Customer relations
Customer relations are necessary for forecasting if there are no orders available yet. Customer relations determine the relations between customers and agencies. Therefore a forecast can be created for customers as well as for agencies even though there´s no concrete booking available (potencial customers).
Note: The customer relation is simply a reduced order view.
Set up of customer relations
New customer relations which are initially independent of orders can be created via the "New"-button or context menu in the table overview.
The data record of customer relations is explained in the following steps.
- Number -this field is filled automatically with the order number as soon as the customer relation was converted into an order
- External Number - the external number of the order is also imported automatically after the conversion
- Type - non-editable field that informs about the current status of the relation. After the conversion the status changes into "Order status".
- Advertiser - clients that do advertising
- Agency - agency that is responsible for planning the commercials
- From - beginning of validity period
- To - end of validity period
- Sales Area - allocation of a sales area which will be imported into the suborders. Sales areas include contact persons and sales targes.
- Special Action "Order" - the customer relation is converted into an order. The order data set is automatically filled with data of the customer relation. Please note: the new order is locked by default! To be able to make bookings on allocated suborders you need to unmark the checkbox "Lock" in the order data set!
- Special Action "Copy" - the customer relation is copied with the validity period lying in the year ahead. If the relation´s status is already the order-status an order will also be copied in addition to the relation.
Conversion of customer relations into orders
As long as the customer relation has not been converted to an order yet, its state appears as "customer relation". Via the "Order"-button the relation can be converted into an order .
After clicking on the "Order"-button an information is displayed which contains a link to the newly created order if the conversion was successful.
Now the order can be opened via the displayed link and is ready for editing.
The customer relation´s state now appears as "Order status", because an order was created out of it. The data record cannot be edited by the user anymore. Changes to the data of the customer relation can now only be made by changing them in the allocated order. If the sales area for instance is changed in the order it will also be changed in the customer relation.
These changes can be made directly out of the customer relation data set via the "Process order"-button. The order is opened right away and ready for editing.
Extension of customer relations
Customer relations can be extended by clicking the framed button. Except for the order the relation is copied and its period of validity will start in the following year.
If the relation was copied successfully a link to the new relation is displayed. Clicking on the link opens the new customer relation which can now be edited.
Please note: there is no order allocated to the extended customer relation after copying! The order has to be created yet.
List of all items in a Customer relations record
- Number -this field is filled automatically with the order number as soon as the customer relation was converted into an order
- External Number - the external number of the order is also imported automatically after the conversion
- Type - non-editable field that informs about the current status of the relation. After the conversion the status changes into "Order status".
- Advertiser - clients that do advertising
- Agency - agency that is responsible for planning the commercials
- From - beginning of validity period
- To - end of validity period
- Sales Area - allocation of a sales area which will be imported into the suborders. Sales areas include contact persons and sales targes.
- Special Action "Order" - the customer relation is converted into an order. The order data set is automatically filled with data of the customer relation. Please note: the new order is locked by default! To be able to make bookings on allocated suborders you need to unmark the checkbox "Lock" in the order data set!
- Special Action "Copy" - the customer relation is copied with the validity period lying in the year ahead. If the relation´s status is already the order-status an order will also be copied in addition to the relation.