Before you can place any orders, you need some customers to place those orders for. Every customer will be linked to at least one account. In some situations, you can have many customers, linked to one account. Think about one head office location, with many stores that might be shipping to. 

Customer & Account Basics

Customers
This is the person who will be receiving the order. Also commonly known as the "Ship to" or shipping address. All sales rep, commission, and CRM info live on the Customer Profile.

Accounts
This is the person who will be paying for the order. Also commonly known as the "Bill to" or billing account. In most cases, the customer information will be the same as the account information, but as in the Head Office example, you can as many as 100 ordering stores (customers) for one head office (account). All the billing information, including invoices, credits, and refunds live on the Account Profile. 

Customer Fields 

There are many other fields that are very useful besides the required fields. You can find descriptions of these below:

1. Customer Information
   
   
   1. Store Name - Name of the store, if applicable
   2. First Name/Last Name - Ship To name
   3. Title/Position - position of the customer
   4. Other ID - Can be used as a customer reference ID from other systems
   5. Email Address - Must be unique. Used as a login for B2B portals, and default for all customer documents (confirmation, invoice) unless specified. 
   6. Password - Used for B2B portal only
   7. Add to GoogleMap - If you have a Store Locator, you can click this to add this customer
       
2. CRM, Sales Rep, Commission, and Document Information
   
   
   1. CRM Status - If you have CRM statuses set up, you can assign them here. 
   2. Sales Rep - The sales rep for the customer. Whenever an order is created, this sales rep will be automatically populated. 
   3. Source/Show - Where did you get this customer? Trade Show? Google?
   4. Purchasing Authority -  What purchasing authority does this customer have?
   5. Commission Rate - only complete this if the commission rate for this customer is different than the general commission rate for that sales rep
   6. Email Invoices To - the email who will receive the invoice (this is the same for Email Confirmation to and Email Ship Notifications To)
      • Click the Copy button to copy the primary email address from the Customer Information section.

      

   7. Website - The customer's website.
       
3. Customer Notes and Email Lists
   
   
   1. Notes - Any other notes about the customer
   2. Special Notes - Anything that needs to known when an order is being placed. 
   3. Email Lists - If you have a mail-chimp integration, you can choose which email list you want to add this customer to. 
       

Account Fields

There are many important fields to take note of when creating an account. See the description for these below. 

1. Account Information
   
   
   1. OtherID - Can be used as an account reference ID from other systems
   2. Email Address - All statements will be sent to this email address
       
2. Sales Channel, Account Group, Order Guide
   
   
   1. Sales Channel - Which sales channel does this account belong to?
   2. Account Group - Which account group (sub sales channel) does this account belong to?
   3. Order Guide - Choose the order guide that belongs on this account. 
       
3. Accounting, Payment, and Shipping Information
   
   
   1. On Terms - if this account is on terms, click this
   2. GST Tax Exemption - If this account is exempt from GST, click this
   3. Tax Exemption - If this account is exempt from tax, click this
   4. Tax Exempt Numbers - Enter the VAT numbers for tax exemption
   5. PO Number - If this account requires a PO number for orders, click "yes"
   6. Accept Backorders - If this account accepts backorders, click "yes"
   7. Preferred Payment Method - If this account has a preferred payment method, you can decide that here.
   8. Shipping Vendor - If this account has a preferred shipping carrier for orders, select it here.
   9. Default Shipping Method - If this account has a preferred shipping method, select it here.
   10. Shipping Account - For third party billing, enter the accounts Shipping Number here
   11. Freight Terms - If this account has freight terms, here them here. 
        
4. Discount, Notes, CIM Info
   
   
   1. Discount Terms Description - If this account has a discount, enter the description here
   2. Discount Amount - Enter a % value. This is added as a negative payment  of Discount/Allowance to the order after it's shipped
   3. Account Notes - Anything to note about the account
   4. Add CIM Info - If you have a payment gateway (ie: Authorize.net) you can enter the account's credit card information here by selecting this. 
      • Click "Copy" to copy the address information from the account. 
        

Creating a New Customer and Account

Knowing all you do about the different customer and account fields, you can now create a new Customer and Account.

1. Go to Customers > New Customers
2. Fill in the required fields. 
   1. If the Customer and Account information are the same, you can use the Copy buttons to copy the information over. 
3. Click Submit
   1. OR click Submit & New to create a new customer
   2. OR click Submit & Order to place an order for this customer right away.