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Customers

This chapter contains the following topics:

Introduction to Customers

Entering Customers

Print by Customer Number

Print by Customer Name

Print Customer Labels

Print a Change Log

Sales Journal

Data Import

Introduction to Customers

The Customers selection enables you to enter information about your customers, such as codes for payment terms, a tax code, an A/R account, and (if you use them in your business) a sales representative and a ship-via method.

Each of these codes should have already been entered in its own function, so that it will be available. See the A/R Accounts, Ship-to Addresses, Ship-Via, Terms, Tax Codes, and Sales Reps chapters.

Each customer is identified by a twelve-character customer number. This number can be numerals, letters, or a combination of both, depending on your preference.

You can print a customer list or labels in order by either customer number, or customer name. You can also print a log of changes made to customer information if you specified in Company information that change logs were to be used.

Multiple contacts may be entered for each customer. You may enter and retain notes on each customer with a date and time stamp.

Entering Customers

There are four tabs for entering a customer.

Select

Customers from the A/R menu.

The General Tab

Graphical Mode

The following screen appears:

From this screen you can work with both new and existing customers.

Customer List Box 

The list box displays up to 6 customers at a time. You may sort the customers by customer number, customer name, zip code or sales rep all in ascending or descending order. Only column names in red may be sorted. To select or change the sort field, click on the column name or the arrow to the right of the column name or use the View options.

To locate a customer, start typing the number or name depending on which sort field is selected or use the arrow keys, <PgDn>/<PgUp>, and <Home>/<End> keys to find the customer. The <F1> and <SF1> keys function the same as the up/down arrow keys.

Customers that display in the list box are available for changes or deletion. The fields for the selected customer display in the lower part of the screen.

When a customer is found, you may select the <Enter> key or Edit button to start editing.

Customer Buttons

You have the following options with the buttons and keyboard equivalents:

The current period from Control information appears in the heading.

Entry of fields in blue are required when adding a new customer.

Menu Selections

For general users, the menu selections can and may be restricted based on the assigned menu. Also, if Order Entry is not licensed or not installed then the Order Entry menu selections will not be available for any user.

There are two entry functions accessible from the customer screen. You may access customer Contacts via the <F7> key or from the Customer contacts under the Options menu. And you may access Customer Notes with the <F6> key or from the Customer notes under the Options menu.

Other Options menu selections include:

Under the print menu selections you may access the following:

Character Mode

The following screen displays:

Several tabs are required to contain all the information needed for a single customer.

Name and address

Enter the following information:

Customer

There are two fields to identify the customer: number and name. The next several paragraphs document the number. See the (Name) field below.

The customer number does not have to be a number; you may use non-numeric codes if you prefer.

An ampersand (&) to the left of the word Customer indicates that there are one or more notes present for this existing customer.

Miscellaneous customers

You may enter miscellaneous customer numbers for occasional or one-time customers. Many individual customers can share the same customer number.

(Name)

This field is optional, but should not be omitted. It is needed to mail invoices and other documents. Some reports are available in customer name sequence as well as number sequence. Finally, many selections allow you to search for an existing customer by either name or number.

Although duplicate names for different customers are not prohibited, they are apt to cause confusion when you attempt to look up the customer by name.

If the company name to be entered starts with The (e.g. The Ace Company) you might want to enter the company name as Ace Company, The. This allows the Customers by Customer Name Report to print this company with all the other A’s (e.g., after Abbot Enterprises, but before Advanced Associates.)

Options 

Use the option:

Entering a Person’s Name

If you selected <F3> at the Name field, it splits into two subfields allowing entry of a personal name and a surname.

When printing the Customers by Customer Name Report, the last name will be used for alphabetical placement. For instance, if you enter John Smith after pressing <F3>, and then print a Customers by Customer Name Report, this customer would print after Sara Samuels but before Barry Spencer.

In any future selection where you look up this customer by name rather than number, remember to enter him as Smith, not as John Smith.

In the To distinguish John W Smith from John H Smith when using this option, do one of the following:

You may if you wish enter personal names without using the<F3> option, either as Smith, John or as John Smith; however you should pick one method and apply it consistently. The <F3> method merely forces all the surnames to be the same length (fourteen characters). This improves the alphabetization and gives a neater appearance to certain printed reports.

First name

Options 

Enter the individual’s first name (and middle initial if you wish); or use the following option:

Last name

Enter the customer’s surname.

Address 1

All address fields are all optional, but should not be omitted if you intend to send invoices, quotations, or other documents by mail.

Enter the first line of the customer’s address.

Address 2

Enter the second line of the customer’s address.

City

Enter the customer’s city.

State

Enter the customer’s state or province code where applicable.

Passport recommends that you use the standard Post Office state abbreviations for customers within the United States.

Zip

Enter the customer’s postal code.

Country

Enter a free-form country code. Any entry, including blank, is considered valid.

The contact and phone number are printed on various reports besides the Customers reports (by name and number). These include Customers by Name report, Aging report, Cash Projection report, and Collections report.

Contact 1
Contact 2

Each contact has a contact name, an e-mail address, and up to two phone numbers.

Name

Enter the name of the primary and secondary persons to contact at the customer’s location.

Phone

Enter the phone number of the primary and secondary contact.

Fax

Enter the fax number of the two contacts.

E-mail

Enter the e-mail address of the two contacts.

Default Contact

Default contact #

In order to enter this field, you must first enter a contact. A contact can entered by selecting the <F7> key or clicking on Customer contacts from the Options menu.

Enter the default contact from the contacts file/table to be used when emailing PDF files.

This field is optional but important if you are emailing PDF files such as A/R invoices, Statements, O/E invoices, POS invoices or C/O invoices to your customers. Then, the email address from the default contact entered here is used. For information on emailing via customer contacts, see the E-mail field and Email documents field from the Contacts section later in this chapter.

There is a setup procedure for emailing forms. Please see the Administration documentation appendix Email Configuration for more information.

Once emailing is configured in PBS, you have generated PDF files and you want to start emailing these files, see the PDF Form File Processing chapter in PBS System documentation.

Sales

Sales rep #

If you specified in Control information that you don't use sales representatives, this field may not be entered.

Options 

Otherwise, this is the number of the sales representative assigned to this customer’s account. It will appear as the default when entering an invoice for this customer (but can be overridden as needed). Enter a valid sales representative number, or use one of the options:

Sales territory 

Sales territory is optional. It is not required for A/R, but may be used in Sales Analysis or in ODBC compliant products.

Notice that each customer (and each invoice) is assigned both a sales territory and a sales representative. This may appear redundant (unless you assign more than one representative to each territory or more than one territory to each representative). The advantage is that you can monitor the performance of your sales representatives independently of their territories. This is especially useful if your salesman turnover is high or if you move them around frequently. Also, the Sales Analysis module offers you a choice of classifying sales either by the representative making the sale or the representative currently responsible for the customer.

There is no standardized list of sales territories, as there is of representatives; so the program accepts any input without validating it.

Commission percent

You may have specified (in Control information) that you do not use sales representatives, or that you do use them but do not pay them by commission, or that the commission which you pay depends on the sales representative rather than the customer. In all of these cases this field may not be changed or entered.

Options 

Otherwise, enter the commission percent, or use the option:

On

If the previous field is present and contains a non-zero percent, this field must be entered. It defines whether the commission is calculated as a percent of the price or the margin (price minus cost). If Control information indicates that commissions are always on price, the field is forced to on Price and may not be changed.

Otherwise, enter Price or Margin.

Select the <Enter> key to move to the next tab.

Sales Setup Tab

The following tab displays:

A/R account

Options 

Enter the number of the A/R account to which documents for this customer are to be posted, or use one of the options:

Specifically, the outstanding receivables for that A/R account (as shown in the A/R Aging Report) will not add up to the A/R account balance in G/L.

Therefore, whenever you change this field:

Credit hold

Check the box to stop invoices for this customer due to credit problems.

When you put a customer on credit hold, invoices will not be produced (whether or not the credit limit is exceeded). A message will appear stating the customer is on credit hold, and no sales will be allowed. Credit hold does not prevent changes to invoices created before the credit hold was applied. Additionally, files related to this customer will not be updated during invoice creation.

You can use this feature even though you selected to not Do credit checking in Control information.

Customer type

Enter the customer type. This field is optional and is not used within A/R itself, but it finds its use in other PBS applications:

If you use none of these, you may still want to categorize customers by type for your own information.

Balance method

Enter the method you use in handling this customer’s account: either Balance forward or Open item.

Miscellaneous customers should be assigned a balance method of Open item so that specific items can be selected for payment.

For a cash-with-sale transaction for a miscellaneous customer, you should use the Non-A/R cash feature of Cash receipts. See the Cash Receipts chapter.

If you change the accounting method from balance forward to open item for an existing customer who has open items on file, you must change the apply-to numbers for each of that customer’s open items in order to apply payments properly. Refer to the Change Apply-to Number or Due Date and Fully Paid Open Items chapters for more information.

Statement cycle

Enter the statement cycle code to specify how often statements are to be printed for this customer. When you print statements, you specify which cycle you are printing. You can print up to five cycles at once (as for instance when the end of a week corresponds to the end of a month, so that both monthly and weekly customers are billed).

This field is required, even if you only use one statement cycle.

Suggested statement cycle codes are W (weekly), M (monthly), or Q (quarterly). You are not limited to these suggestions; any letter, number, or punctuation character is allowed.

Credit limit

This credit limit is compared to the customer’s balance upon entry of an invoice (and several other documents). The operator must individually approve invoices which would put the customer over his credit limit.

This field is required, even though you unchecked (no) the check box Do credit checking in Control information (in which case it will be informational only).

Options 

Enter the customer’s credit limit, or use the option:

Credit rating

You may enter the customer’s credit rating here. This field is optional and is informational only; if used, it is not checked against a Dun & Bradstreet (or any other) rating.

To control customer credit, use the Credit hold and Credit limit fields, singly or in combination.

Finance charge

Check this box to specify that finance charges on past-due items will be calculated automatically (by the Finance charges selection) for this customer. Uncheck the box if finance charges are only to be applied manually. See Finance Charges

This field is required even if no finance charge percent is specified in Control information.

Back order

Check this box if this customer accepts back orders, or uncheck it if he does not. This field is required. If you uncheck it, you will be warned during order entry if you attempt back-ordering for this customer (but not actually prevented from doing so).

Partial ship

Check this box if this customer accepts partial shipments, or uncheck it he does not. This field is required; however, it is used by Order Entry rather than by Accounts Receivable.

If you uncheck it for no, you will be warned during order entry if you try to send a partial shipment to this customer (but not actually prevented from doing so).

PO required

If you are not interfaced to Order Entry or Point of Sale, this field may not be entered.

Otherwise, this controls whether or not your purchase order number may be omitted from O/E Orders, P/S Transactions and C/O Customer orders. Check this box if this is required, or uncheck it if it may be left blank.

Whatever you enter here, entering your customer’s purchase order number in Invoices is always optional.

Comment

This field is available for any comment you want to make. It is available in several locations in A/R and O/E.

Optional Fields

There may be up to three additional fields that can be entered on this tab. The names of these fields are entered in the Control information. If a name has not been entered in Control information, you cannot enter the field here. See the Optional Customer Fields section in the Control information chapter.

You can use these fields to store any information that you want, but it will be available to you only on this screen and will not appear on any report. There is no formatting for these fields; for instance, you can use one of them to hold a date but the slashes will not appear unless you key them in yourself.

Ship via

This becomes the default value for entering ship-via codes in this customer’s invoices.

This field is not required, and may be omitted even if you have checked (Yes) to the field Use ship-vias in Control information. Conversely, you may enter a ship-via here even if you have unchecked (no) to that field.

Any non-blank value must be a valid entry in Ship-via. See the Ship-Via chapter.

Options 

Enter the customer’s preferred shipping method, or use one of the options:

Ship zone

If your freight charges are based on the customer’s distance from your headquarters, you may assign a shipping zone to your customers. This field is optional, and if present may be in any format.

SIC code

The Standard Industry Code (SIC) is optional and is not used in A/R. If you use the Sales Analysis module, you can use this code to analyze your profitability by industry.

Terms code

Options 

Enter the terms code that applies to this customer. This field is required, and must already be present in the Terms selection. See the Terms chapter. You may use one of the options:

Discount percent

Enter the discount percent generally allowed this customer. This will become the default value for the discount applied to the invoice as a whole when you enter the totals screen of the invoice (and of the order, if you use the Order Entry module).

If you have specified in the Discount type field in Control information that you do not allow invoice discounts, this field is not used.

This entry is not used as the default for the line item discount, nor does it have anything to do with the discount for early payment specified in the terms code.

Tax code

Enter the tax code that applies to this customer. This field is required, and is used as the default when entering invoices, orders, and other documents for this customer.

Options 

You may use one of the options:

Tax exempt #

If the customer is exempt from taxes, enter his tax-exempt number. If this customer has more than one address that you ship to, you can enter in the Ship-to addresses selection the appropriate tax exemption number for each one. See the Ship-to Addresses chapter.

Sub-account/Cost center

Cost Center or sub-acct displays here, depending upon the account structure defined in Company Information.

When entering invoices, orders, etc; each line needs a sales account number. Control information indicates the source of the cost center or sub-acct used in the sales account. It may be from the customer (this entry), from the inventory items, or simply entered on the header screen for the sale.

If you do not use this entry for this purpose, it may still be useful for Sales Analysis and ODBC reporting.

Press <Enter> to proceed to the next screen.

Deleting Customers

<F3> or selecting the Delete button is used to delete a customer, but it only works when all the following conditions are met:

Other checks are also made. If you cannot delete a customer for some reason, you will be informed.

Before you delete a customer with history on file, you should purge that customer's history first. Purging means that it is gone forever. However you may run reports of the data prior to purging.

If you use PBS Sales Analysis, and S/A Control information specifies that the Customer comparative feature is in use, sales history for a customer will not be lost altogether upon deletion of that customer. Though no longer individually accessible, the history will be rolled into a generic sales bucket where it will remain available for analysis reporting.

Contacts

Graphical Mode

Press <F7> or select Customer contacts from the Options menu. The following window displays:

You may use the buttons for the following:

Options 

Up to 6 existing contacts display in the list box. To locate an existing contact you may use one of the options:

Character Mode

Select <F7> and the following screen displays:

From this screen you may work with new or existing contacts for this customer. Each customer may have up to 999 contacts in addition to the ones defined in the Contact 1 Contact 2 fields on the customer General tab.

There is no relation between the contacts you maintain here and the ones in the Contact 1 Contact 2 fields on the customer record. For instance, if you blank out the contact 1, the first contact in this window does not migrate to that field to fill the gap.

The Contact # field is required. Both the Customer and Contact # fields cannot be changed on an existing contact; all the other fields on the screen are optional.

Options 

You may use the options:

Enter the following information:

Customer

This field is entered automatically and cannot be changed. It is the same as the customer you were last on.

Contact #

Enter a number to distinguish this contact from the customer’s other contacts. Two contacts for different customers may have the same contact number, but not two contacts for the same customer.

Contact name

Enter the name of this contact.

Title

Enter the position (title) of your contact.

Address 1
Address 2
Address 3

Enter the address of your contact. At the Address 1 field you may also use the option:

City

Enter the city of your contact.

State

Enter the state of your contact.

Zip

Enter the state of your contact.

Country

Enter the country of your contact.

Phone
Fax

Enter the voice and Fax telephone numbers of this contact.

E-mail

Enter an email address for this contact.

While the contents of this field is highlighted, you may select <Ctrl+E>, select Email from the Tools menu or click on the email button to open your default email application and populate the Send to field with the address in this field.

A contact email address is needed for emailing PDF documents to customers, such as A/R invoices, Statements, O/E invoices, POS invoices or C/O invoices.

For a complete email configuration overview open the PBS Administration documentation and read the Email Configuration appendix. In order to email documents, you must also check the Email documents box. You should also enter the default contact on the customer record. See the Default contact # field.

Once emailing is configured in PBS, you have generated PDF files and you want to start emailing these files, see the PDF Form File Processing chapter in PBS System documentation.

Auth #

Enter the security code which you have provided to the customer. You can use this to validate phone calls received from anyone ordering in the customer’s name.

Email documents

If you want to use this contact when emailing PDF documents such as A/R invoices, Statements, O/E invoices, POS invoices or C/O invoices, check this box. You must have an entry in the E-mail field. You should also enter the default contact on the customer record. See the Default contact # field.

If you are not using this contact for emailing, leave it unchecked.

For a complete email configuration overview open the PBS Administration documentation and read the Email Configuration appendix.

Once emailing is configured in PBS, you have generated PDF files and you want to start emailing these files, see the PDF Form File Processing chapter in PBS System documentation.

Make any desired changes. Press <Enter> to enter a new contact.

To exit the screen, press <Esc> or select the Exit button.

Cancel Entry?

If you select Exit and you are editing an existing contact or you are adding a new contact then this window displays.

Totals, Last Transaction Tab

Graphical Mode

The next tab displays:

The fields on this screen are automatically maintained by other functions within A/R.

Character Mode

The second screen appears:

Unused date fields are entered as blank and display as NONE. For instance, if the customer has never returned any merchandise the last return date is NONE.

Enter the following information:

Balances

1st sale date

Enter the date of the first sale made to this customer, or press <Enter> if this date is not known.

In graphical mode, select the Save button to save all the amount fields as zero on the Totals, Last transaction and Period totals tabs and the date fields to blank.

Options 

For a new customer in Character mode only, you may use the option:

Account balance

This field is the customer’s outstanding account balance, reflecting all posted transactions. Refer to Unposted balance field below for the unposted balance.

Unless you are making some kind of correction, you should always skip this field when adding a new customer.

If this field is suspected of having an incrorrect amount, see Calculate Past-due Amounts for a procedure on how to correct it.

Past due amount

Enter the past due amount or press <Enter> to leave this field blank.

The selection Set customer account balances is used to set the field to its correct value. Refer to the Calculate Past-due Amounts chapter.

Past due calc date

This field contains the date that the past due amount was calculated.

The selection Set customer account balances is used to set the field to its correct value. Refer to the Set Customer Account Balances chapter.

Unposted balance

This field contains the algebraic sum of the following:

Cash receipts (in A/R), credit memos (in A/R) and RMAs (in O/E ) reduce the total unposted balance. All other entries increase the unposted balance.

The posted balance and unposted balance are added together and compared to the customer’s credit limit. If the credit limit has been exceeded, you will be alerted to this fact during entry of miscellaneous charge transactions, orders (in O/E), and invoices. Refer to the O/E User documentation for full details as to exactly when credit checking is performed.

When miscellaneous charge transactions, orders and invoices are posted, the unposted balance is reduced and the account balance field is increased. When cash receipts are posted, the unposted balance is increased and the account balance field is decreased.

Unless you are making some kind of correction, you should always skip this field when adding a new customer.

If this field is suspected of having an incrorrect amount, see Set Customer Account Balances for a procedure on how to correct it.

Layaway balance

If you have the Point of Sale module and the POS User is allowed to enter layaway transaction payments then a non-zero amount will display in this field after a layaway payment is posted for this customer.

This field is display-only and shows the total layaway payments in open items for this customer.

Entering and posting a new layaway cash, check, or credit card payment for the POS layaway transaction increases this amount. Completing and posting a fully paid layaway or refunding and posting a layaway payment reduces this amount.

Prepaid balance

If the A/R Control information field Process prepaid cash must be checked in order to use prepaid cash processing.

This field is display-only and shows the total prepaid open item amounts for this customer.

Entering and posting a new prepaid cash amount in cash receipts increases this amount. Applying a prepaid cash amount to an invoice in A/R Invoices or to an O/E Order or Invoice and then posting the invoice reduces this amount.

Last sale

Last invoice

This is the document number of the most recent apply-to A/R document (most often an invoice) for this customer. The format of this number will normally conform to your default document number format (defined in A/R Control information for A/R invoices), but this is not a requirement.

Enter the number of the last invoice, or press <Enter> to leave this field blank.

Last sale amount

Enter the amount of the last sale to this customer. The amount is automatically updated when an invoice is posted.

(Last sale) Date

This field contains the date of the last sale made to this customer. It is automatically updated when an invoice is posted.

Last statement amount

This field contains the amount on the last statement to this customer. It is automatically updated when statements are printed.

(Last statement) Date

This field contains the date of the last statement printed for this customer. It is automatically updated when statements are printed.

Last payment amount

This field contains the amount of the last payment from this customer. It is automatically updated when cash receipts are posted.

(Last payment) Date

This field contains the date of the last payment received from this customer. It is automatically updated when cash receipts are posted.

Last finance charge amt

This field contains the amount of the last finance charges posted for this customer. It is automatically updated when any finance charge is posted.

(Last finance charge) Date

This field contains the last date finance charges were posted for this customer. It is automatically updated when any finance charge is posted.

Last returned check amt

This field contains the amount of the last check that was returned by the bank for this customer. It is automatically updated when a returned check is posted.

(Last return check) Date

This field contains the last date a check was returned by the bank for this customer. It is automatically updated when a returned check is posted. Leave this field blank to indicate a returned check. See the Returned Checks chapter.

Totals

The remaining fields on the screen are in the form of a table showing period-to-date, next-period, year-to-date, and last-year totals in successive columns. The next-period fields are only accessible using graphical mode.

These figures are updated whenever an A/R, O/E, POS, C/O and T/B document for this customer is posted. When the document date is within the current period the period-to-date field is updated and the amount is added to the year-to-date. If the date is within the next period the posted amounts are written only to the next-period fields.

When Close a period is run, the next-period field is rolled to the period-to date field and the next-period amount is added to the year-to-date amount.

The year-to-date column is rolled to the last-year column when Close a period is run at the end of your accounting year. See Close a Period.

Sales

Enter the sales for the period-to-date, next-period, year-to-date, and last year.

The next-period fields are only accessible using graphical mode. When adding a new customer set the next-period field to zero.

Costs

Enter the costs for the period-to-date, next-period, year-to-date, and last year.

The next-period fields are only accessible using graphical mode. When adding a new customer set the next-period field to zero.

Commissions

Enter the total commissions for the period-to-date, next-period, year-to-date, and last year.

The next-period fields are only accessible using graphical mode. When adding a new customer set the next-period field to zero.

Payments

Enter the total payments for the period-to-date, next-period, year-to-date, and last year.

The next-period fields are only accessible using graphical mode. When adding a new customer set the next-period field to zero.

Finance charges

Enter the total finance charges for the period-to-date, next-period, year-to-date, and last year.

The next-period fields are only accessible using graphical mode. When adding a new customer set the next-period field to zero.

Make any needed changes. Press <Enter> to proceed to the next tab.

Period Totals Tab

Graphical Mode

The fourth tab contains historical information about the customer.

This data posted to these fields are useful for detecting trends and evaluating a customer’s credit worthiness. You would not normally enter data in any of these fields, except perhaps upon initial installation of the A/R module.

This fields on this screen are protected from change; refer to the System User documentation for an explanation of how authorized users may override this protection.

Character Mode

Enter information as follows:

Options 

You may also use one of the options:

Period End Date

In Character Mode the cursor moves to this field in the first line of the table (the current period).

Options 

Data entry into this line is not done in the usual way, by moving left to right across the line. Instead you open a window for data entry. Your choices are:

If you press <Enter>, the following window appears:

The window heading Enter changes for indicates which period is being processed (in the example this is current period).

Enter the following information:

Avg days to pay

Options 

Enter the time the customer takes to pay a bill.

Highest balance

Enter the customer’s highest balance during this period.

Total charges

Enter the total charges billed for this customer during this period.

Total payments received

Enter the total payments received from this customer during this period.

Enter notes for customer ?

This question window is asked only if this is a new entry, and only after you have finished entering period data.

Select Yes to enter a note. Select No to terminate processing of this customer.

Customer Notes

In graphical mode the following screen displays:

Enter notes for the customer. The text will wrap around and the end of each line.

Options 

When Point of Sale is installed, you may enter a customer memo that displays as soon as you enter the customer number on the POS transaction screen. Use the <F1> key for entry of a customer memo.

Print by Customer Number

This selection lets you print customers in number sequence.

The report includes Period Information for up to thirteen prior periods. This in turn is summarized by quarter, based on the calendar year. If your periods do not correspond closely to months, you may see more or fewer than three periods in a quarter.

See a sample Customers By Customer Number report in the Sample Reports appendix.

Select

By customer # from the Reports, customer menu.

Graphical Mode

The following screen appears:

Defaults are selected for each field. Change any default as needed and select the OK button to print or Cancel button to not print the report.

Character Mode

The following screen appears:

Enter the following information as needed:

Starting customer #
Ending customer #

Options 

Specify the range of customers numbers to include. You may use the option:

Customer options

Select either All customers, On credit hold only or Inactive only. In character mode enter either A, C or I.

A credit hold customer has the Credit hold field checked in the customer record. An inactive customer is one with no sales year-to-date.

Customer type

Enter a customer type to include on this report or use one of the options:

Brief or full format

Select Brief format or Full format.

The brief format prints only one line per customer. The full format prints all of the information that is contained in Customers (except for sales figures, which are controlled by your response to the next question). The Period Information Summary prints for both brief and full format.

Print sales figures

Check the box to have the period-to-date, year-to-date, and last-year figures appear on the list.

Print notes

If you want the customer notes to appear on the list, check the box.

A/R account

If you only use a single A/R account (that is, there is only one entry in the A/R accounts selection), this field is filled automatically.

Options 

Otherwise, you can restrict the report to only those customers with a specific account number. Enter an A/R account number, or use one of the options:

OK and Cancel

Make any needed changes. Press <Enter> or click on the OK button to print the Customers by customer number report. Press <Esc> or select Cancel to return to the menu.

Print by Customer Name

This selection lets you print customers in name sequence.

Note that customers entered in first name / surname format are listed by their surnames.

See a Customer By Customer Name report example in the Sample Reports appendix.

Select

By customer name from the Reports, customer menu.

Graphical Mode

The following screen appears:

Defaults are selected for each field. Change any default as needed and select the OK button to print or Cancel button to not print the report.

Character Mode

The following screen appears:

Enter the following information as needed:

Starting customer name
Ending customer name

Options 

Specify the range of customer names to include. At each field you specify the range of customers numbers to include. You may use the option:

You may use one of the options:

Customer options

Select either All customers, On credit hold only or Inactive only. In character mode enter the corresponding A, C or I.

A credit hold customer has the Credit hold checked in the customer record. An inactive customer is one with no sales year-to-date.

Brief or full format

Enter Brief format or Full format.

The brief format prints only one line per customer. The full format prints all of the information that is contained in Customers (except for sales figures, which are controlled by your response to the next question). The Period Information Summary prints for both brief and full format.

Print sales figures

Check this box to have the period-to-date, year-to-date, and last-year figures appear on the list.

Print notes

If you want the customer notes to appear on the list, check this box.

A/R account

If you only use a single A/R account (that is, there is only one entry in the A/R accounts selection), this field is filled automatically.

Options 

Otherwise, you can restrict the report to only those customers with a specific account number. Enter an A/R account number, or use one of the options:

OK or Cancel

Make any needed changes. Press <Enter> or click on the OK button to print the Customers by customer name report. Press <Esc> or select Cancel to return to the menu.

Print Customer Labels

The Print customer labels selection can be used to print mailing labels for customer statements, promotional mailings, etc. You can print labels for one or all customer types, for customers with a last sale on or before a specified date or to include customers who do not have a last sale date, and for one or all statement cycles.

Label formats are predefined and you may not alter them.

Blank lines are not printed on labels; the remaining lines are moved upwards to close the gap.

Select

Customer labels from the Reports, customer menu.

Graphical Mode

The following screen appears:

Defaults are selected for each field. Change any default as needed and select the OK button to print or Cancel button to not print labels.

Character Mode

The following screen appears:

Enter the following information as needed:

# labels per customer

Enter the number of labels to be printed per customer. Leaving this field blank causes the program to do a dry run through all the labels specified (without actually printing anything), and then to report back the number of labels which would have been printed under the specified conditions. This feature is sometimes useful; e.g., in estimating postage before spoiling any labels.

Print by customer

Select the order in which to print labels: Customer name, Number, Sales representative, or Zip code.

If you have specified (in Control information) that you do not use sales representatives, the Sales rep option is not available.

Range Limits

Options 

Type in the range you want to select of whatever you have chosen to print by. You may use one of the options:

Customer type

Options 

To print labels for only one customer type, enter it here; or use the option:

Customer type is optional in Customers, so a blank entry is valid here. If used, it will select only those customers that do not have a customer type.

Last sale cut-off date

You may choose to select customers for printing on the basis of the date of their last sale.

Enter a date, or use the option:

Customers with last sale

If you entered a date in the preceding field, select either After this cutoff date, or a last sale On or before the date.

Include custs with no last sale date

Check this box if you wish to include customers who do not have a last-sales date. These would typically be new customers who have not bought anything yet.

Statement cycles

You may print labels for customers who receive statements on selected billing cycles, or print labels regardless of billing cycles.

Enter up to five statement cycle codes. The first blank terminates data entry. Any value may be entered for statement cycles, even duplicate values.

Options 

In the first subfield you may use the option:

A/R account

If you only use a single A/R account (that is, there is only one entry in the A/R accounts selection), this field is filled automatically.

Options 

Otherwise, you can restrict the report to only those customers with a specific account number. Enter an A/R account number, or use one of the options:

Overflow drop line

Six lines of text cannot be accommodated on either continuous form labels or the smaller laser labels. Enter which line will be excluded on the labels when there is not enough room to print all six lines of text.

Select among:

For example, if a street address is used as Address-1 and a post office box is used as Address-2 for the customer, you may decide to drop the street address portion of the mailing label since the post office box would be used for mailing purposes. Or, you could drop the country code for customers located in the United States.

OK or Cancel

Select or click on the OK button to continue. Select the Cancel button to exit and not count or print labels. When you select OK, the following window displays:

If you request a count only at the first field, you may print the selected labels after reviewing the counts and then enter a number other than zero in the Labels per customer field.

There are up to three enterable fields in this window:

Print these labels

This field can only be entered if you selected "Count only" in the # labels per customer field. If you want the labels to print, this box must be checked.

Labels per customer

This field can only be entered if you selected "Count only" in the # labels per customer field. You then answer how many labels per customer are required.

Please mount labels on the printer and check this box when done

You are asked to mount labels on the printer and then check the box when ready.

You may be asked to select a printer or adjust alignment; refer to the Starting PBS, Menus and Printing chapter of the System User documentation.

OK or Cancel

Select Ok to print and Cancel to stop the selection. If you select OK, the next step is the select a printer. After you select a printer, the following screen displays if you are printing to a Company information laser printer:

Top Margin

Enter the top margin or use the default.

Left Margin

Enter the left margin or use the default.

Label Size

The choices available depend on the type of printer:

You must use continuous-form labels, one- or two-across the page, 3-1/2 inches wide by 15/16 inch high. Mount the labels on the printer so that the print head is at the first line of the first label.

Use 8 x 10 label sheets. You must select one of the following sizes:

Print a Change Log

The Print change log selection enables you to print a log of all changes that have been made in Customers. It also tells you who made the change and when. You may optionally purge the data up to a cut-off date and print the purged data.

If you specified in Company information that you do not use change logs attempts to use it are rejected with the message “Change logs are not being used”.

You may view a Customer Change Log example in the Sample Reports appendix.

Select

Change log from the Reports, customer menu.

Graphical Mode

The following window displays:

Character Mode

The following screen appears:

Enter the following fields:

Purge change log

You determine whether the data should be purged or not. If you check the box the records will be removed as they are printed up to the Cut-off date (next field). If you leave it unchecked, changes will remain and will appear the next time you print a change log (along with all the other changes that have accumulated in the interim).

Cut-off date

This field is only available if you checked the box to the Purge change log field.

Enter the cut-off date to the last change date you want to purge or use the option:

Starting date

Ending date

These fields are only available if you did not check the box to the Purge change log field.

Enter the range of change dates to include on the report or use the option:

OK or Cancel

Select OK and you will be asked to select a printer; refer to the Starting PBS, Menus and Printing chapter of the System User documentation. If you select Cancel you will be returned to the menu.

If you decided to purge there may be a pause while the log is printed and the data is purged.

Sales Journal

This selection allows you to print a journal of customer sales for one customer or a range of customers. You may further define the report by specifying a date or range of dates, a sales rep or range of sales reps or a sales territory or range of territories.

Report data is based a combination of data from both AR Open Items and Customer History. After items are archived/purged from AR Opens and moved to Customer History they will appear in this report.

The program has additional output options which, besides printing to paper, will allow the output to be placed in a CSV/spreadsheet file (MS Excel compliant) or into an XML data file for further processing. XML is designed especially for web documents. It allows designers to create their own customized tags, enabling the definition, transmission, validation and interpretation of data between applications and between organizations.

The report sequence is customer ID, document date, document number and apply-to number.

You may view a Sales Journal example in the Sample Reports appendix.

Select

Sales Journal from the Reports, general menu.

A screen similar to this will be displayed:

Graphical Mode

Character Mode

Enter the following information:

Starting customer #

Options 

Enter the number of the first customer you want to include in this report or use the option.

Ending customer #

Options 

Enter the number of the last customer that you want to include in this report or use one of the options.

Starting date

Options 

Enter the starting date for the range of invoices that you wish to include in this report or use the option.

Ending date

Options 

Enter the ending date for the range of invoices that you wish to include in this report or use the option.

If you specified in Control information that you do not use sales representatives, the next two fields display N/A (Not Applicable) and may not be entered.

Starting sales rep

Options 

Enter a starting sales rep that will be included in this report or use the option.

Ending sales rep

Options 

Depending on your answer to field 5, this could either be starting sales rep or starting territory.

Enter an ending sales rep that will be included in this report or use one of the options.

Summary report

Enter N to print invoice detail on the report or Y to print a summary report. The default is N.

Report or spread sheet

Options 

Use one of the output type options.

Spreadsheet (CSV) Output

When electing to print the report and output the report to a CSV file, a dialog box displays prompting you for a name for a name and a location for saving the CSV file. For more information on CSV, see Comma-delimited.

Accept the default location indicated at the top of the dialog box or select a new location. Enter a name for the file and press <Enter> or click the “Save” button to save the file.

XML output

If you wish to generate XML (Extensible Markup Language) output for this report, type X. If you do not want an XML output, press <Enter> or type N.

XML

XML is designed especially for web documents. It allows designers to create their own customized tags, enabling the definition, transmission, validation and interpretation of data between applications and between organizations.

OK or Cancel

Make any desired changes and then press <Enter> to generate the Sales Journal Report.

If you specified that you would like a printed report, you will be prompted for a printer.

In Windows, if you specified either CSV (comma delimited) or XML output, you will be prompted to enter a name for the output file and a location where the file will be saved.

In UNIX or Linux the file is written in the top-level PBS directory. The file name is ARSJNL.CSV or ARSJNL.XML respectively.

Data Import

Select

Data import customers from the Utility menu.

Data Import is licensed separately and may not be available on your system. For information on using data import see the Data Import Manager documentation.