Data File Maintenance
Customer File Maintenance
1. ACCOUNT RECEIVABLE > 1. DATA MAINTENANCE > 1. CUSTOMERS > SELECT ADD/CHANGE/DELETE AS APPROPRIATE
Account #
When adding new customers, you must first specify the customer number to be used. In 9.SYSTEM UTILITIES…-> 3.SYSTEM SETUP…-> 4. SALES DESK…-> 2. PARTS BILLING PARAMETERS , (Screen 1) FIELD 13 CUSTOMER CODE the type of customer code is selected. You should have indicated which type of customer code you want your countermen to be using, alphanumeric or numeric - (A for alphanumeric is recommended).
If you have chosen alphanumeric, then entering 1000 as the customer will mean that the customer number will be entered as 1000 throughout the system. If the customer number type is numeric only, then 1000 will mean 001000 and the leading zeros will have to be entered.
Start with a number greater than 100, since accounts numbered less than 100 have special uses. (See the explanation for the field Sales Summary number # later on in this section)
Once entered, the customer code may not be changed, although the entire customer record may be deleted under the correct circumstances.
- Name
- Bill to
Enter these fields in the format you wish to have printed on invoices and statements. Use the 4th line of the Bill to field for the customer’s postal code.
- AR method
Enter in either [O] (open item) or [B] (balance forward). For Balance Forward customers, the application of payments is very simple, but the ability to justify or reconcile specific invoices is more difficult.
At the end of the month, customers that have been set to balance forward will have all current invoices summarised into one amount. The aged amounts for 30, 60 and 90 days are kept, but all invoice detail is removed. No detail is removed for outstanding invoices for customers that are set to open item.
You may wish to assign some customers to balance forward, while keeping others at open item. Should you desire to change a customer from one method to another, you may do so only immediately following the completion of the AR Month End process, prior to any Cash Receipts or End of Day process. The function is found in
9. SYSTEM UTILITIES > 9. FINANCIAL SUB-SYSTEM > 1.OPEN/ITEM BAL. Fwd. Switch.
- Phone
- Fax
Phone and fax numbers are to be entered without any formatting and will print with dashes between the sections. If the module called Repair Shop has been installed on your system, then the fax number can be used during invoicing to locate a customer.
- LD?
Enter [y] to indicate a long distance number, [n] to indicate a local number.
- Contact
Enter in the primary contact for this customer.
- Salesman
This is a validated field, which means that the salesman number must have already been created in
1. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE >1. DATA MAINTENANCE > 4. SALESMAN
prior to being able to use it here. Validation also means that the salesman number may not be changed at the time of billing (point of sale) to a number other than a valid one. A [TAB] to search for a valid salesman number is available.
Once sales have taken place, a change to this field will affect those sales reports that are created out of the month end process. However, daily sales reports will not be altered, keeping the sales rep information from the invoice as it was created.
- Territory
You may wish to divide or assign your customers to specific territories. These fields are used in the Sales Analysis reports to separate the customers. This is NOT a validated field and so may be left blank or set to any value.
- Start Date
Pressing [enter] will default the date to today’s date, reflecting the starting date of your business relationship with this customer.
- GST Lic. #
An entry of any kind in this field exempts this customer from GST taxes on all sales.
- PST Lic. #
An entry of any kind in this field exempts this customer from PST taxes on all sales, including end user levies (e.g. battery tax etc) that have been set up in
4. SALES DESK >7. ADMINISTRATION > 2.CUSTOMER PRICING > 6. LEVY/ECO FEE
- Remarks
Enter in any remarks to display (but not print) when looking up the customer in
1. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE >2. INQUIRY FUNCTIONS >1. CUSTOMER ANALYSIS
or billing the customer in
4. SALES DESK > 1. INVOICING / TRANSFERS
- Default Shipper
Enter in the customer’s preferred method of shipping.
- Standing PO
If the customer wishes to have one PO for all purchases within a given time, enter it here. It will be the default to the PO field in Sales/Invoicing.
- Start
Enter start date for Date Limited PO
- End
Enter end date for Date Limited PO
- Industry Reporting Group
In the same way that the territory field is a way of assigning specific customers together in a group for sales reporting purposes, the industry type allows a different grouping to be created. The individual types are created in 5. Sales and core analysis…. > 1. data maintenance….> 7. industry types and therefore this is a validated field. Press [TAB] to search for the appropriate industry to select.
- Default Payment Terms
This is a validated field, with the codes being set-up in 1. accounts receivable… > 1. DATA maintenance…> 3. payment terms. Use [TAB] to search for appropriate terms code. If this field is blank, then the invoice generated will use the default payment terms that are set-up in the 9. SYSTEM UTILITIES…-> 4. sales desk…-> 2. PARAMETERS FILE RESET > Screen 2: user configuration (FIELD 21 Terms). Regardless of what the individual invoice shows, all invoices are aged by invoice date, there is no due date calculated by the system.
- Default Invoicing Branch
- Account Control Flags
Select up to 8 (eight) options which will apply to this customer, pressing [enter] until the next field is reached. Available options are:
$ - COD Customer
Adding this flag indicates that the customer’s preferred method of payment is COD. At the time of billing (point of sale) the individual invoice may be altered to have a payment type of account, providing that the customer is not overdue and not over the assigned credit limit.
P – Purchase Order is Required
This indicates that either your business or the customer requires all purchases to have a purchase order. If this flag is set, then a PO must be entered at the time of billing (point of sale). If the standing PO field has been assigned, then that number will become the default.
U – US Dollar Account
Invoices generated to US customers are generated and charged to the customer account in Canadian dollars. When the cash receipts are updated, monies received are sent to a separate account in the General Ledger. Please advise AMS if you have US customers.
B – No Backorders
This customer does not permit backorders.
Y – Price the Packing Slip
If using packing slips, prices will be printed.
# - Add customer to special sales report
If you wish to run sales and core analysis > comparative reports > Territory/Selected customer/category then add the [#] here to ensure that the data will be collected.
m – (Lower Case) Multiple Invoice Copies
Multiple invoice copies are required at billing time. If this flag is added to this field, the functionality of the ME invoices field further down changes. In the ME invoices field, enter in the number of copies that are required in total. Each time an [I] invoice, [r] refund [c] payment or [t] voided payment type invoice is created, a duplicate invoice will print immediately following the original.
Use of this flag fundamentally changes the concept of the ME invoices field below. When this flag is set, no invoices are copied for use during 1. accounts receivable…> 5. month end processing…>4. create statements…> 5. invoice copies.
W - Warranty
This is a warranty customer. This option is only required if the module Service Dispatch is being used.
c – (Lower Case) Consignment Inventory Customer
This flag must be set to mark a customer as being one that holds consignment inventory. The consignment features will not work until this is set.
I – Prorated Customer
The presence of this flag will indicate that this customer is a cross province customer and thus subject to special taxation rules.
v – View Balances
If this feature is activated, the customer account balances shown during billing will not
be displayed.
- Overdue Control Flag
In the parameter file, you should have already indicated the default setting on whether an overdue status on the account will result in the accounts being placed on HOLD or COD. This field determines the number days overdue this specific account must be in order to activate either the HOLD or COD. [1]=30 days, [2]=60 days, [3]=90 days. If you wish to ignore the overdue day processing and manually place customers on HOLD or COD, use [0] or [9] in this field.
If you are going to use this feature, please be sure to advise AMS so that your End of Day processing can be configured to correctly update the customer record with the appropriate information.
If the default is to place the customer on COD, then cash sales to this customer will be permitted, but not charges to the account. However, if the default is to place the customer on HOLD, then only Return and Received on Account type transactions will be permitted.
Payments received in the office and applied to the customer account in 1. Accounts Receivable…> 4. transaction processing…>5. cash receipts processing will automatically update the COD/HOLD status on the customer record. This is the field called rating, which can be manually adjusted as long as this field is set to [0] or [9] for ignore.
- Sales Summary Number
The sales summary number is used for those customers who do not require individual Sales Analysis Reporting, perhaps due to volume or frequency of purchases.
In order to use this field, you must have first set up a customer record, using a customer number of less than 100. An example of the functionality of this field is when you have a number of clients of a similar nature, for example farmers. The sales for each individual customer may not be of significance, however when grouped together, the volume or value would be considerable. If you wish to have this customer’s sales merged with those of like types, enter the customer number of your summary account. This only affects sales reporting dollars. All accounting information belongs with the individual customer.
- Allow Contract pricing
Before a special or contract price is set-up in 4. sales desk control… > 7. ADMINISTRATION…> 2. CUSTOMER PRICING …> 3. contract/specials, the customer must be flagged as being permitted to have a contract price. If the customer is not permitted to have contract or special pricing, reply [N]. A special or contract price is different than the other pricing discounts, in that a contract or special is normally for a specific item or range of items within a category or product line and is also date driven.
- Global Discount type
This field could also be called discount group since the choices available for selection are set-up in 4. sales desk…> 7. ADMINISTRATION… > 1. DATA maintenance… > 4. discount LEVELS. A discount group is usually the most general pricing available. It is based on a discount or surcharge on either a specific or all categories for a specified price level. Each customer can then be placed into a specific group, using [tab] to locate the most appropriate one. All customers within that group will be charged the same price for any item within the category, unless a more specific pricing discount over-rides the group. (See the Sales Desk Control User Guide for further information on pricing).
- Prefer Quotation Via
Click the down arrow to open help window. Quotation preference are: E = Email; F= Fax; P=Print
- Credit Limit
This is the maximum amount of credit you wish to extend to this customer. If this is a COD customer or if you are not concerned with the amount this customer will owe at any one time, use [0] to indicate OPEN credit, that is – no limit. Once a customer has charged a sale to their account that takes them over their credit limit (a message will be displayed for the countermen), no further sales activity is permitted on the account until there is an available credit amount. This is displayed at the bottom of the billing screen as the AVA value. The office may raise the credit limit, or the customer may provide a payment to be processed through 1. accounts receivable… > 4. TRANSACTION PROCESSING …> 5. cash receipts processing. As soon as the cash receipts update is complete, further sales activity is again permitted.
- Rating
If the 9. SYSTEM UTILITIES…> 4. SALES DESK… > 2. Parameter File RESET > SCREEN 1 : system defaults field called cust credit check (fielD 19) is set to [Y], then this field will be automatically updated with each End of Day and Cash Receipts update to reflect the status of the account. This field works in conjunction with the field called overdue control flag.
If this customer is always a cash only customer, you may manually enter in [COD]. If this customer is no longer permitted to purchase from you for any reason, manually enter in [HOLD]. If you are manually entering in the rating of this customer, then you must set the field above called overdue control flag to either [0] or [9] for ignore, otherwise the overdue status may change and thus this field would be automatically updated.
This process is completely separate from that of the credit limit processing. It is possible for the customer to be both over their credit limit and on HOLD/COD because of their overdue status.
- Allow Prompt Pay Discount
If you wish to give this customer a discount for the early payment of invoices, enter [y]. If this customer is not to receive an early or prompt payment discount, enter [n].
- Max Number of Days
- Discount
These fields default to the information set-up in 9. SYSTEM UTILITIES… > 3. SYSTEM SETUP… >1. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE… > 1. SYSTEM parameterS (FIELD 36) and cannot be changed.
- Require Statement
Is this customer to receive a statement at month-end? Y OR N
- Service Charge
Is the customer to be charged a service charge on over-due amounts?
- M/E Invoice Copies
This field has two separate and distinct uses. Use of the [m] flag in the acct control flag above fundamentally changes the concept of this field.
It can be used exclusively during the accounts receivable > a/r month end > statements > invoice copies optional step to create an extra invoice copy to be sent with the statement. If that is the case, enter [1] here. In that instance, each invoice generated will have a copy added to a separate file for use during the month end processes.
It can also be used in conjunction with the [m] flag in the acct control flag field above. When that flag is present, the invoicing process will look to this field for the total number of invoice copies to print immediately following the printing of the original invoice. If an extra copy is required, enter [2] here, meaning that a total of 2 invoices will print at the time of sale, the original and 1 extra copy. Since the extra copy(s) have already been printed, no copy is added to the separate file for use at month end.
- Redirect To
If used, the customer number in this field represents the parent company for this customer. The customer may be a head office, or it may be the office of a buying association. This is different than having multiple ship-to addresses for the same customer. In that instance all sales dollars are reported to the same customer. In this situation the sales dollars belong to the individual customer, while the invoices are all charged to the parent or head office account and paid by them. If this situation applies, enter the customer number of the parent/head office account.
Customer Credit Control
Available from the any change prompt, customer credit control provides a summary view of a customer’s purchase and credit information for the current period, year to date and last year. Either while adding a new customer or editing/changing an existing customer, the customer credit control may be accessed by selecting the c)redit control at the any change prompt.
This information is for inquiry only and is updated automatically by the point of sale end of day, accounts receivable cash receipts update and accounts receivable transaction update.
The accounts receivable month end clears the Current Period values and the accounts receivable year-end clears the year to date values and moves them to last year.
Definitions:
Current Period, Year to Date, Last Year
Invoice amt Total of invoices processed through point of sale modules
No of invoice Total number of invoices processed through point of sale modules
Payment amount Total of all payments received through accounts receivable cash receipts and point of sale
modules
No of paymts Total number of payments received through cash receipts and point of sale
Cred.note amt Total of all credit notes processed through point of sale modules
No of cred.nts Total number of credit notes processed through point of sale modules
Debt.note amt Total of all transactions posted through accounts receivable transactions
No of debt.nts Total number of transactions posted through a/r transaction input.
Discounts amt Total of all discounts given through a/r cash receipts
No of discnts Total number of discounts given through a/r cash receipts.
Interest amt Total of all service charges applied as part of the a/r month end
No of int.chg Total number times service charges applied as part of the a/r month END.
Curr Year Largest, Last Year Largest
Inv amt Largest total invoice value for the period
Date Date of the largest invoice
Bal amt Largest outstanding balance for the period including future due amounts.
Date Date of the largest outstanding balance
Date of Last
Adjustmt Date of last accounts receivable transaction entry
Cust mnt Date of last change to the customer information
Interest Date of last service charge
Statement Date of last statement
Invoice Date of last invoice through point of sale modules
Cr note Date of last credit note through point of sale modules
Payment Date of last payment through a/r cash receipts or point of sale parts billing
Paymt amt Amount of the last payment
Total no of invoices paid Total number of invoices paid in the current year.
Last year average pay days Average days to receive payment of an invoice.
This is only applicable to Open Item customers
Customer Pricing Control
The second feature available at the any change prompt during customer maintenance (either add or change) is p)ricing. Selecting this option will display all discount structures associated with this particular customer. Industry type or global discounts are displayed first, followed by customer specific discounts.
The user may choose to select either d)iscounts or c)ontract pricing from this screen, and will be redirected to sales desk control > file maintenance > customer discount maintenance or sales desk control > file maintenance > Contract/special pricing maintenance in order to enter new discounts or contract/special pricing, alter existing discounts for this specific customer number, or delete un-necessary discounts. In all cases, the customer number during discount processing will default to the current customer.
tab set
The TAB SET function can be a useful tool in making repetitious changes to a single field or to multiple fields.
If you want to change the value in a field regardless of what the current value is, then enter in that field number. If you need to check the current value of the field prior to making the change, enter in the field number before and then the field you want to change. In other words, if you want to change field 32 and you want to see what the current value is first, enter in 31 [enter] and then 32 [enter]. After each field number is entered, press [enter]. After all the field numbers that require changing are entered, press [F1] to accept your choices.
Some field numbers will not be accessible to you for change due to their function within the software.
After acceptance of your field choices, you will be prompted for the customer number. Pressing [F7] will bring up the first record on file. You will be brought to the first field you requested. If there is a no change to be made to any of the fields on this record, reject with [F2] and request the next record with [F7]. If there is a change to this field, make it now and press [enter] to either move to the next requested field or to the any change prompt. Once at the any change prompt, if the changes made are correct, [F1] to accept, then [F7] to request the next record.
You may [F2] to exit at any time, either in the middle of a record (the changes will not take effect) or instead of pressing [F7] for the next record. Any changes that you’ve made and accepted with [F1] will be kept. You may start again at any time, but you will have to re-select your requested fields.
Shipping Address Maintenance
1.ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE…>1. DATA MAINTENANCE…>2. SHIP TO CODES
- Customer
When the customer has more than one location to ship to, enter a code numeric location number and the address. The customer entered here must already exist in the customer file. If there is only the one location for shipping to this customer, nothing need be entered.
- Code
The default will always be the lowest location number, so it is recommended that the bill-to address from the customer record be entered as ship-to address number 1. At point of sale time, the ship to address may be selected if it is not the main location.
Enter the branch number or shipping location number
- Ship to
- Postal
Enter the address exactly as you wish it to appear on the invoice.
Parameter File Maintenance
- SYSTEM UTILITIES…>3. SYSTEM SETUP…>1. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE…>1.SYSTEM PARAMETERS
The parameter file is generally set-up by AMS personnel during the initial installation of the Accounts receivable system. It is advised that no changes to it take place after the initial options have been chosen without first checking with AMS.
- Aging period 1
- Aging period 2
- Aging period 3
- Aging period 4
These fields control how the Aged Detail Trial Balance is formatted, in this sample, invoices aged up to 31 days will appear under the title Current, invoices aged up to 61 days will appear under the title 30 days etc.
Summary Aged Totals
- Period 1
- Period 2
These fields control the ageing that will be used with the AR Month End > trial balance reports > aged summary trial balance reports.
- Statement Date
This field will show the last date that statements were run and updated during the month end procedures.
- Financial Period
This is the current GL period for Accounts Receivable and Invoicing. It is updated during the accounts receivable >AR month end > ar month end update procedure.
Service Charges
- Percentage
This percentage is used during accounts receivable > ar month end > service charge processing > CALCULATE service charge. This amount must be calculated to the annual compounded percentage. For example, 2% per month is 26.82% annually.
- Days
This is the number of days old an invoice will have to be before being considered part of the calculation for service charges.
- Next Number
This is a system-generated number and may not be changed. It is used to generate the invoice number associated with the service charge.
- G/L Account
When the service charges are created, they generate a dollar value that will be posted to the General Ledger account entered here.
- S/C min?
If there is a minimum service fee you charge that is to over-ride the calculated amount, enter Y and that amount.
- Months Overdue
If ageing by months (as opposed to days) enter the age the invoice must be before a service charge applies.
- Default Return Email Address
- Show Zero Balances
- Default A/R Type
Are the majority of your customers Balance Forward or Open item? Remember that this is only the default response and that you can alter it in the individual customer record.
If a customer is set to Balance Forward, during the AR Month End processes, the outstanding invoices are aged and then summarised into one summary total. Accounts Receivable > Cash receipts processing simply applies whatever monies are received to the outstanding summarised balance.
If a customer is set to Open Item, then each individual invoice is available for review in accounts Receivable > Customer Analysis. During accounts Receivable > cash receipts processing, payments are applied to specific invoices. A field called cash rec autopay appears later in this section to speed the process of paying those individual invoices.
- Age B/Fwd Credits
This field only applies to the processing of balance forward invoices. When a credit is issued, if this flag is set to [n], then the credit will be part of the current balance of the account. If this flag is set to [y], then the credit will act like a payment and reduce the oldest aged balance and thus the balance forward amount. It is important to note that if this is the case, sales reports for the period (perhaps used to calculate commissions) will not match the accounts receivable since the credit amount will have been applied to a prior period.
- Addr Pos (H/L)
When your statements print, the customer address may not fit exactly into the window in the envelope. [H] prints one line higher than [m], which prints one line higher than [L] and may assist you in a better fit.
- Payment History
Reply [y] if you wish to keep a history of all invoices that have been paid and retired through the accounts receivable > Cash Receipts process.
- Aging by Months
This response is usually [y]. The system will age invoices according to the number of days in a month. During a leap year, the number of days is automatically readjusted for you. If you respond [n], then the ageing of invoices is calculated on the average number of days in a month.
- Fiscal 01 = cal
This field connects you fiscal year with the calendar year. If your fiscal year begins in March, then fiscal 1 is equal to calendar [3], if the fiscal year begins in June, this field will be [6].
- Prompt Pay
- Prompt Pay Days
- Prompt Pay Disc
- P.pay if Overdue
- P.pay incl GST / 39. PST? / 40. FRT?
These fields control how (or if) prompt payments apply to your customer accounts. Indicate the number of days an invoice needs to be paid in before receiving the discount and the percentage of that discount. If the account is overdue, the p.pay if overdue flags whether the client would or would not receive a prompt payment discount on a particular invoice even if that particular invoice is paid within the prompt payment parameters. Normally, discounts do not include the GST or PST. However, if the discount is to be on the total of the invoice plus any freight that was added, reply [y] to the frt? field.
- Cash Receipt Sequence
If you have multiple locations for your installation, then the recommended reply to this flag will be [D], (date) since each location may be working with separate invoice numbering sequences. During accounts receivable > Cash receipts processing the invoices will be displayed in date order. Otherwise, [I] for invoice number sequencing is fine.
- Cash Receipt Autopay
- Default
These flags allow the accounts receivable > Cash receipts processing to partially imitate the speediness of processing payments for a balance forward customer. If the flag is set to [y], then the payment is automatically allocated to the oldest invoices until either all invoices are paid, or until the amount to allocate runs out. If there is not enough money to fully pay an invoice, it will be partially paid. An opportunity is given to alter the automatic allocation before acceptance. If this flag is set to [n], then the question apply to oldest is given as an option with each cash receipt.
- Default Overdue
For HOLD or COD purposes, at what age is an invoice considered overdue. [1] is 30 days, [2] is 60, etc. If [2] is the default, then the HOLD/COD status applies after the account goes into 60 days.
- Credit Hold Date
This is the date, either [s] for statement date or [t] for today’s date, to use when calculating whether or not an account is considered overdue. If option [s] is chosen (recommended), when the statements are printed, the hold or COD rating on the customer account will be removed automatically when payment is made. A report prints during the accounts receivable > Cash receipts processing > Cash receipts Update when the account has been paid to notify you that the hold / cod rating has been updated / removed.
If option [t] is chosen, then the HOLD/COD rating will float over the course of the month, since it would be possible to have the account be OK today, but overdue tomorrow.
- Check Holds
If the [s] option is chosen for the credit hold date field, then reply [y] to this field to have the HOLD/COD status checked and updated with Cash Receipts.
- Overdue Type
When the account is overdue, the account will be placed on HOLD or set to COD. This is a fundamental question that will affect all customers except those that have been set to ignore the overdue by setting the accounts receivable > File maintenance > customer maintenance customer record field for overdue control FLAG to [0] or [9]. When the customer is placed on HOLD, no sales activity is permitted except for Returns [r] and Payments on Account [$]. If the customer is set to COD however, the customer may still purchase product, but is not permitted to charge anything to their account.
- Allocate Invoice Number
- Next Invoice
Reserved for future use.
- Reserved Note Types
Customer notes are free-form notes that are date and time stamped during entry and then assigned to a particular type. A reserved note type is one that may not be changed or deleted until it has been removed from this field, although it is not necessary to have a reserved note type. In future releases of the software, reserved notes will be accessible with hot/function keys from inside various processes (example: invoicing / cash receipts etc.)
To begin using notes, determine the types of notes that may be helpful in working with customers, even if that means starting with a single type. As an example, a note type called NSF may be useful for office staff. Then, use the menu option accounts Receivable > file maintenance > customer notes parameter maintenance to add (example) a type [n] with a description of nsf. The singe character note type may be alphabetic or numeric. Once the note type is created, add it here to set it as a reserved type.
Payment Terms Maintenance
- ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE…>1. DATA MAINTENANCE…>3. PAYMENT TERMS
You may offer different payment terms to certain customers; they can be set up here and entered to each individual customer record. The customer’s terms will print on both Invoices and Statements, however this is an informational field only, as all ageing in the system is done from the invoice date. No due dates are calculated.
Statement Text Maintenance
- SYSTEM UTILITIES…> 3. SYSTEM SETUP…> 4. SALES DESK…> 1. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE…> 5. DEFAULT STATEMENT TEXT
Any message entered to the GST, PST or FREIGHT fields on this screen will print with the associated dollar amount on the customer statement. The amounts are extracted for use during the sales desk control > sales desk month end procedures > extract taxes for ar statements process. Messages added for the taxes and prompt pay fields have no associated dollar values.
Any statement message can be altered during the accounts receivable > ar month end > Statements > Statement run (or blank paper statement) create option.
Salesman Maintenance
- ACCOUNTS RECEIVALBE…>1. DATA MAINTENANCE…> 4.SALESMAN
This option provides a means for tracking salesman sales figures. The salesman ID can be either numeric or alphanumeric. The daily figures will be updated to this record with each end of day process. The monthly figures are updated during accounts receivable > ar month end > sales summary monthly clear and the yearly figures are updated during the sales summary yearly clear.
VIP Customer Maintenance
- ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE…> 1. DATA MAINTENANCE…> 5. VIP MASTER
A VIP customer is at once, the same and different from a cash or walk-in customer. VIP customers do not charge their purchases to an account; they are on a COD basis the same as any other cash customer. However, adding a repeat walk-in customer to a VIP list (database) allows you to track their purchases separately from cash sales and optionally set up special pricing.
Adding a new VIP customer is normally done through sales desk >invoicing by pressing [F11] at the customer number field to move over to the phone number field. The customer’s phone number may be found as a regular customer or an already existing VIP or in the AMS (Address Made Simple) database. If the customer is found in none of these places, then pressing [F11] again (in the phone number field) will allow you to enter in the VIP manually with this menu option. If a VIP customer already exists with the same phone number, the user is informed, but still allowed to add the second VIP. More details are offered in the Sales Desk User Guide.
Should you know prior to any sale being made that a particular customer is a VIP, then they may be added here. VIP records may also be ‘removed’ by changing the phone number to 000-000-0000.
VIP
- Last Name
- Given Name
The name must be entered entirely in CAPITAL letters.
- Address
- City
The city must be a valid city name and the correct spelling is important.
- Province
The provincial abbreviation must be one that is accepted by the federal government. (NU is the correct abbreviation for Nunavit).
- Postal
- Phone
- Work Number
- Cell Number
- Fax Number
Enter the personal information of the customer being added to the VIP database, exactly as you would wish to see it on an invoice or mailing label.
22.. Card Number
The card # field is available if you are using identifying cards for your VIPs. These are normally scanned cards, like Air Miles ®,
- PIN
Enter the personal identification number (PIN) for this VIP customer’s card.
- GST Lic #
- PST Lic #
Any character entered in either of these fields will cause the suppression of taxes at the time of sale, the same as with a regular accounts receivable customer.
- Contact
If there is another contact for this VIP, enter that name.
- Email Address
There are 40 spaces available for the entering of the VIP’s email address.
- Remarks
This is the same field as the regular customer record has. It will be displayed with the next sale on the billing screen.
- Industry
If this VIP is connected with one of the industry codes you have previously set-up, you may add them here. Sales dollars reported will include any sales made to this VIP customer.
- Direct Mail
If your business sends direct mail, a [y] here indicates that this customer will be included with the next mailing.
- Date Added
This date indicates the date that this customer was added to the VIP database. The default is for today’s date.
- Last Invoice
This is the date of the last sale made to this VIP customer.
- A/R Customer Number
The AR customer field is available if you have special pricing set up for an AR customer that you wish to also give to this specific VIP customer. Otherwise leave this field blank and pricing will be taken from the default pricing for the VIP customer number that has been set up in 9. SYSTEM UTILITIES…> 3. SYSTEM SETUP… > 4. SALES DESK… > 2. PARTS BILLING PARAMETERS (sCREEN1 : System defaults).
VIP Parameter Maintenance
- SYSTEM UTILITIES…>3. SYSTEM SETUP…>1. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE… > 2. VIP PARAMETERS
Since VIP customers are normally set up during invoicing, completion of the following fields will assist your users in setting up new VIP customers quickly.
- City
Enter your own city, as the majority of your VIP customers will likely come from the same area. The city must actually exist, and the correct spelling is important.
- Province
Enter your own province, in the format that is acceptable to the federal government.
- Area Code
Enter the area code.
- Next Customer
This field will be automatically updated with the addition of each new VIP customer and needs only be entered with the original setting up of this file.
- Prefix List
Develop a list of 5 prefixes to be used in the generation of new VIP customer numbers
- Force DIY Number
If this field is set to [y], then during sales desk > invoicing the use of the card will be mandatory.
- Validate Postal
Leave this field turned off [n] to allow US zip codes when setting up new VIP customers.
- 10 Digit Dialing
- Special Char in Name
- Allow A/R Create
- A/R Customer Template
- Current A/R Prefix
There are five prefixes available for use in generating new VIP customer numbers. Select the one that will be used as the default.
- Next A/R Customer
- A/R Prefix List
customer notes Parameters Maintenance
9. SYSTEM UTILITIES… > 3. SYSTEM SETUP… > 1. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE… > 3. NOTES PARAMETERS
The single character note type may be alphabetic or numeric and requires a description. Enter up to a total of 6 note types. As an example, a note type called NSF may be useful for office staff.
If this note is to be reserved, use the accounts receivable > file maintenance > 1. SYSTEM parameter field called resrvEd note types (FIELD 50). There is a limit of 3 reserved note types.