Inactive Customers

If you need to isolate new business, or determine customers you have not sold to in a while (inactivity) it can be done by running one of two reports: OHSMTD (Month-to-Date Sales by Salesperson or Open-by / Customer) and ASPIRE(MTD/YTD/GL Subgroup Sales by Salesperson or Open-by /Customer. These reports are in the Order Processing module.

OHSMTD: This reports shows month-to-date order history sales for a selected period and year-to-date history for the current year and the equivalent periods from the previous year, along with sales variance for each period. Selected Report Classes can be excluded from the report. In addition to selecting customers by ‘Entry Date’ (the date they became your customer…this date is found on the Customer Master - Task 17 in the A/R module) to limit the report to New Customers entered during the current year, you can also specify an ‘Inactivity Window’ of zero to 12 months.

For example, choosing a window of 6 months will cause the report to identify customers that have sales in the current period of the report but had zero activity in each of the last six month of the prior fiscal year, this in effect reports ’new business’ from existing customers that were considered inactive.

The report will show sales for customers meeting either condition when you choose both an entry date range and an inactivity window.

ASPIRE: This report shows order history sales for a selected period and year-to-date. This report also allows for the exclusion of selected Report Classes and you have the option of using the salesperson currently assigned to the customer or to use the actual salesperson from the invoice history. You can also specify an ‘Inactivity Window’ of zero to 12 months

Using both 'entry date' and 'inactivity window' together represents 'New business'. i.e. customers that meet EITHER condition.

Retaining Inactive Customers in Profits Plus.

Suggestion: By using a Customer Type, Invoice Code and/or Terms you can mark the customer as Inactive, and still keep the customers in Profits Plus versus deleting them. Then at a later date you could run a report using the Customer Typeor Invoice Codes for Inactive Customers and review for future re-establishment of a customer relationship. Using the Payment Terms will keep a sales order from mistakenly being placed for the customer (see below for instructions on how to enter/use Type, Code and Terms)

Customer Type/Invoicing Codes:

Customer Type and Invoice Codes are entered on the Customer Master (Task 17 in A/R) and set up in:

Accounts Receivable (Module 2)
- System Management Functions (Task 32)
  - Modify Application Tables (Sub-Task 17)
    - Customer Type Definitions (Selection 3)
    - Invoicing Codes (Selection 10)
      - Set one of these codes on the Customer Master once a customer has been determined to be inactive. A/R Sales Analysis report SHSTYP can be used to view those customers, this report uses either the Customer Type or Invoice Code.

Other reports can be generated using the Customer Type. For example, in O/E the report “Customer Type/Item/Date” (ISHCTP) and in AR the report “Sales Analysis by Customer Type for All Months” (SATYPE).

Terms:

A customer that is “inactive” can be blocked from allowing new orders to be created by setting the Billing/Payment Term on the Customer Master to reflect a HOLD status. Go to:

Order Processing (Module 6)
- System Management Functions (Task 32)
  - Modify Application Tables (Sub-task 17)
    - Payment Terms (Selection 6)
      - A payment term must be setup with the word HOLD in it. Use the “Credit HOLD” term or create a new term called, for example, “Inactive HOLD”. Should you choose to add a new term, be sure to follow the pattern exactly and the word HOLD must be in capital letters. When done making changes to the table either ‘close’ the window if using WordPad or press the ESC key, then type f at the > symbol to save the new term.

Optional Set Up: Place a Credit Limit Code, with the word HOLD in the description, on the Customer Master record. Then when an order is attempted for the “inactive” customer, not only will the operator see the message about the customer being on HOLD, but they will also see next to the Credit Limit area on the screen the Credit Limit Code (i.e. INVACTIVE or HOLD). Go to:

Accounts Receivable (Module 2)
- System Management Functions (Task 32)
  - Modify Application Tables (Sub-task 17)
    - Credit Limit Codes (Selection 2)

Follow the pattern exactly. There are only a maximum of 9 entries allowed in the Credit Limit table. When done adding to the table, either ‘close’ the window if using WordPad or press the ESC key, then type f at the > symbol to save the new credit limit.

Once the new Payment/Billing Term (or if using an existing HOLD term) and the optional Credit Limit are setup, place the term and credit limit codes on the Customer Master record. Go to:

Accounts Receivable (Module 2)
- Customer Master (Task 17)
  - Change Existing Customer Record (Sub-task 2)
    - Credit Limit (Field 24)
    - Billing Terms (Field 39)

Helpful Hint:

A way to keep the customer from showing up on reports is to put an asterisk at the start of the customer name in the Customer Master. A customer name that begins with an asterisk will not show up on reports when an alphabetical range is selected (this includes customers with a Customer Type of ‘Inactive’.). For example, go to the Customer Master record in AR, then field #2 (Company Name). Change a customer’s name from: ‘Acme Industries’ to ‘*Acme Industries’.

Deleting Inactive Customers from Profits Plus

Once it has been determined which customers you want to delete one at a time from Profits Plus, go to:

Accounts Receivable (Module 2)
- Customer Master program (Task 17)
  - Sub-task 3 (Delete existing customer record)
    - Note: if there is any money owed you can not delete the customer. You will have to enter a Credit Memo for the amount owed (most likely write it off to Bad Debt) and apply the CM to any open invoices. In other words….the customer’s account must have a zero balance on it. Use Task 27 (Customer Account Inquiry) to verify.
  - Sub-task 5 (Erase selected customer records) can also be used to delete customers by a customer number or customer name range.
    - Note: same restriction as sub-task 3 applies; the erase tests for zero balance and skips (does NOT erase) them if there is any balance.
  - Sub-task 4 Print selected customer records, asks the same questions as Sub-task 5 Erase. It is suggested to first go to Sub-task 4 Print, use the same selections which will be used in the Sub-task 5 Erase. Then look at this report to make sure these are really the customers which need to be erased. If the customers which need to be erased have an * at the beginning of the name, Sub-task 5 can be used to erase customer names starting with * & ending with *ZZZZ. But first print a report for these customer names and make sure they have nothing in the A/R Open items (Task 18).

Erasing customers automatically

Inactive customers can be erased automatically using in the A/R module, Sales analysis (Task 10), Sales analysis by customer number for all months SACUSN (Sub-task 1). This report includes the option of deleting inactive customers along with their O/E alternate ship-to & contract item records.
It is very important to read the information screen and print the inactive customer list to edit it, BEFORE choosing the option to delete.
These inactive customers are based on the A/R Customer master (Task 17) Current year sales and/or prior year sales, field 55 through 80.
- Contact us to reset the current year to any period desired. For example: The current year can be reset to the dates of 01/01/01 through 12/31/11. This inactivity report can then be printed for the “Current year” (10 year) inactivity. Then if desired the inactive customers based on the “Current year” (10 year) can be deleted. Then the current year can be reset to the correct current year sales.
- Contact us to add or remove the password when printing this report & using this option to delete customers.

NOTE: If a report is printed for deleted or erased customers, some reports may say “***UNKNOWN CUSTOMER***” in place of the customer name. Other reports may have the customer name it depends on the report. All reports will have the customer #. If an invoice is re-printed for a deleted or erased customer, the customer name will print as: “***UNKNOWN ***”, however it will have the customer number and the full shipping name/address/phone information.