About Customer Groups

You must define customer groups before adding customer records. You use customer groups to:

• Classify customer records by the characteristics you choose.

  Customer groups are identified by a unique code of up to three characters. For information on creating a coding scheme, see About Accounts Receivable Coding Schemes.

• Set default entries to speed up the task of adding customer records.
• Select records for processing.

  Tip: You can charge interest or produce recurring charge invoices for a range of customer groups.

• Select records for printing.

  Tip: You can print statements by customer group.

• View year-to-date statistics for an entire group of customers.

You can create as many customer groups as you need. However, you must define at least one group.

You can change most of the information in an existing customer group record, except the customer group code.

Default Settings for New Customer and National Account Records

You assign customers and national accounts to customer groups when you add or change customer and national account records.

When you assign a customer to a customer group, Accounts Receivable automatically fills in the following fields with the selections made for the customer group:

• Account Type
• Account Set
• Interest Profile
• Terms
• Billing Cycle
• Print Statements
• Tax Group and Tax Classes
• Salespeople

If you use national accounts, these selections also appear as defaults in new national accounts you assign to the customer group.

You can change all the default entries for new customers and national accounts.

Most changes you make to a existing group record affect only new customer and national account records you create and add to the group, later. Only the following changes affect customers and national accounts already assigned to the group:

• Changing the Allow Edit Of Credit Check option for a customer group. More...

  Before changing this option, make sure that the group’s credit limit is entered as the limit in all customer and national account records that are assigned to the group.

  Important! If you turn off this option, you can no longer change the credit checks for any of the customer and national account records assigned to the group, and you cannot save changes to the records if their credit limits are higher than the group limit.

• Changing the Inactive status for a customer group. More...

  If a customer group is inactive, you cannot:

  • Add new customers or national accounts to the group.
  • Add invoices or other transactions for customers or national accounts in the group.

Setting Credit Limits for Customers Assigned to a Customer Group

You specify a credit limit for each customer group, which is used when you add new customer records or national accounts to the group.

You also indicate whether to allow different credit limits for the customers and national accounts assigned to the group, or whether the group's customers and national accounts must all use the same credit limit.

If you use multicurrency accounting, you enter a credit limit in each of the currencies used by the customers in the group.

Default Optional Fields

If you use optional fields with your system, any optional customer fields that you set up and marked for automatic insertion appear on the Optional Fields tab in new customer group records.

You can accept the optional fields that appear or you can delete them, and you can accept or change any default values that appear. You can also assign additional optional fields that you have set up for customers, national accounts, and customer groups.

If you use the same optional fields for new customers that you assign to the customer group, the values from the customer group appear as defaults (unless the customer is also assigned to a national account).

Customer Group Statistics

Accounts Receivable keeps statistics for customer groups, and displays them on the A/R Customer Groups screen. You can display the statistics by the type of year and period specified on the A/R Options screen for customer statistics.

For each group, Accounts Receivable lists the amount and number of invoices, receipts, discounts, credit notes, debit notes, adjustments, write-offs, interest charges, returned checks, and paid invoices. It also calculates and displays the total days to pay and average days to pay figures for the group.

You can edit the statistics in a customer group if you select the Allow Edit Of (customer) Statistics option on the A/R Options screen.

Accumulating Tax Amounts

The totals kept for invoices, credit notes, and debit notes can include or exclude the tax amounts you post with the documents, depending on your selection for the Include Tax In (customer) Statistics option on the A/R Options screen.