Maintain Customers/Prospects

After we have set up a company and its charts of accounts, now its time to establish subsidiary ledgers for Accounts Receivable.  Use the Maintain Customers/Prospects window to enter, change, and store information about companies and people to whom you sell goods and services. You can also enter information about companies and people with whom you would like to do business (prospects). For customers and prospects, this includes information such as:

·         Name and address information, including separate billing and shipping information, e-mail address, and Web site address

·         The date of the last invoice, statement, and payment received

·         Sales history, including year-to-date and period-to-date sales and monthly totals

·         The usual sales account used for this customer

·         The preferred method of payment for this customer

·         Terms of payment and the sales tax code

·         The customer's beginning balance

Subsidiary ledgers for Accounts Receivables are maintained through “Customer/Prospect” option in Maintain Menu. To do this click we will click on Maintain menu and then on Charts of Accounts.

Following window will appear:

Header Fields and Tabs

Customer/Prospect header fields

Customer header fields are located above the folder tabs of the Maintain Customers/Prospects window. This is where you enter lookup information about the customer such as the customer ID, name, and status.

Customer ID: Enter up to 20 alphanumeric characters for a new customer's ID. For existing customers, you can select to look up the customer you want. The code is case sensitive, so that codes A1 and a1 are seen as two different Customer IDs. Numbers sort before letters, and capital letters sort before non-capital letters. You cannot use *, ?, or + in the code. It's important to use consistent and logical coding. Below is an example of a good coding system:

PLAJT001	Johar Town Foods

Here, the first three letters of the company name or an individual's last name begin the code. Then, the first letter of the next word in the company name or the initial of the customer's first name is included. Finally, in case of duplicates, a sequential number is added.

Back and Next: Use these buttons to navigate through the list of existing customer records by ID. Select the Back (left arrow) button to see the previous record in the list; select the Next (right arrow) button to see the next record in the list.

Name: Enter up to 39 alphanumeric characters for a new customer's name.

Prospect: If you check this box, this company or person is not included on any customer reports. If you generate an invoice for the prospect or clear the check box, the prospect becomes a regular customer and is included on customer reports.

Inactive: If you plan to purge this customer when you close the fiscal year, select this check box. Once a customer record is inactive, Peachtree displays a warning if you try to make a sale to the customer. You can update the customer record with address and telephone information. Important: When you choose to Purge after closing the fiscal year, all customers that have no outstanding transactions and are tagged as inactive will be purged.

General tab

To enter basic information about the customer such as contact information, address, phone and fax numbers, sales tax code, and beginning balances, select the General tab in the Maintain Customers/Prospects window

Sales Defaults tab

To set up unique sales transaction defaults for each customer record, select the Sales Defaults tab in the Maintain Customers/Prospects window. You can change this information at the transaction level, if necessary.
Sales Rep: You can enter the sales representative that has contact with the customer. The sales representative must have already been entered in the Maintain Employees/Sales Reps window.
G/L Sales Account: Enter a General Ledger account for the default sales account for this customer. This is normally an income account. When selling inventory items, Peachtree overrides this account with the General Ledger default accounts set up in Maintain Inventory Items.
Open P.O. #: This is the standing purchase order number you can use for this customer. This defaults on the Quotes, Sales Orders, and Sales/Invoicing windows.
Ship Via: You can select the primary shipping carrier you want to use to ship items to this customer. Whatever you select here will default for sales transactions you enter for this customer. Shipping carriers are set up in the Inventory Items Defaults window.
Resale #: If this customer purchases items for resale, enter the resale number here. Resale numbers are required by most states for businesses that sell taxable goods. It enables the business to sell goods to other businesses for resale without charging a tax or to buy goods from other businesses for resale without paying a tax. If a customer intends to resell your goods, enter the customer's resale number (also called seller's permit) here.
Pricing Level: You can choose from various pricing levels that are set up in the Maintain Inventory Items window when invoicing your customers. Price level names are set up on the Price Level tab of the Inventory Item Defaults window.
Terms: You can choose to use the standard customer payment terms set up in Customers Defaults or set up a unique set of terms for this customer. To change the payment terms for this customer, select the Terms button.
Form Delivery Options: This group box includes options that determine how forms are delivered to customers either when you choose the E-mail button on task windows or print forms from the Select a Report window. For a list of customer forms that can be sent by e-mail, click .

·         Delivery method: Choose either paper forms or e-mail. Whenever you print a form in bulk from the Select a Report window, your choice will determine whether the form is printed for mailing OR automatically sent as an e-mail attachment to this specific customer.

·         CC Sales Rep: Select this to automatically send an e-mail copy of the form to the default sales rep (whose ID appears in the Sales Rep field) whenever you send a form to the customer.

Payment Defaults tab

To set up customized receipt settings for each customer record, select the Payment Defaults tab in the Maintain Customers/Prospects window. You can change this information at the transaction level, if necessary.
Cardholder's Name: Choose the credit card you want to use as this customer’s default, and enter the name as it appears on the credit card in the Cardholder’s Name field.
Address: Enter the customer’s billing address. As the default, the address fields (address lines 1 and 2, city, state, ZIP Code and country) will initially display the information you entered as the Bill to Address on the General tab.
Credit Card Number: Allows you to enter a default credit card number to use for this customer. You can enter dashes, spaces, or slashes as separators. The credit card number in the Payment Defaults tab will be displayed unencrypted. Therefore, you may want to control user access to the Payment Defaults tab. You can give users No Access or Full access to the Customer Payment Defaults program area. For more information about limiting access to certain areas of Peachtree Accounting click .
Expiration Date: Enter the expiration date listed on the front of the customer’s credit card. Enter the expiration date using the month/year (MM/YY) format. Expiration years (YY) appear as two digits (for example, 03 represents 2003). If a card expiration date is 5/31/03, enter 05/03.
Receipt Settings: In the Receipt Settings area of the Payment Defaults tab, you can specify the default payment settings for the selected customer. By default, the Use Receipt window settings box is checked. When checked, the Payment Method and Cash Account fields in the Receipts and Receive Payment windows default to those on the last saved receipt.
To customize the receipt settings for the selected customer, uncheck the Use Receipt window settings check box and select your desired options from the Payment Method and Cash Account lists. The next time you create a receipt for this customer, or receive a payment through the Sales/Invoicing window, the customized receipt settings will appear.

Custom Fields tab

To enter custom field information for the selected customer record, select the Custom Fields tab in the Maintain Customers/Prospects window.

History tab

To display the selected customer's current history, select the History tab in the Maintain Customers/Prospects window. When entering a new customer, you can enter information on this tab; once you save the customer record, this tab is for display purposes only.
Customer Since: This is the date when you first made a sale to the customer.
Last Invoice Date: This is the date of the last invoice you sent to the customer.
Last Invoice Amt: This is the amount of the last invoice.
Last Payment Date: This is the date of the last payment you received from the customer.
Last Payment Amt: This is the last payment amount you received from the customer.
Last Statement Date: This is the date of the last statement you sent to the customer.

CUSTOMER DEFAULT;
In customer default we see that what are the payment terms, account aging, custom fields, fiancé charges, payment method of our customer. For this purpose you have to go to the Maintain menu in peachtree accounting software and click on maintain menu and go down to Default information customer you have this window on your screen

After clicking  on  default information  when  you  click  on  customer  you have  this  below  window on your  screen

In  the  above  window  we  have  five  heads  on the  top

·         Payment  terms

·         Account  aging

·         Customer  fields

·         Finance  charges

·         Pay  methods

First  we have  Payment term  in  this  window  first we  have  C.O.D means  CASH ON DELIVERY if  the  customer  pay  cash  to  you  on  delivery  of  goods. Next we  have  PREPAID  it  means  that  customer  had  already  paid  to  you. Next we  have  DUE  IN  NUMBER OF  DAYS it means  the  customer  has  to  pay  to  you  in  defined  number  of  days  if you  click  on  it  you have  to  enter  some  necessary information  in  the  front  columns  which is  NET  DUE  IN in  this  box  you  have  to  enter  the  number  of  total  days  which  you  give  your  customer   for  payment. Next we have account aging  when we click on account aging we have this below window on our screen

First we see   Age invoices by in this portion we have to tell that we are recording our invoices on INVOICE DATE OR DUE DATE .Next we have categorize the ages in days in different colomns.

Next we have Custom fields. It means that the software allow us to change some information about our customer which are

·         Second contact

·         Reference

·         Mailing list etc.

We have these things in the custom fields of customer account also.

Next thing we have is Finance Charges when we click on finance charges we have this window on our screen

If customer have any charges we mention it in this window and below we have the option to print this information on bill or not.

And at the last of this procedure we have Pay Methods. In pay methods we have to choose that method

by which a customer pay to us whether it is CASH, CHEQUE, CREDIT CARD etc.When we click on pay methods we have this window on our screen.