AR-A Enter Customers

Purpose of Program

Use this program to set up a new customer or to make changes to the customer name, address, telephone number, customer contact, etc.  This program is also used to assign tax authorities for payment of sales tax liabilities.  Be sure any necessary payment terms and sales tax information has already been entered in SM-D  Enter Terms Table and, if applicable, in SM-F  Enter Tax Groups.  Price codes, discount codes, salespeople, and commissions (optional) are also assigned through this program.  Customer Credit Card information can also be seen and edited based on default settings.

This program is integrated with the Contact Manager module.  You can schedule follow-up codes and dates and enter contact history directly from this program.  See Contact Manager for more details.  

Field Explanations

STANDARD CUSTOMER INFORMATION

Cust Cd (Required)

The customer code you assign to identify this record in other parts of the system.  This is a 10 character alphanumeric field.

Alpha Sort

Various reports in the system sort either by the customer code or by this alpha sort field.  Enter the string of characters by which you want reports sorted alphabetically.  The first six letters of the customer name default into this field, where they may be overridden.

Company

The actual company or customer name.  This is a 30 character alphanumeric field.

Address

Consists of 3 address lines.  Each address line is a 30 character alphanumeric field.

City

The customer's city.  This is a 26 character alphanumeric field.

St

This is a 2 character state code.

Zip

The customer's Zip or postal code.  This is a 10 character alphanumeric field.

Country

If you have customers in multiple countries, enter the country here. This is a 30 character alphanumeric field.

Ship to Customer?

If this code is a warehouse address rather than a billing address and will never be used as a billing address, enter Y.  The use of a Ship To designated customer in the Bill To side of a Sales Order or in an AR Voucher is prohibited.

Bill

If this is designated as a Ship To customer, enter the code of the associated Bill To Customer.

Contact 1

The person at your customer's location with whom you normally speak.  This name will default into the sales order header.  This is a 30 character alphanumeric field.

Phone

The primary telephone number for this customer.  This is a 25 character alphanumeric field.

Fax

The customer's fax number.  This is a 25 character alphanumeric field.

Ship-to Cd

The default ship-to account for this customer.  Ship-to accounts are set up as customers exactly the same as bill-to accounts.  When a sales order is entered for this customer, the default ship-to account will automatically come into the sales order as the ship-to address.  This field may be left blank.  If salespeople are assigned to the ship-to-account, they will receive credit for any sales.  If the salespeople are not assigned to the ship-to account, sales credit will go to the salespeople assigned to the bill-to account.  The ship-to account's taxable status and sales tax authority will take precedence over that of the bill-to account.

FOB

Whatever is entered here will print on sales order documents as the FOB designation.  This field may be left blank.

Ship Via

Whatever is entered here will automatically come into the sales order's Ship Via field.

Default GL Sales

If you are not using the Sales Orders module and you are entering invoice amounts through AR-B  Enter Vouchers, the account code entered in this field will be the default GL account that displays in the Distribution area of the voucher screen.  Enter the sales account that pertains to this customer's sales.  If you are using Sales Orders, the account code entered in this field will override the standard GL sales account tied to the item class of the item being sold.  If you prefer your sales in the General Ledger to be by customer rather than product, enter an account code in this field.  If you prefer your sales to be by class of product, leave this field blank.

Class

This customer classification field is a 4 character alphanumeric field used as an additional means of grouping customers for reports.  For example, you might want to group all of your distributors or all of your retail customers into a single report.  Use this field to designate such a group.

Start Date

The date of the first sale to the customer or the date you created the customer record.

Slsp 1

The primary salesperson assigned to this customer.  This salesperson number will automatically feed into the sales order header as the default salesperson for this customer.  If a salesperson number is assigned to a ship-to account, it will take precedence over the bill-to salesperson.  If you do not wish to assign sales commissions by the ship-to destination, leave the salesperson fields blank on ship-to accounts.

Comm 1

If this field is left blank, the default commission for this salesperson as defined in CS-A  Enter Salespersons will be used by sales order entry.  If you enter a percentage here, it will take precedence over the salesperson's default commission.  A 10 percent commission would be entered as 10.00.

Slsp 2

You can assign a second salesperson to this customer.  The commission system can track two separate commissions on the sales order.  The same rules apply as outlined above for the Slsp 1 field.

Comm 2

The sales commission percentage for salesperson 2.

Territory

The sales territory to which this customer belongs.  This is a 4 character alphanumeric field used as a selection criterion on certain sales reports and must have already been entered in SM-I-B  Enter Territory Codes and can be selected by pressing F2 or clicking the Lookup icon.

Lead Source 1 & 2

The primary lead source that contributed to this account becoming a customer.  This must have already been entered in SM-I-A  Enter Lead Source Codes and can be selected by pressing F2 or clicking the Lookup icon.

Resale Number

The resale number of the customer.  This is a 15 character alphanumeric field. It may be left blank.

RTM Print Group

If you have specific information that you want to print on forms for certain customers but not others, you can create an RTM print group setting which is a single character.  For example, if you have customers assigned to RTM Print Group "A" then you would edit the RTM for the form (such as ENSOF4.RTM for an  Invoice) and add the changes for this group and save the RTM as ENSOF4A.RTM where the name is the same as the standard RTM plus the character of the RTM group.  The print programs know to use the special form if it exists.

Ship Time

If a value is entered here, then when an order is entered in SO-A  Enter Sales Orders the cursor will skip Estimated Ship Date and advance to Customer Due Date and then subtract this value to arrive at the Ship Date to allow for transit time.

Price Code

If the customer is to receive prices from a specific price code (price list) as defined in SO-Q-D Enter Price Codes, then you should specify the code here.  If left blank, the system will use the base price from the inventory file, a contract price (if applicable), or the user can manually enter prices.

Discount Code

If the customer is to receive discounts off the price code prices or the inventory base prices, specify the discount code as defined in SO-Q-F  Enter Discount Codes.

Default Terms

Enter the terms of payment here, selected from a pop-up window of payment terms entered in SM-D  Enter Terms Table.  The payment terms entered here will appear as a default entry when creating vouchers and sales orders.

Charge Interest? (Required)

If you want this customer to be charged interest on past due invoices in AR-D  Charge Interest on Invoices, enter a Y in this field.

Statement? (Required)

Enter Y if this is a customer that will ever be sent statements.

Taxable?

Enter Y if this customer is ever charged sales tax on transactions; otherwise enter N.

Tax Group

If you enter Y in the Taxable? field above, you must enter the Tax Group for this customer.  You must already have entered at least one Tax Group in SM-F  Enter Tax Groups before filling in this field.  Even if you have entered N in the Taxable? Field above, you can assign the customer to a tax authority so that invoices are included in the tax authority's nontaxable sales for the sales tax reports.

Territory

Enter the Territory the customer belongs to which can be used as a filter in reports

Allow Backorders

The default is Y.  If this is set to N then in SO-E  Release Sales Orders any time an order can not be shipped complete, the balance of the order will be canceled.and an "Out of Stock" message added to the invoice.

Roll Surcharge in SO-F

If there are surcharge lines on the order and this is set to Y, the surcharge will be added to the unit line price on the printed invoice.

Web Site

If you enter the web site address for the customer's web site, then the WEB button in this program as well as AR-Q View Customer Information , SO-A  Enter Sales Orders and SO-I  Customer Service Inquiry will link to the URL entered.

INTERNATIONAL FIELDS

The program will give you access to the following fields based on settings in IM-A  International Configuration.

Currency

If multiple currency processing is activated in IM-A  International Configuration, enter the currency code in this field for the currency this customer uses for transactions.  The currency must be previously set up in IM-B  Enter Multiple Currencies. This is a default field that can be overridden when entering a sales order.  You can therefore transact in multiple companies with the same customer, if needed.

Tax-In Code

If any sales to this customer are subject to excise taxes in which the sales tax is embedded in the price of the item, enter a Y in this field.  If excise tax processing has been activated in IM-A  International Configuration, this will result in the taxes being backed out of the price for General Ledger and sales analysis purposes.

CREDIT INFO FIELDS (Via Credit Info Button)

Credit Hold?

This field indicates if the customer is on credit hold or not.  If set to Y, you will receive a warning when entering sales orders, and you will not be allowed to print packing slips.  In this way a customer on credit hold cannot accidentally be sent a shipment until the Credit Hold? field is set to N.

Credit Limit

The maximum amount this customer is allowed to have outstanding in open invoices.  If the customer exceeds this limit during Sales Order entry, the program will alert you to that situation.  You may, however, turn off all credit checking through SD-M  Sales Orders Defaults.

Last Dun?

This field displays the form letter code and date of the last dun letter sent to this customer through AR-P  Generate Dun Letters.  

Out Credits

The dollar amount of credits for this customer which have not been applied toward outstanding invoices.  If you credit a customer, or enter a prepayment, the amount will be recorded as a line item  in the AR detail to be used in paying outstanding invoices, and is displayed here as a quick reference memo.

Out Deposits

The dollar amount outstanding for any open deposits for this customer.  Deposits are kept in a separate GL account (as specified in AD-A  General Ledger Defaults) until applied to invoices through AR-C  Record Payments or automatically applied when posting invoices if they have been attached to a sales order using AR-N  Enter/Print Sales Order Deposits.

Out Inv Amts

The dollar amount outstanding in open invoices for this customer.  There can be an amount in this field even if the customer also has a credit balance.

Last Sale

The date of the last invoice posted for this customer.

Last Payment

The date of the last payment made by this customer.

Days to Pay

The average number of days this customer takes to pay each invoice.  This field value is recalculated each time a payment is received by averaging the current value with the value for the payment being entered.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS (Contacts Button)

You can enter as many contacts as you like per customer with up to 10 phone numbers, email addresses, significant dates and miscellaneous entries for each.  On the Contact screen there is a designation for Primary Contact.  If a B is entered then this contact will pull into the "Attention" line on the Bill To side of a Sales Order and an S will pull into the Ship to Side.  You can use other letters of your own choosing for other types of designations and the auto-email feature can automatically choose the contact based on this designation.

CREDIT CARD INFO  (Via CC Button)

You can pull up the credit card info from this screen and verify whether a credit card is on file and the expiration date.  Only the last 4 digits of the card number will be visible.  If you are using the X-Charge credit card processing integration then you can enter credit card information here and it will be uploaded to the secure X-Charge server for use when processing charges.

General Program Operation

Creating a New Customer Record

You are first presented with an opening list of existing customers.  To add a new customer, click the Add button, which will take you to the entry screen.  Enter a new customer code and press <Enter>.  Use codes that will help you identify customers in groups or alphabetical ranges for other operations within the system.

If the code has been previously used the appropriate record will be displayed.  To clear the screen so that you can enter another code, press F3 (or click on the Clear button).

After you enter the new customer code, fill in the rest of the appropriate fields (see Field Explanations above).  If you are creating a new record, you will automatically be presented with the customer totals window, where you have the option of entering the year to date and last year's sales information.  The program will automatically calculate the percentages and the net sales information from the figures you enter.  On new customer entry you are also automatically presented with the multiple contacts window.

Changing an Existing Customer Record

If you need to change a customer address or telephone number, or if some other important information has changed,  enter the customer code or select it from a lookup window by pressing the F2 key (or clicking on the Lookup button).

Once the customer record is displayed, you may change any of the fields on the screen.  By pressing F7 (or clicking on the Contacts button) you can access the multiple contacts window.  By pressing F8 (or clicking on the Statistics button) you can view the customer totals window, but you will not be allowed to change the totals, which are automatically maintained by the system.  Save the changes as described in Creating a New Customer Record above.

Deleting an Existing Customer Record

When you delete a customer record, the Out Inv Amt, Out Credit, and Out Deposit balances for this customer must show a $0.00 balance and there can not be any Accounts Receivable history.  The program will ask you to verify the delete request.  Once it is deleted the record cannot be recovered.  You will have to re-enter the customer if it is deleted in error.

AR Transactions Inquiry

From the opening list you can highlight any customer and click the AR Transactions button to get a listing of AR transactions (invoices, payments, deposits, credits, etc.) for that customer.

You can drill down further on any transaction by highlighting it and clicking on the Transaction Detail button, which will result in a display of that transaction's details.

Notes Window

By pressing <Home> (or clicking on the Notes button) while on the customer screen you can access a notepad for recording miscellaneous notes on the customer.  The notepad provides 10 lines 60 characters wide.  Notes entered here will pull into Sales Orders if that feature is enabled and can be designated line by line as Hidden meaning they will pull into the Sales Order but printing can be suppressed on Invoices and Acknowledgments.  The Hide Notes button is a line by line toggle to set a Note line as Hidden or not.  A check mark in the left column indicates the line is tagged as Hidden.

Price Inquiry Window

A price inquiry is built into the customer screen.  If you are reviewing a customer's account while on the telephone, for example, and you are asked a price on a certain item, you can press <End> (or click on the Prices button) to bring up the price inquiry window.

Enter the item number and quantity and the program will search first for a contract price.  If it does not find one, it then goes to the price code to which this customer is assigned, finds the correct price based on the quantity entered, then goes to the discount code to which this customer is assigned and applies the appropriate discount based on the dollar amount.  If there is no price code, the program uses the item's base price.  Discounts will be assigned to price code prices and base prices, but not to contract prices.

Contact Manager Interface

AR-A, Enter Customers, and CM-A  Enter Contact Accounts (in the Contact Manager module), can share the same account code.  You can toggle back and forth from one entry screen to the other by pressing <PgUp> from within either screen.  This eliminates having to exit one program and re-enter the account code in the other program.  From within AR-A, Enter Customers, you can access the Contact Manager's history notes by pressing the F5 key (or clicking on the History Notes button) without having to switch to CM-A, Enter Contact Accounts, and you can access the Contact Manager's follow up code and date system by pressing the F6 key (or clicking on the Follow-up button), again without leaving the screen.  For more details on these Contact Manager functions, see Contact Manager.

Web Site Interface

Click the WEB button to go to the customer web site page entered as the Web Site.