How to create a customer in SAP S4 HANA through custom program?

Dear Gurus,

In S4 HANA, we have the concept of business partner and roles (Concept of Customers and Vendors are modified in order to reduce data redundancy). If we require a customer or vendor to be created, we need to create a BP and assign the role of customer.

I want to create/upload customers through program. I would like to know the steps for that.

Should I create a BP first and assign a customer role to it through BAPI and then update sales area data and any other required data? Is this the best way or is there any other way to achieve this? Is there any class/api available to create a BP and assign a customer role in a single step?

I am using CMD_EI_API to create/change customers. Is there any api/class to create/change BP?

Regards,

Pritam