Once you’ve set up your customer defaults, some of that information will help streamline the process of adding customers to the database.
You can view or enter basic information about your clients in the Maintain Customers/Prospects window. Customer information is contained on six
Customer Reports Quotes
Invoices
Receipts
Customer Maintenance tabbed folders, only one of which is visible at a time, though you can view another tab by clicking the tab label.
To open this window,
➥Select Maintain, then Customers/Prospects.
Header Fields
In the header you define the customer ID, customer name, and the status of the customer. Note that the customer ID is not case sensitive and must be unique for each customer.
Use the General tab to enter general customer information, such as address and contact.
Use the Payment and Credit tab to enter information about the fields, which you can add to reports.
Use the Addresses and Contacts tabs to keep track of contacts and shipping addresses for each customer.
Use the Sales Info tab to enter customer sales information, such as shipping methods and pricing.
Use the History tab to enter historical information, such as Customer Since and invoice/payment dates.
In addition, you can use the dynamic Customer Type field to classify your customers. When you print Accounts Receivable reports, you will be able to filter your reports using this field.
Contacts Tab
Use this tab to enter contacts for this customer. You can specify such infor-mation as the contact’s name, title, address, phone number and E-mail address.
Addresses Tab
Use this tab to enter and store shipping addresses for this customer. Peacht-ree automatically copies the Billing Address to this tab.
You can have a separate and distinct Sales Tax for each ship-to address. Since this field is attached to the ship-to address, it will carry over with it into invoices, quotes, and such.
Note
Customer Maintenance History Tab
The History tab will show you sales and receipt history for the customer on a period by period basis. It will also give you such information as the last invoice and last payment date. This tab provides a handy reference for accessing information on the customer.
Sales Info Tab
Here, you enter a variety of sales infor-mation, such as Sales Rep, Sales Account, shipping method, and the price level this customer will receive.
Selecting a price level will ensure that your customers always receive the correct price when you invoice them.
In addition, you can specify Form Delivery Options, which determine what type of format your quotes, invoices, and such, will take. Note that even if you select e-mail, you can still print paper copies of invoices and such.
Payment and Credit Tab
On this tab, you can enter credit card information and either accept the default payment terms set up in customer defaults or you can modify this particular customer’s payment terms. To modify the customer terms, simply
select Customize terms for this customer from the drop-down list and change the remaining fields.
Although the credit card number is visible here, it will be masked everywhere else in the program. If you store credit card numbers here, we recommend you set up passwords for all users and limit access to this window.
Entering Customer Beginning Balances
Unless you are starting up your business for the first time when you set up Peachtree, you will have balances for existing customers, outstanding invoices that must be entered so that they can be paid and so that your reports will be accurate. These outstanding balances are entered as beginning balance invoices. You will enter abbreviated information on the invoices in a special place, so that these invoices can be paid by your customers, and will update your reports, but will not change the balances of your general ledger accounts. You should have entered a single amount, which represents all unpaid
If you want more information:
In the Help index, look up “Maintain Customers/Prospects, header fields.”
Look up “Maintain Customers/Prospects, General Tab.”
In the Help index, look up “customer defaults, terms and credit.“
Enter credit card information for this customer here.
You can customize a customer’s terms information and finance charge information in this area of the window.
Note
Customer Maintenance sales invoices prior to starting Peachtree, into your accounts receivable account in Maintain Chart of Accounts. To enter beginning balances,
1 Select Maintain, Customers/Prospects.
2 Click the Beginning Balances button on the History tab.
The Customer Balances tab will show you a list of your customers and their current balances.
These balances will be 0.00 if you have not entered any customer invoices yet. Otherwise, you will see current balances.
You can select a customer from the list on the Customer Balances
tab by clicking it. Once the customer is selected, click the Invoices for tab to enter any beginning balances.
Note
The beginning balance amounts should not include any invoices entered in Sales Invoicing. Be sure that the total amount of your customer beginning balances is equal to the amount you entered as a beginning balance in your chart of accounts for your A/R account(s). This ensures that your Aged Receivables report will balance with your general ledger.
You can adjust these beginning balance entries at any time unless customer receipts (payments) have been applied to an invoice. In that case, the invoice will be grayed out, and you must delete the customer receipt before you can adjust the beginning balance entry.
Fill in the fields with information from your outstanding customer balances. When you are done with one customer, select the next customer from the Customer Balances tab.
For accrual-based companies, the A/R Account field is used so Peachtree knows which account to decrease when you receive payment.
Note