This page will explain how to set up a customer within Vision Commerce.
Before you read the information below, it may be useful to watch the quick YouTube video below which should explain the setup of a customer within Vision Commerce.
To create a customer the following would need to set up first
Analysis Codes
Nominal Control Accounts
VAT Code
Country
Currency
Main Form
This section covers everything you need to enter on the top & bottom line of the customer form, if you want to see what is required on the tabs then select from the tab sections below.
Account - This is a short code for your customer, it has to be unique for each customer. It works best for reporting when you have a format that is easily searched upon so a consistent format is a great way to do this. e.g. ‘SMITH01’, ‘JONES23’, ‘RETAI14’.
Client of - This will always show your own company, however it is possible to show other company names here (alternatives), what would then happen is that the SOP documents to the customer would then be presented with the alternative company information. It allows you to have a trade as a company.
This alternative company is an optional feature available to those who require it, there is a small charge to use this feature.
Status - There are three statuses
Live
Prospect - accounts that you have not traded with yet
Archive - accounts that are no longer trading
You can only process orders with a live account, if the account is set at another status it will ask you to change it to the 'Live' status and it will check to ensure all details are complete before allowing you to enter the order.
Refresh - If something has changed elsewhere in the system such as you added a new price list, then you will have to refresh in order to see it in the dropdown.
Sales Analysis - Details of products the customer has been purchasing over a given period of time.
Get Accounts Data - Where this is allowed we can obtain the customer's account transactions and information from the finance system which will be visible on the Transaction tab and the analysis tab.
Each tab has its own section below
Details
This tab contains the key information about the customer.
General
Most fields do not require an explanation as they are relatively obvious.
The following fields are mandatory
Address Line 1
Town
Postcode
Country
Email Address
GDPR
The GDPR options have been added at the foot of this section and you can select the correct legal type for this account which will be either 'Natural Person' or 'Business'.
A Natural Person is a human being (an individual) rather than a Business or Organisation.
For more information please see GDPR Statement page.
The GDPR options are only available for a Natural person.
If you select the GDPR option there is NO WAY TO UNDO your actions.
GDPR Options:
Leave it blank.
Anonymous - when this option is chosen the GDPR information will not show for the current user unless that user's account is set to ‘View Anonymous PII’. This Customer's PII information will not show on reports or extracts.
Forgotten - if this option is chosen and there are no outstanding Sales Orders associated with the Customer account, any PII information will be deleted and accounts archived. If there are Orders outstanding this field will revert to blank and no information will be changed.
For more information please see GDPR Statement and Admin - User Maintenance pages.
Key Account Settings
Field Name | Explanation |
|---|---|
VAT / Tax Rate Code | Sales Tax rate code used for this customer for normal purchases. e.g. for underbond only customers you should still setup the customer as standard rate. When entering an order depending on the type of order we may select an alternative tax code for the specific order. The code will update on the order only. |
VAT / Tax Registration | Enter your customers sales tax / VAT registration number. |
Account Trading Currency | This account can only trade in a single currency, if you wish multiple currencies to be used then each would require a separate accounts. This is due to many finance systems not being able to handle multiple currency within the same account. |
Default Payment Method | This will default to the payment method you setup as your default but you can change this here and it will become the default for the customer. It can be changed at the time of the order. |
Duty Accounts | These are the default duty accounts that you will be using for this customer, by default it will be your warehouse account code or your deferment DAN. If you are selling to your customer “Duty Deferred” to their account then you should enter the code provided to you by your warehouse into these fields. If you are paying the customs duty and your customer is paying the excise duty then you should have your code in the customs duty fields and your customers in the excise duty field. This can be changed at the time of the order but please ensure the code you change it to exists, otherwise your order will be rejected. If you are duty deferring an order to your customers deferment you will see on the order that this is shown and highlighted. Also prices will automatically have the duty element removed from the prices shown on the order. |
Default Payment Method
We’ve integrated Commerce with payment providers Lloyds & Stripe to allow you to collect online payments from customers for your sales. You can set this up in the Admin menu ‘Report Manager' screen. Stripe can be set up without needing to involve us, Lloyds however requires additional setup which we’ll have to help with. If you need assistance with either option please contact our support team.
When online payments are enabled the sales order ‘Payment Method’ controls if and when payments are requested. The following options are available.
Payment not requested - Cash on Delivery, Credit Card on Delivery, Cheque on Delivery, Credit Account, Credit - No Limit, Credit - Staff
Require upfront payment (online payment NOT offered) - Cash, Cheque, Voucher
Require upfront payment (online payment offered) - Credit Card, AMEX, Visa, Mastercard, Diners, Discover, JCB, China Union, RuPay, Entrust, BC Card, Debit Card, Swift, Visa Debit
Upfront payment is not required, online payment is offered on the invoice
Credit Card, Debit Card, Credit Account (CC Pay Link), Credit - Staff (CC Pay Link)
+ All of the above (when the user bypasses pre-payment by releasing the held order)
If you want online payments enabled but you do not want to collect the payment on the sales documentation for a particular order, use one of the payment methods provided above or tick the ‘Paid in full’ tick box when saving the order - this will bypass payment collection stage. If the payment has already been collected outside of the system then it’s advisable to record the details within the ‘Payments’ tab.
When an upfront payment is required, regardless of how the order is received (either manually entered into Commerce or via the API), the order will be put on hold and a proforma automatically sent to the customer. If the payment method specified offers online payment a QR code will be available on the document for the user to click or scan. The options available at this stage are:
The customer uses the clickable QR code to make an online payment
Customer pays using another method, and the Commerce user records the payment against the order
Bypass online payment by releasing the order from the held orders screen
When an upfront payment is not required, we offer customers the ability to pay from the system generated invoice, again with a clickable QR code.
Payments are handled directly by Lloyds or Stripe and go straight into your account with your chosen provider. Commerce can check for customer payments from any of the following locations:
Held Orders screen - Payment Required tab
SOP Documents - Pending Invoices
SO screen - The payments tab
These are retrieved and stored against the order (visible in the Payments tab), if the order is paid in full then a new ‘Paid in full’ tick box is set in the order screen, and if the order is on hold it’s automatically released. This ‘Paid in full’ tick box is what was previously known as the 'Credit Card Order’ tick box.
If an order has payments linked to it at the point of invoice generation, the payment is posted automatically to the accounts system. If however payment was retrieved after invoice generation, this will be retrieved in the ‘Pending Invoices’ tab and posted along with any other invoices & payments needing to be posted.
Discounts / Pricing
You can specify the default price list your customer will be using.
The pricing lookup will check the prices in the following order.
customers contract price
price list
Standard product price
It is always a good idea to have all customers pointing to a price list even if that list has no products on it (which would then use standard pricing).
Also within this section you can set a default % discount which will be applied to the order lines as they are entered, this would apply to all lines but can be adjusted on the order.
Standard Delivery Details
These are all fields that are used as defaults at the order creation stage, they can be adjusted on the order at the time of order entry.
Field Name | Explanation |
|---|---|
Carrier | If this customer uses a specific carrier then you can default it here, you can also set this up against the warehouse for all orders, but if setup here it will override the warehouse. If the warehouse are making the delivery themselves then this is generally left blank |
Warehouse Delivery Service | If your warehouse offer you different delivery services this can be specified here. e.g. they offer 48 hour service but you can specify a 24 hour or a Saturday delivery. Codes are only setup here if your warehouse supports the use of the codes. |
Delivery Times | YOU DO NOT NEED TO SPECIFY DELIVERY TIMES If you do specify those then ensure your warehouse/delivery company will support the use of these fields. We have 2 sets of times you can use one or both (if you need to use them at all). You need to enter a FROM and TO time, the difference between these may be defined in the warehouse setup because your warehouse are requesting a minimum window on all deliveries. At the time of order you can specify a single time window (e.g. same time in from and to) this is considered a fixed time window. Please be aware that using the delivery times may then incur you additional delivery costs. |
Delivery Point Telephone | contact information for your warehouse to speak to the customer if needed. If you enter a +447 or 07 number then if your warehouse support this it will send SMS messages to the customers phone. If your warehouse is using the SMS update (Vision WMS customer) then this is used to inform your customer about the delivery coming to them, estimated arrival times and any delays. |
Delivery Point email | contact information for the warehouse SMS/email service If your warehouse is using the SMS update (Vision WMS customer) then this is used to inform your customer about the delivery coming to them, estimated arrival times and any delays. |
Default to Sending SO Acknowledgement | If you always want to send this for each order then have this selected. Alternatively you can select this at the time of order for the specific order. |
Delivery and Pick Instructions
These are fields which are defaulted for each order, but you can change them on an order to order basis.
There is a limit of 120 characters for each field, this is because other fields are available which also contain key information for the delivery to take place, review the Standard delivery section above.
Delivery Instructions - this goes onto the delivery note for the driver.
Picking Instructions - this will be printed on the picking note and is instructions for the warehouse.
Analysis
This tab includes information for Financial and Sales analysis and reporting.
Financials
The ‘Outstanding Order Value’ and 'Last Invoice Date' are automatically calculated for the customer when the customer record is opened, these fields are read only.
On Hold - you can stop any further orders from being released to this customer by placing them on hold, this is a feature controlled by you within commerce. Any new orders would also be placed into held status until released.
Settlement - if you offer your customer an early settlement discount then this can be included in this section, specify the amount of days and the settlement discount rate offered.
Please check that the template you are using for invoices accommodates the addition of the settlement discount option.
Payment Terms - these will appear on the invoice to the customer, the options available are very standard and used by most businesses.
Group Account - When posting to the finance system we would normally use the main account code, however for group companies we can raise the invoice to goto the account address but consolidate the group debt on the sales ledger in a single account, allowing you to send statements to the group but the individual invoice to the customer.
Bank Accounts - These are used to indicate which account details should appear on the invoice, in general most customers have a single account, be default you can have the system automatically enter this account into the primary field. Additional accounts can be added.
Ensure the report layout you choose for your invoices accommodates multiple bank accounts if you are using more than one account as not all templates support multiple accounts.
Finance System (linked information)
Credit Limit - if your system is linked to a finance system which can provide this then the field will be read only and is controlled by the finance system, if not then you will have to set the limit within this field.
All other fields in this section are provided to Commerce from your finance system and can not be changed.
To update the fields press the “Get Accounts Data” button at the bottom of the page.
If the finance system has the account “on hold” then only the finance system can release this hold on the account.
Analysis
The Analysis Section provides seven default fields to assist you analysing the account, this is specifically used for reporting purposes and for marketing extracts.
The drop down lists you see in this section are defined within the system admin and if they are in use then you need to select one of the options.
Customer Notes
Memo field only, free to enter whatever you want.
Invoicing Output Options
There are three options for each account regarding the production of invoices where you can either set/
No Invoice is required
Invoice is sent via email
Invoice is printed and sent through the mail
We always assume that you are not printing a copy of these for your own records, you can at any time print if needed. If you have no finance system connected you can always use the no finance option csv file to obtain information for each invoice.
You can select option 1 OR a combination of option 2/3 (2 or 3 or both)
Export Option Email is the email address where all sales order documentation will be sent to. If one address is not enough then select the contact list option and then proceed to the contact list and select the SOP Docs option against each contact you wish to send the email to.
If you select the “Use Contacts List” then you must select contacts where this will be sent to as it will no longer use the email address in the export option email field.
If you are using the print options then you can set a default printer for the invoices to be sent to upon generation or you can specify at the time when you print them, this allows you to use the old fashioned dot matrix printing on specific paper.
Contacts
Each contact can be added to mailing lists by pressing the ‘Mailing List’ button against the conatct. You can use these contacts to be receivers or SOP Documents (Invoices for example). And for invites to tasting events.
It is important to ensure that there is an email address for each contact as this is used in many of the facilities this section provide.
For example: Mailing lists, SOP Documents, Tasting Notes and Marketing extracts.
SOP Docs
If you wish this contact to be sent a copy of the SOP documents e.g. Invoices and Credit Notes then just select select the option. To use the contact list for this perpose then ensure you have set the ‘Use Contact List’ on the invoice options within the Analysis tab.
Tasting Notes
We stored tasting information including pictures of the items within the product setup, you can select this option if you wish this contact to be sent these tasting notes for the products which are about to be sent to them. The action of confirming the delivery initiates the invoice will also invoke the sending of the tasting notes to the customer.
Mailing List
For all the existing mailing lists which you have configured you can then select this contact to be on the specific mailing list.
Adding a new contact
You click in the line at the top which says" click here to add a new row”
Remember to save your changes after editing this area before moving on to another tab.
Delivery Address
Should you need to store alternative delivery addresses for your customer you can store them here.
Underbond delivery points.
Internal warehouse transfers (where the fields need to be specifically set to enable a fully automated experience).
When the customer has multiple places they want to send their deliveries e.g. a chain of restaurants with centralised ordering.
When entering a sales order you will have the opportunity to specify a delivery address, if selected the order will update the delivery information from the saved delivery address.
If you are adding a new or editing an existing delivery address you will use a form similar to the one below.
The following fields are unique to this form and are explained below.
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Del Point Code | Enter a unique code for this customer for this delivery point. We would suggest using something simple to remember. For example their underbond address could be set to ‘UBOND’. |
Default | When creating a new order for this customer you can specify that by default this will be the delivery address being used for the order. |
Trading Name | Trading Name for the Delivey Address which if entered will replace the legal entity name on the customer record when printing and sending orders via EDI to the warehouse. This will amend the following documents.
|
Archive | If you no longer want to use this delivery address, mark it as archived. |
All other fields have the same meaning as explained in the main customer setup.
Mandatory fields on the address are Line1, Town, Postcode, Country.
Web/Reserve
You will need to use this page if you are storing paid reserves for your customer in the warehouse that you control. They are then known as a Reserve customer.
You would specify the reserve warehouse account code that this stock is held in (this is set up in your warehouse setup) and then specify the reserve customer code from the warehouse (this is entered into the warehouse alt a/c field).
When goods are landed in the reserve account, the reserve account code must be used. You should transfer these using the Type R order to ensure that the value for VAT which is needed when the stocks are removed is used for the duty and VAT Invoice.
Stock held in a paid reserve is still held underbond, but if you place duty paid stock into the warehouse account then the system will know duty has been paid and it will not charge it again.
Stock Snapshot
When this is checked at rotation level each rotation sends through a code of who owns the stock. This is checked to your records held on commerce to ensure you have the same stock for the same reserve customer.
Your customer paid reserves should not be stored in the same Warehouse account as your main trading stocks.
Trading Customer Stocks
If your customer wishes to trade their paid reserves this is possible and you would enable this section within the customer setup, however in order to make specific stock rotations available you need to additionally set a minimum value against the stock which is accessible in the reserve stock tab.
The system will produce a report for all sales made of your customer's reserves stocks, this can then be used to enable you to raise invoices for those sales for the commission or the charges/fees that you would impose for such a sale.
Storage Charges
Most paid customer reserves require charges to be made for the storage of the stocks, we have tried to keep this very simple and have introduced only a charge per bottle per month or part thereof charge.
Items coming into stock throughout the year would have an annual pro-rata charge raised to take the stock charges to the annual renewal date and at that time you would then be able to run a further year of paid reserve invoices for your customers for the next annual period.
Things to remember.
This is an annual charge.
Stock arriving mid-year will be charged pro-rata for the month they arrived to the end of the year in months.
For example - 26 bottles arrive in March; charge is 0.15 per bottle per month
26 bottles X 0.15 per bottle per month X 10 months = £39.00
Minimum Charge Per Rotation - if the total to be charged is below the minimum charge then the minimum will be applied for the stock rotation when the invoice is raised.
Contact the support team regarding Storage Charges set up before you use Web Reserves it for the first time.
It is important you contact the support team and ask for this to be set up, otherwise, you will get odd results when you run this the first time for any Customer.
If you just tick the box then the system will not know what has or has not been invoiced and what period it has to be invoiced for or to.
Contact the support team so that they can check the system is correctly configured for your Company.
Most customers do not allow annual charges to be credited, but if you do allow this then select this option. The default though is not issue a credit but a credit entry will be made on the next reserve storage invoice.
Web Administration
This section is no longer in use
Reserve Stock
This tab shows a list of all Stock that is stored in Paid Reserve and Unpaid Reserves for this customer.
Unpaid Reserves
This section will show the stock that is reserved for the current customer however they have not been paid for. Therefore does not legally belong to the customer yet. You can maintain this using the stock options.
Paid Reserves
This section will show the stock that is reserved for the current customer that has been paid for. Therefore legally belongs to the customer.
The list will show information regarding the stock, some of the fields are used for specific purposes or only active if you have specific modules active on the system.
Livex Integration
This is a paid for additional module for customer reserve stock reports and is part of the livex connectivity package.
If you have this optional module switched on we can retrieve the following values from Livex.
Market Value
Currency
Retrieved Date
Bid - current bids for the stock as there are active trades happening
The “Update Mkt Value” and “Update Bid” can be used to update the information for this specific item or you can use the buttons on the bottom of the page to update information for ALL the paid reserve stocks.
Trading Stocks
If your customer is trading their paid reserves stock you need to select which rotations they want to sell by checking the 'Trade?' option and you can also enter the “Minimum Underbond Cases Sales Value” that the customer is looking to achieve for the stock in order to sell it. Think of this as the “Reserve price” similar to an auction.
Reports
This is a paid for additional module for customer reserve stock reports and is part of the livex connectivity package.
Reserve Stock Values/Reserve Stock - generates a report with the information of the Reserves Stock for this customer.
Contract Price List
This tab can be used to check the Products and Prices on any Customer Price List.
In order to see items in this tab you will need to set up a customer price list. Please see the following Wiki Page which covers pricing Price Lists. This tab only allows you to view the products and prices which are on contract price lists.
Sales Orders
This tab shows a read-only list of all Sales Orders associated with the current Customer.
By default this list will show all the Outstanding Sales Orders, but you can also see all by selecting the ‘Display All Orders’ option located in the top right of the tab. Click the ‘View’ button against the Sales Order in the list will open the Sales Order.
Transactions
This tab shows the Accounts Transactions for the current Customer.
This feature is unavailable for some accounts system as you may see this. If it is not available you will be presented with the following message.
You will need to click the “Get Accounts Data” button at the bottom of the screen to get the latest transactions from the Account Software. Bellow is an example.
