Entering New Customers During Order Entry

When entering a sales order for a new customer, such as a walk-in customer, use the New Customer Entry window to enter basic contact and filing information for a new customer. The system creates a new customer maintenance record, but only requires minimal information so you can quickly process the order. You can finish entering the details later in Customer Maintenance.

Note: You can create a new customer in sales order entry even if you do not have the CUSTOMER.MAINT authorization key assigned to you. However the authorization key is required to view or edit the customer in Customer Maintenance.

If the customer does not want to give you their information, in most cases, enter your company's generic "cash customer" instead of the actual customer. We recommend that you set up your company's generic "cash customer" to put the customer on credit hold if you want to review the new customers records.

To enter a new customer during order entry:

From the Orders menu, select Sales Order Entry to display the Sales Order Entry Body screen.
In the Ship To field, enter New to display the New Customer Entry screen.
In the Phone field, enter the telephone number of the company or individual who wants to place an order. Enter the number without dashes or parentheses.
In the Name field, enter the name of the company or individual to which the requested items will be shipped.
In the Address field, enter the shipping address for the requested items. On the second line, enter any additional address information that does not fit on the first Address line.
In the Zip field, enter a five- or nine-digit code.

The system populates the City and St (State) fields based on this field.

In the SortBy field, enter the most significant words in the customer's name.

The system uses this information to alphabetize the search list.

Complete the following fields, as needed:

Field	Description
Index	The name of the company or individual as you want to search for it. The system populates this field when you complete the Name field, but you can adjust it to meet your needs. For example, if this is an individual, enter the last name first.
Exempt#	A government-issued number that exempts the customer from having to pay tax for goods purchased from your company. The customer will give you this number if they have one.
InSlsp	(Inside Salesperson.) The login ID of the person who will call the customer to suggest additional orders.
OutSlsp	(Outside Salesperson.) The login ID of the outside salesperson who is assigned to this customer.
SICCode	A four-digit code originally developed by the Office of Management and Budget to facilitate statistical economic analysis and reporting of the state of the U.S. economy based on enterprises engaged in production, trade, and service. You can use this code to group businesses with similar production processes, and to sort customers in the Report Writer for various purposes.
SelCode	The type of business in which the customer engages. This information is used for reporting purposes.

Note: Depending on your authorization, the InSlsp and OutSlsp fields may be view-only.

Press Esc to display the order selection list.

Select New and press Enter to return to the Sales Order Entry Body screen.

More Options

The New Customer Entry screen also offers these options:

To...	Use this hot key...
enter additional contact names or phone numbers	Phone #'s The Customer Contact / Phone Number Maint screen displays.
enter additional customer information, or edit default settings used for new customer	Full Record The Customer Maintenance screen displays.
add the customer's Web address or e-mail address information	WWW The Internet Information Maintenance screen displays.