems. In addition, companies frequently use the D-U-N-S number to exchange information. I’ll go through a few places where you can find the D-U-N-S number in various fields in your SAP systems.

D-U-N-S and Business Partners

In business-to-business (B2B) transactions, the D-U-N-S number is an important component of the data exchanged between middleware applications, such as SAP NetWeaver Process Integration. During the data exchange, if the business partner exists with the D-U-N-S number, the system does not create a new business partner just because someone made an error (e.g., misspelling an existing business partner when entering it in the system). This field is also an important component of systems such as SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC), SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) and SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW), among others. The D-U-N-S field is available in both the vendor and customer master tables. For vendors, it is stored in table LFA1 in the SAP ECC system and the technical name of the field is KRAUS (Figure 1).   For customers, it is stored in table KNKK in the SAP ECC system (customer master credit management table) in the field KRAUS (Figure 2).   Corresponding to these table fields are the areas in the vendor and customer masters, respectively, where the D-U-N-S number is maintained. Note that the D-U-N-S number is purely informational and not for any kind of calculation or processing. In the case of the vendor master, if you are creating a new vendor in transaction XK01, make sure you have selected the Control check box in the General Data tab in the initial vendor creation screen. This check box controls whether the system displays all the fields, including the D-U-N-S number field, that are available in the Control section. The D-U-N-S number field is innocuously placed under the Reference data section and labeled as the Cred.info no. field (Figure 3). It is not commonly known that this is indeed the D-U-N-S number field.   In the case of the customer master, you can find this field in the customer credit management activity in transaction FD32. After you enter the customer and the corresponding credit control area, make sure you select the Status check box under the Credit control area data section to display all the fields (including the D-U-N-S number field) under the Status section. Once you are on the next screen, you can find the D-U-N-S number field under the External data section as the Cred.info number field (Figure 4).   The D-U-N-S number field is available as InfoObject 0DBDUNS_NUM in SAP NetWeaver BW (and older versions of SAP BW) via D&B business content. This InfoObject is an attribute of the 0VENDOR InfoObject. If you provide the D-U-N-S number for your vendor (master data) and make it available in SAP NetWeaver BW, you can display it in your SAP NetWeaver BW queries. Figure 5 shows this field in an SAP NetWeaver BW system.