Exercise 3.17 – Request for Quotation
4.2 Customer Management
Business partners, who receive goods or services, have to be entered as customers in Dynamics AX. As long as the business partner only receives quotations, you can also use a prospect record.
Customer records in sales mirror vendor records in purchasing. In both areas there are list pages and detail forms with similar features. Examples are one-time customers, payment terms, cash discounts, posting profiles, and the global address book integration.
4.2.1 Core Data and Comparison to Vendor Records
In order to edit existing or to create new customers, open the customer list page in the sales module (Sales and marketing> Customers> All customers) or in the accounts receivable module (Accounts receivable> Customers> All customers). According to the general structure of list pages, the customer page shows a list of all customers. If you want to view the details of a customer in the list page, click the link in the Account field of the particular customer.
Apart from the customer list page, the Sales order processing and inquiry workspace also provides access to the customer detail form (list Find customer in the tabbed list pane).
4.2.1.1 Create New Customer Dialog
If you want to create a new customer in the customer page, click the button New in the action pane or press the shortcut Alt+N to access the Create new customer dialog.
In the Create dialog, which contains all core fields of the customer record, select the appropriate Type (“Person” or “Organization”) first. The field Name in the dialog is a lookup providing the option either to enter a new name or – if the customer is already a party in the global address book – to select an existing party.
Customer records are linked to the global address book in the same way as vendor records, which is why features like the duplicate check work as described for vendors (see section 3.2.1).
If you want to create a sales order immediately after creating the customer, you can click the button Save and open/Sales order in the dialog.
4.2.1.2 Customer Detail Form
In the customer detail form, you can switch to the edit mode by clicking the button Edit in the action pane or by pressing the F2 key. If you are in edit mode in the list page and access the detail form afterwards, the detail form will open in edit mode.
The customer form contains numerous fields, which represent default values for sales orders. Like the vendor group in vendor records, the Customer group in customer records is a core setting which controls ledger integration through customer posting profiles (compare section 3.2.3). Further important fields include
the Sales tax group (VAT group) and the Delivery terms on the tab Invoice and delivery, the Currency on the tab Sales demographics, the Terms of payment on the tab Payment defaults, and settings for blocking (lookup field Invoice and delivery on hold on the tab Credit and collections).
Figure 4-5: Editing a customer in the customer detail form
Since the structure and the content of the fields in the customer record are very similar to the vendor record, the description below only covers deviations and elements, which primarily refer to customer records and which have not been explained for vendor records.
4.2.1.3 Invoice Account
Sometimes it is necessary to send an invoice to a customer, who is not the order customer – for example if the head office of an affiliated group should receive the invoice for subsidiaries. In order to comply with this situation, select the customer number of the invoice customer in the field Invoice account on the tab Invoice and delivery. A customer number entered there is the default value for the field Invoice account in related sales order headers. If required, you can override the invoice account in the sales order.
Invoices of applicable orders contain the invoice customer instead of the order customer, generating an open customer transaction referring to the customer number of the invoice account. Unless chosen differently in the lookup field Invoice address on the tab Invoice and delivery of the customer record, the printed invoice shows the address of the invoice account.
4.2.1.4 Alternative Address and Global Address Book Integration
Whereas the invoice account number in the customer form refers to a second customer number (assigning a separate customer record), the customer addresses on the tab Addresses of the customer form provide the option to assign multiple postal addresses to a single customer number.
Figure 4-6: Editing a customer delivery address in the address dialog
Like the postal addresses for vendors (see section 3.2.1), customer addresses are shared with the related party in the global address book.
After clicking the button Add in the toolbar of the tab Addresses, the address dialog displays where you enter the address name and select one or more purposes. For the primary customer address, set the slider Primary to “Yes”.
If entering an address with the purpose “Invoice”, invoices for the customer show this address instead of the primary address. An address with the purpose
“Delivery” is the default for the delivery address in sales orders. If you want to ship to an address, which is different from the delivery address or the primary address (default if there is no specific delivery address), select one of the other customer addresses or enter a completely new address in the sales order.
4.2.1.5 Print Management
Base settings for printing options like the destination (printer), the number of copies, or the footer text are available in the accounts receivable print management
setup (Accounts receivable> Setup> Forms> Form setup, button Print management in the toolbar of the tab General).
You can override these settings in the print management at customer level (button GENERAL/Set up/Print management in the customer form). After selecting the appropriate original or copy document in the left pane of the print management form, choose the option Override in the context menu (which opens by a right-hand click) before entering the individual settings. Customer print management settings are transferred to sales orders, where you can override them at order level again.
Print management settings (e.g. a specified printer) apply to documents, if the slider Use print management destination in the particular posting dialog is set to
“Yes” (compare section 3.4.5).
4.2.1.6 Credit Limit
Many companies want to apply credit limits to customers in sales. For this purpose, the accounts receivable parameters (Accounts receivable> Setup> Account receivable parameters, tab Credit rating) contain settings which control the usage of credit limits. Depending on these settings, the credit limit check includes only unpaid invoices, or also open packing slips, or additionally open orders, and shows a warning or an error message.
The tab Credit and collections in the customer form contains the field Credit limit where you can enter the credit limit amount of the customer. If the slider Mandatory credit limit is set to “Yes”, the credit limit amount applies always.
Otherwise, a credit limit amount of zero means unlimited credit.
When you enter (or post, depending on the parameter settings) a sales order, Dynamics AX checks if the customer exceeds the credit limit and either displays an error message (which prevents posting) or a warning.
4.2.1.7 New in Dynamics ‘AX 7’
Items which are new in customer management refer to the browser-based user interface. The shipping carrier interface is deprecated.