Before customers can be set up the following base information is required (all this information is set up from the system setup tab):
Currencies - the currency of the customers account
Sales types - prices are set up at this level.The sales type combined with the currency of the customer determines the price list that is applicable to them. Each customer master record must refer to a sales type.
Credit Status records, these are flags for recording the credit -worthiness of the customer. Each customer account refers to a credit status type. Some credit status records can be set up to prohibit invoicing.
Payment terms. As many terms records as necessary can be defined and the customer record must refer to a payment terms record. There is some flexibility as to how these are defined. They can refer to a number of days credit or to a given day in the month following invoice.
Aged balances reports produced for customers and suppliers are based on the terms.
Tax groups - the groupings of tax authorities that are required to collect tax from customer sales. Each customer branch must refer to a tax group and sales to these branches will automatically calculate the tax based on where the sale is from and the tax category of the item being invoiced. The tax system offers great flexibility. Once the above information is entered then customer records can be entered. However, accounts receivable also requires that certain branch information, relating to delivery address etc must be entered against each customer. But before customer branches can be created the following base information must be entered - the links to the forms that allow all this information to be defined are available from the main menu under system set up:
Sales areas - these are for analysing sales by area. Also, GL integration can be set up to look at the area of the customer to determine the GL account to post sales to. Each branch of a customer's account must refer to a sales area. If sales areas are not necessary in your business a single area must be defined - called say "default area" As many sales types as required can be set up. It should be borne in mind that prices are held against sales types (and currencies).
The sales type would reflect whether the sale was a trade sale, retail, wholesale, indent, cash sale, special sale etc. Customer branch records also must refer to a sales person responsible for managing the relationship and who takes the credit for sales to the branch. If the sales people are not necessary for your business, then a single salesperson must still be defined who could be called default or similar. Locations that stocks can be held in need to be set up. Each customer branch needs to refer to the stock location that it would be most freight efficient to draw stock from. Having got this base information set up then the business of setting up customer accounts and customer branches with delivery addresses can start.
Desktop databases, spreadsheets and comma separated variables (CSV) export files can also be used to import this information. Using MS Access, the process involves installing an ODBC driver for MySQL on the windows desktop machine that has MS Access on it and then attaching to the weberp database tables DebtorsMaster and CustBranch in a new blank Access database. The CSV file or the spreadsheet is imported into the Access database, then an append query is made to map the fields from the CSV table/spreadsheet into DebtorsMaster and or CustBranch. There are potentially many records in CustBranch each with a different branch code for one customer account in DebtorsMaster. This method is dangerous in the sense that it is imperative to ensure that no customer records or branch records refer to non-existent base data in the fields described above.
