Customer
The customer as the whole group knows it: its name, its category and group, its addresses, its people and its bank accounts. One record serves every company. What the customer means to one company (its terms, its credit, its accounts) is kept on Customer In Legal Entity.
What it is for
A customer is entered once and then released into each company that trades with it. This screen holds the part that is the same everywhere. Most people never open it: creating a customer on Customer In Legal Entity writes this record for you, and changes made there to addresses, contacts, bank details and portal settings are copied back here on save.
The one rule people get wrong: Customer Category and Customer Group are picked before Create and are locked for the rest of that first entry. Pick them carefully; they decide which registrations and address details the customer needs.
Every field in plain words
General
| Field | What it means | What to put |
|---|---|---|
| Customer | The customer's number | Required. Must be unique: a second customer with the same number is refused |
| Name | The customer's name | Required |
| Customer Category | Whether the customer is a person or an organisation | Required. Locked once you press Create on a new customer. For a person, the name together with the father's or husband's name must be unique; for an organisation, the name alone must be unique |
| Customer Group | The group the customer belongs to | Required. Locked once you press Create on a new customer |
Basic Data
| Field | What it means | What to put |
|---|---|---|
| No Of Employee | Head count of the customer | Optional, information only |
| Language | The customer's language | Optional |
| Industry | The customer's industry | Optional |
| Country | The customer's country | Optional |
| Authorization Key | The access key that limits which users see this customer | Optional |
| Bid Only, One Time Buyer, Multinational, Owner is Disabled | Descriptive ticks about the customer | Information only. Nothing in the system acts on them |
Address
One line per address. Name of Address is required on each line, and when a name is given the Address must be filled.
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Name of Address | A short name, such as Head office or Warehouse 2 |
| Purpose | What the address is used for (delivery, invoice and so on). The second Purpose column opens a list where one address can carry several purposes |
| Address, Country Region, Country, State, City | The address itself |
| Private | The address is private |
| Primary For Country | The main address in its country. Only one per country, and Country must be filled |
| Primary Address | The main address for its purpose. Only one per purpose |
| Tax Zone, Timezone, Latitude, Longitude | Tax zone of the address, its time zone and its map position |
| Person, Mobile, Phone, Email | A contact at this address. If you give a mobile, phone or email, give the Person too |
Contacts
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Person | Required. The contact's name |
| Contact Nature | The kind of contact: phone, mobile, email and so on |
| Contact | Required. The number or address itself |
| Extension | Phone extension |
| Primary | The main contact of its nature. Only one per Contact Nature |
Bank Information
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Currency, Bank, Account, IBAN | One bank account of the customer |
| Primary For Currency | The main account in that currency. Only one per currency |
| Notes | Free text |
Portal
The customer portal lets the customer sign in and see its documents.
| Field | What it means | What to put |
|---|---|---|
| Portal Enabled | The customer may use the portal | Tick it |
| Portal Password | The password the customer signs in with | Press Generate Password to make an eight-character password, then Send Credentials to Customer to email it |
| Override Portal Setting | This customer gets its own portal settings | Tick it to show the fields below. Turning it on ticks Allow All Companies |
| Dashboard Period Type, Default Page, Portal Pricing Visibility, Order Create In | How the portal opens and behaves for this customer | Pick from the lists |
| Hide Discount from Catalogue | Discounts are not shown in the portal catalogue | Tick if wanted |
| Allow All Companies | The customer sees every company it trades with | Untick to list the companies it may see in the grid below, one of which you can mark Default |
Send Credentials to Customer works only on a saved customer that has a password. It sends the portal link, the customer number and the password to the customer's email contact.
When Override Portal Setting is off, Save empties the portal fields below it and the company list. When Allow All Companies is on, Save empties the company list.
How to configure it
- Make Customer Groups first. They decide which registrations and which address details are required when the customer is released into a company. See Customer Group.
- Fields can be made mandatory, hidden, read-only or given a default per company on the Default Parameters tab of Account Receivable Setting.
- Portal settings saved here are copied to every company record of this customer. Item access in the portal is set per company on Release Customer In Legal Entity.
- The On Hold toolbar button opens a list of holds: the screen (Sales Quotation, Sales Order, Customer Invoice or Collection), the reason and the release date.
Scenarios
- A customer buys from two of your companies. Create it once on Customer In Legal Entity in the first company. In the second company, use Release Customer In Legal Entity and pick the same customer. Addresses and contacts are shared.
- A walk-in buyer who will never come back. Create the customer as usual. One Time Buyer can be ticked as a note, but the system treats the customer like any other.
- A distributor wants to place orders online. Tick Portal Enabled, generate the password, send the credentials, and choose under Override Portal Setting what the portal shows.
What it is connected to
- Customer In Legal Entity creates this record and keeps it in step.
- Release Customer In Legal Entity extends this customer into another company.
- Customer Group gives the group picked here.
- Organizational Structure Setting - the address purposes and contact kinds the address and contact grids offer.
- Registration Group, Registration Authority, Certification and Industry - the masters behind the registration lines and the Industry field.
If something looks wrong
- "Customer Name Cannot be Empty". Type the name.
- "Similar Customer No. already exsists". Another customer has that number. Use a new one.
- "Customer already exists with this name". An organisation with the same name, or a person with the same name and father's or husband's name, exists already. Search for it before creating a duplicate.
- "Address - only one address can be marked as primary for the same purpose." Untick Primary Address on all but one line of that purpose.
- "Address - only one address can be marked as primary for country, based on Country". Untick Primary For Country on all but one line of that country.
- "Contact - only one contact can be marked as primary, based on Contact Nature". Keep one Primary per contact nature.
- "Bank Information - only one Currency can be marked as primary for Currency, based on Currency". Keep one Primary For Currency per currency.
- "Line ID: ... - Address cannot be empty." / "Line ID: ... - Person cannot be empty." An address line has a name but no address, or a mobile, phone or email but no person.
- "Please generate the portal password first." Press Generate Password, then send.