knowledge base

You can keep track of your customer information and preferences to make it easier to contact them and to take future orders.

Much of this Customer Information is used as defaults when taking a Sales Order from this customer, but this information can be changed in the Sales Order to make an exception for that order. Changing the Customer Information will cause all subsequent Sales Orders created for that customer default to the new information.

To create a new customer, click the inFlow Menu button, select Sales menu and click New Customer. To make changes in the existing customer’s information, select the customer from the left panel and the form will be populated with the existing customer’s data.

Click the box next to Customer name to enter customer information.

Basic Section

Name - This is the name of your customer; usually the name of a person or company. Two customers cannot have the same name.

Balance - This is the total amount of money that this customer owes you. This is calculated by adding up the balance owed on all invoices for this customer and subtracting any credits or refunds owed to this customer from their returns.

Addresses Section

There are three special types of addresses for a customer:

Business Address - This is the default address for the customer. If the customer only has one address, we recommend saving it as the Business Address.

Billing Address - This is the default billing address for the customer. If this is blank, the Business Address is used as the default.

Shipping Address - This is the default shipping address for the customer. If this is blank, the Business Address is used as the default.

Add New Address - You may also store an unlimited number of other addresses for this customer, such as other locations that may receive shipments. These additional locations can be identified with an address name, e.g. New York Warehouse.

Modify Existing Address

To modify or set an existing address, including one of the three special addresses:

1. Click on the arrow next to the name of the selected address to show a dropdown of the available addresses.
2. Select the address you wish to modify.
3. Move your mouse into the main address box and click. A dialog box will pop up in which you can change the address details.

Add a new address:

1. Click on the arrow next to the name of the selected address to show a dropdown of the available addresses.
2. Select Add New Address.

Delete an address:

1. Click on the arrow next to the name of the selected address to show a dropdown of the available addresses.
2. Select the address to be deleted.
3. Move your mouse into the main address box and click. A dialog will pop up allowing you to delete the address details.

Contact Section

This section contains basic contact information for the current customer.

Name - The name of the person to contact when you are corresponding with this customer.

Phone - The phone number to contact this customer.

Fax - A fax number for this customer.

Email - An e-mail address for the contact person at this customer.

Website - A website address for this customer

Sales Info Section

This section contains information about the default prices and taxes that are applicable for this customer. Sales Orders created for this customer will use this information as defaults.

Pricing Scheme - The default Pricing Scheme under which products are priced for this customer. This lets you select from a user-created list of pricing schemes and indicates your customer’s default currency. The scheme set up by default is Normal Price. Select Add New to create a new Pricing Scheme for this customer.

Discount - A default percentage discount that you give to this customer.

Payment Terms - The usual payment terms that you give this customer describing, for example, the number of days credit after date of invoice.

Taxing Scheme - The default Taxing Scheme under which taxes are calculated for this customer’s orders. Select Add New to create a new Taxing Scheme for this customer.

Tax Exempt # - If this customer is tax exempt, you may need to keep a tax exemption number for tax purposes, to explain to the Government why taxes were not charged.

Misc. Section

Remarks - Any remarks you wish to make about the customer can be entered here. These remarks will not be shown to the customer or anybody outside your company.

You may also define up to five custom fields for the customer, where you can store any extra data. Custom Fields.

Extra Info Tab

Preferences

Carrier - The default shipping carrier and shipping method that you normally use to deliver products to this customer.

Preferred Payment Method - The usual method by which this customer pays you.

Credit Card

Card Type - Select the card type from the drop-down box.

Card Number - Enter the card Number of the customer.

Expiration Date - The date when the credit card expires.

Card Security Code - The security code of the credit card.

Order History

The Order History tab shows you a history of all the orders this customer has placed in the past. It also shows the payment and balance status of the orders, so you can quickly discuss payment with the customer. Double clicking on one of the rows will show you the details of that order in a popup window.

Deactivating and Reactivating Customers

Deactivate - Customers can be deactivated so that they will be inactive and not shown in normal usage of inFlow. Customers cannot be deleted entirely, so you retain a full record of previous customers. The Deactivate button is located along the top toolbar.

Reactivate - To view Inactive customer, select ‘Show’ from the drop-down list in the Listing Panel for the customer.

Now select Inactive from the drop-down box. An inactive customer can then be re-activated by clicking the Reactivate button, which takes the place of the Deactivate button in the toolbar for the customer.

Entry changes within sales orders

inFlow makes it possible to save the changes you have made during your sales order back to the customer entry, allowing you to complete two important tasks simultaneously.  To do so, simply make the necessary changes to the customer details within the sales order itself.  When you save the order, InFlow will ask you if you would like to save any changes and provide you with an easy to navigate list of the changes you have made. 

For instance, as in the example, if you have made changes to the customer’s address, contact name, phone and a product price but you only want to amend the address and not the rest of the information, you may choose to do so here by simple un-checking the boxes indicating the items you do not wish to save.  In this way you can effectively manage your customer details from the sales order window without needing to go back to your customer records and make the changes twice.