Most businesses need to be able to define their customers. For cash customers, it is largely impossible, though you should try to gain information for marketing purposes. This dialogue offers you a way to define your customers in Business Administrator.
Location: Contact Manager, New Customer or Trade Manager, New Customer or Trade Manager, Edit Customer Details
Overview
This dialogue is used to convert a contact into a customer. You can enter a range of information from the basic to the quite advanced.
Beware the terms of trade you offer here: they should match the contracts you make, and Business Administrator actively responds to the information you provide. Terms are usually defined in days, particularly 0 days (for some cash-type transactions), 7 days or 30 days.
Be sure to consciously decide whether you should ‘Offer alternative currencies’ and, if you do, don’t choose more than is necessary.
You must tell Business Administrator the industry the customer is in; Business Manager will want to know this when it makes reports.
Business Administrator needs to know where to send invoices, and to whom. This can be an address that’s different to the marketing address, but it must be registered on Business Administrator.
You also need to state the agreed Credit Limit, so that Business Administrator can monitor the account, and perform credit control functions. It is also a good idea to say how you think they are likely to pay: first to get a picture of the route of transactions, and second, it may affect the way Business Administrator deals with other institutions.
State the type of referencing that has been agreed. Some companies demand the use of order numbers or other type of referencing. Depending on your answer here, Business Administrator will force you to use them whenever you start customer projects or perform some other invoice-related task.
Important: when sending invoices, Business Administrator does not necessarily address them to the mailing address. When defining an account customer you are asked to state the invoice address, which could be different to the mailing address, and Business Administrator will address invoices there. The mailing address is usually used for marketing purposes and for providing general information.