Defining Payment Terms and Credit Control Parameters

Unless a customer plans to pay for orders up front, or by COD, you need to set credit control parameters for them. Define this credit information when a customer places an order, or when you want to inquire about a customer's credit standing with your company.

You must be assigned the CUST.CREDIT.EDIT and CUSTOMER.MAINT authorization keys to edit the Credit Control Maintenance screen.

To define payment terms and credit control parameters:

From the Files menu, select Customer to display the Customer Maintenance screen.
In the Customer/New field, enter a customer ID to display the customer record.
Use the Credit hot key to display the Credit Control Parameters screen.
In the Separate A/R from Bill-To field, enter an asterisk in this field to allow a ship-to customer's invoices to be excluded from the bill-to customer's statements.

This option is visible only for ship-to records. If you flag this field, the following occurs:

The bill-to customer's statement does not include the ship-to customer's invoices, even if you flag the ship-to customer's Batch Statement field on the ship-to customer's record.
The A/R Inquiry Report for the bill-to includes the ship-to customer's invoices.

If you select this option, you must also set the Batch Statement field on the ship-to customer's record to 1 Copy, 2 Copies, or FAX, so the ship-to customer's invoices are included on a statement.

To speed customer entry, enter an asterisk (*) in one of the following options to avoid setting specific credit control parameters:

Select this option	To...
Use Default	use the system default credit control parameters for a ship-to or bill-to customer.
Use Bill-To	use the credit control parameters set up for a ship-to customer's bill-to record. This can save time when entering new customers that use a standard set up or have not secured their own credit parameters.

If you did not flag one of the above options, you must flag one or more of the following options, as needed:

Enter an asterisk (*) in this field...	To...
Always COD	accept only COD payments from this customer.
COD when credit limit exceeded	accept only COD payments when this customer's credit limit has been exceeded.
Print approval required message on all shipping tickets	approve purchases by this customer, and print an approval required message on all shipping tickets.
	approve purchases and print an approval required message on shipping tickets only when this customer's credit limit is exceeded. This option works with a custom form modification to define a message to print on the shipping ticket that indicates that the purchase must be approved. This message can be any statement you want to use that indicates to your employees that they need to check for approval. For example, you could add the message, “Have a Nice Day” and your employees will understand that when they see that message, approval is required. If you flag this field without using the custom form, the Sales Order Entry screen displays the message, "See Credit Manager," and the system does not print a message on the shipping ticket. If you simply want to alert the salesperson on the Sales Order Entry screen to check for purchase approval when this customer places an order, we suggest using OE Messages instead.
No Order Entry	accept no orders for this customer. For example, set this option when you set up a branch as a customer, and you never anticipate creating transfer orders for that branch.
No Order Entry when credit limit exceeded, unless authorized	limit items added to a sales order that may contribute to exceeding a customer's credit limit, unless approved by an authorized user. When an unauthorized user adds a line item to an order that causes the order to go over the customer's credit limit, the system does not add the line item to the order.
No Order Entry, regardless of credit limit, unless authorized	accept no orders regardless of this customer's credit limit, unless approved by an authorized user.
No printing of shipping ticket when credit limit exceeded, unless auth	keep a shipping ticket from printing for the customer who has a credit infraction, unless approved by an authorized user.
No printing of shipping ticket, regardless of credit limit, unless auth	keep a shipping ticket from printing for the customer regardless of credit limits, unless approved by an authorized user.
Only customer's authorized personnel may place orders	limit a customer's purchases to authorized personnel.
Company checks accepted	accept the customer's company checks as payment. This information displays when orders are entered and payments are required.
Personal checks accepted	accept this customer's personal checks as payment. This information displays when orders are entered and payments are required.
Apply credits to oldest buckets when aging account	show the application of all credits to the oldest balances in the aging buckets for the customer, even when the activity at the bottom of the screen indicates that credits are assigned to more recent aging buckets. By flagging this field, the A/R Aging Report and Aged Receivables by Salesman Report display all credits as applied to the oldest aging bucket with a balance. It does not cause a cash receipts application of credits to open invoices. You must do that manually using the Cash Receipts program. This setting overrides the setting in the Bucket to use for Aging field on the Valid Customer Invoice Status Codes control maintenance record.

In the Credit Limit field, enter the customer's maximum credit limit in dollars. Use this field if credit limits have been selected in the fields listed in the above table.
In the PastDue Limit field, enter the maximum amount that may be past due before the customer's credit limit is exceeded. This check is made in addition to the overall credit limit. The past due limit may be equal to the overall credit limit.
In the Past Due Days field, enter the number of days to consider invoices past due. On that day, the system checks the customer's credit using the customer's past due limit.

Note: The system requires that the user has the SOE.CREDIT.RELEASE authorization key at level 999 to release a credit hold that was caused from the customer's past-due days.

In the Deposit %, Stock Items field, enter the percent deposit required at order entry on stock items for this customer. Zero percent (0%) means no deposit is required on stock items.
In the Deposit %, Nonstocks field, enter the percent deposit required at order entry on nonstock items for this customer. Zero percent (0%) means no deposit is required on nonstock items.

This setting also adds a percent deposit requirement to lot items.

In the Job Limit field, enter a sales dollar limit on a job. This job limit works with the combined value of the total sales (paid or unpaid) from the date the job was started plus any open orders.

If the quantity ordered exceeds the job limit, a message to that effect displays on the Sales Order Entry Body screen, and normal credit control parameters go into effect to prevent the order from being printed or processed. For more information, see Reviewing Customers' Credit Standings.

In the Terms Code field, enter a terms code to allow the customer to pay a percentage of the invoice over a defined payment period. For example, you can create a terms codes in Terms Maintenance where the customer is allowed to make payments of 25 percent over a defined billing period.
In the Override Inv Terms field, enter one of the following to override the setting in the Terms Code field:

Y – The Post Service Charges program uses the terms code assigned to the customer in the Terms Code field instead of using the terms code on the transaction processed for a customer. The customer's current terms code overrides individual invoice terms when calculating service charges. Use this setting if a customer's service charge terms change retroactively and apply to all outstanding invoices.
N – The Post Service Charges program uses the terms setting on individual invoice when calculating service charges.

Use the following hot keys, as needed.

Hot Key	Description
Authorized Personnel	Authorize a customer's employee to place credit card orders.
Default Credit Card Info	Set up a default credit card that a customer can use for sales orders.
Add'l Credit Data	Add detailed information about a customer's credit.
EFT	Set up automatic posting of funds for the customer account.

Press Esc to return to the Customer Maintenance screen.