A/R National Accounts Screen
Identifies the national account in Accounts Receivable.
To create a new national account, enter a unique number of up to 12 characters. The number can include digits, letters, symbols, and blank spaces.
To open an existing national account record, enter its number.
The Amount column shows the total amount for each of the transaction types listed in the Statistics column.
Accounts Receivable updates these amounts when you post transactions to the account.
You can change this figure if the Allow Edit Of Statistics option is selected for customers on the Processing tab of the A/R Options screen.
This field shows the average number of days it has taken the customer to pay all the invoices that were fully paid in the current year.
The average days to pay is calculated by dividing the Total Days To Pay figure by the Total Invoices Paid figure. You can alter the Average Days to Pay field only by editing the other two fields.
Displays the currency assigned to the account set.
You enter all invoices, debit notes, and credit notes for the customer or national account in the account set currency, but you can apply receipts from the customer or national account in other currencies.
The Date column lists the date each type of transaction (shown in the Statistics column) was posted to the customer's account.
Accounts Receivable updates these dates when you post transactions to the customer's account.
You can edit the dates if the Allow Edit Of Statistics option is selected for customers on the Processing tab of the A/R Options screen.
This field displays the balance that appeared on the last statement you printed for the account.
You cannot edit the figure.
This field displays the date on which you printed the last statement for this account.
You cannot edit the date.
This field shows the current number of open (unpaid) invoices in the account.
You cannot edit the figure.
This field displays the current net amount owed by a customer (or national account), including all invoices, credit notes, debit notes, receipts and adjustments posted to the account.
You cannot edit the figure.
This field shows the outstanding retainage balance for the customer (or national account).
The Activity tab lists the amount and date for the transactions with the highest balance this year and last year; for the largest invoices this year and last year; and for the last posted invoice, receipt, credit note, debit note, adjustment, write-off, interest charge, returned check, discount taken, and refund.
Accounts Receivable updates these figures each time you post transactions for the account.
You can edit the amounts and dates if the Allow Edit Of Statistics option is selected for customers on the Processing tab of the A/R Options screen.
This field shows the total number of days the customer has taken to pay all outstanding invoices that have been fully paid in the current year to date.
Accounts Receivable updates this figure when you post transactions to fully pay the customer's invoices.
You can change this figure if the Allow Edit Of Statistics option is selected for customers on the Processing tab of the A/R Options screen.
Example: You want to change the number because it has been inflated by unusual circumstances, and so gives an inaccurate impression of the customer's payment record.
Important! If you are entering this number when setting up customer records, do not enter figures from invoices and other transactions that you will post for the customer when you enter historical and year-to-date Accounts Receivable transactions. Otherwise, these statistics will be distorted.
This is the total number of invoices that have been fully paid in the current year to date.
Accounts Receivable updates this figure when you post transactions to fully pay invoices in the customer's account.
You can change this figure if the Allow Edit Of Statistics option is selected for customers on the Processing tab of the A/R Options screen.
Important! If you are entering this number when setting up customer records, do not enter figures from invoices and other transactions that you will post for the customer when you enter historical and year-to-date Accounts Receivable transactions. Otherwise, these statistics will be distorted.
The address in the customer record or national account is usually the address that is printed on invoices and statements for the account.
When customers belong to a national account, the address in the customer record is usually the billing address for the national account. You use ship-to locations to record the customer's actual address. You also use ship-to locations if the customer has more than one address.
Specify the name of the city where the customer resides or where you ship goods.
You can enter the name of the city in other address lines. However, the customer address on your statements, letters, and labels may not appear correctly. Also, if you export data to use in other programs, the field is more useful when you use the field consistently for the city.
Specify the name of the country where the business is located.
Use this field to enter an email address for the national account.
Specify a fax number.
The field includes area code parentheses and hyphens if you selected the Format Phone Number option for the company in the Company Profile screen in Common Services.
Specify a customer group to assign to a selected customer or national account.
You must specify a customer group for each customer and national account.
You can change the customer group for a national account or for a customer at any time, unless the customer belongs to a national account (in which case the customer record must use the customer group assigned to the national account). You can change the group for the customer only by changing it for the national account.
In a multicurrency system, you can change the customer group to one that uses a different currency. However, you must change the account set for a national account if the new group has an account set that uses a different currency from the national account.
If you change the customer group for an existing customer, the settings in the customer record remain unchanged, except for the customer group.
Select this option if you do not want to post any new transactions to the customers in the national account, usually because you plan to delete the national account.
You can select Inactive status only if all customers assigned to the national account have an account balance of zero and no outstanding transactions.
You can reactivate the national account at any time.
Displays the date of the last change made to the national account.
Select this option if you want to place a customer account on hold.
When an account is on hold, you see a warning when you start to enter an invoice for the customer. You can then choose whether to continue entering the invoice.
You can always enter and post invoices, credit notes, debit notes, receipts, and prepayments, whether a customer account is on hold or not.
Specify a phone number.
The field includes area code parentheses and hyphens if you selected the Format Phone Number option for the company in the Company Profile screen in Common Services.
Enter a name or a description of the national account, using up to 30 characters. Enter the name as you want it to appear in Accounts Receivable forms and on reports.
Specify the state or province where the business is located.
If the national account has a website, you can enter its URL in this field.
Specify the ZIP code or postal code for the address.
Specify a contact (usually the name of a contact person, position, or department).
Note: You can leave the field blank or enter other information in it, using up to 30 characters.
Enter the email address of your contact for this national account.
Enter the fax number, if any, for your customer's contact person.
The field includes area code parentheses and hyphens if you selected the Format Phone Number option for the company in the Company Profile screen in Common Services.
This field usually contains the telephone number at the place of business of the customer or national account.
The field includes area code parentheses and hyphens if you selected the Format Phone Number option for the company in the Company Profile screen in Common Services.
If you use the Multiple Contacts (M/T) program, this section appears on the Contact tab, allowing you to assign multiple contacts to a national account. For more information, see Setting Up Multiple Contacts for Customers and National Accounts.
Click this button to create a new contact record and assign the new contact to the national account.
This field displays All by default, and the table includes a column for each type of document that can be sent to contacts. If you select a specific program in this field, the table includes columns for only documents for the selected program.
Select a contact in the table and then click this button to view and edit the contact's details.
You can accept the default optional fields that appear on the tab, or delete them. You can also add different optional fields that you have set up for use with each screen.
For more information, see About Optional Fields in Accounts Receivable.
The account set specifies the general ledger receivables control, payment discounts, prepayment liability, retainage, and write-offs accounts to which a customer's transactions are distributed.
For more information about account sets, see About Account Sets.
The account type determines how you apply receipts to a customer's account:
- Balance Forward. Receipts are applied to the customer's outstanding balance.
- Open Item. Receipts are applied to specific documents by document number.
Customer groups and national accounts determine the default account type for new customer records. You can select a different account type in a customer record, unless the customer is assigned to a national account. (You cannot change the account type for members of national accounts.)
For more information about account types, see About Customer Account Types.
Specify the code for the billing cycle to use for the customer, national account, or customer group.
For information about billing cycles, see About Billing Cycles.
Use the Credit Bureau Information fields to enter a credit bureau number and rating for the customer or national account.
Displays the currency assigned to the account set.
You enter all invoices, debit notes, and credit notes for the customer or national account in the account set currency, but you can apply receipts from the customer or national account in other currencies.
If you record credit bureau information for a customer or national account, you can also enter the date on which the credit information was assigned.
Change the date in this field whenever you change the credit information.
Specify how invoices, receipts, statements, and letters are delivered to the national account:
- Mail. Print to your usual print destination.
- Email (national account). Print to a file and email the file to the email address specified for the national account on the Address tab.
- Email (contact). Print to a file and email the file to the contact email address specified for the national account on the Contact tab.
- Email (multiple contacts). If you use the Multiple Contacts (M/T) program, you can use this delivery method to print to a file and email the file to all the contact email addresses specified for the national account in the Multiple Contacts section on the Contact tab.
Note: If you select Customer as the delivery method when printing invoices, receipts, statements, and letters, the program uses the delivery method specified in the customer or national account record.
You assign an interest profile to each customer, group, and national account to specify the method and rates to use when charging interest on overdue amounts, and the general ledger account to which you post interest revenue.
Note: You must assign an interest profile to every customer, group, and national account. If you do not charge interest, assign an interest profile with a zero rate.
Interest profiles are first assigned to customers and national accounts by the customer group, but you can change to another profile in the customer record. If you change a customer's group, the new group's interest profile replaces the profile in the customer record, but you can change it as well.
National account customers use the national account's interest profile, and you can change a customer's profile only by changing the interest profile for the corresponding national account.
For information about interest profiles, see About Interest Profiles
Use these options to specify when credit warnings appear.
Specify a number that is assigned for the business by a credit bureau. You can change this number at any time.
Select this option if you want to print the statements for this national account, rather than for the individual member customers.
Note: You can indicate in the customer records whether to print statements for the member customers of the national account. However, once you print a statement for the national account, you cannot also print separate statements for the member customers.
For multicurrency customers or national accounts who do not use the functional currency, you specify the default rate type to use to convert transactions into the functional currency. When entering transactions for the customer or national account, you can change the rate type, if needed.
You must specify a rate type that is defined for the company in the Currency screens.
In each customer or national account record, you can record a code that indicates the account's credit rating, such as a rating that is assigned by a credit bureau.
You can enter a new rating at any time.
If you select this option, a credit warning appears when entering a transaction for a customer who is a member of the national account, if the total outstanding balance for the national account is greater than the specified credit limit.
The option selection and credit limit for the customer group are used as defaults when you assign a customer group to a new national account. (In multicurrency ledgers, the credit limit amount specified for the national account currency is used as the default.)
You can change the option and credit limit for the national account if you selected the Allow Edit Of Credit Check option for the customer group.
Note: The option to include pending transactions in credit checks does not apply to credit checks for national accounts.
If you select this option, a credit warning appears when entering a transaction for a customer who is a member of the national account, if transactions for the national account that are overdue by the specified number of days exceed the specified maximum amount.
Example: If you specify that transactions overdue by 90 days or more cannot exceed 250.00, a credit check warning appears if you enter a new transaction for a customer with transactions worth $300.00 that are overdue by at least 90 days.
The option selection, aging period, and exceeding amount specified for the customer group to which the national account is assigned appears as the default for a new national account. (In a multicurrency ledger, the exceeding amount for the national account currency is the default for the national account.)
The credit check information you specify for the national account is used as the default when you add new customers to the national account.
You can change the option selection, aging period, and exceeding amount if you selected the Allow Edit Of Credit Check option for the customer group.
Use the Amount column on the Statistics tab to view, edit, or add the total amount of the invoices, receipts, credit notes, and other documents that were processed for the customers and national accounts in the group during the displayed period.
If you are entering statistics as part of the setup of your Accounts Receivable ledger, do not include amounts you will post to the group's customers when you enter historical and year-to-date Accounts Receivable transactions.
Statistics are automatically updated as you post transactions to the customers and national accounts in the group.
You can change these amounts if the Allow Edit Of Statistics option is selected for customers on the Processing tab of the A/R Options screen.
Displays the average number of days it takes each customer (or all the customers assigned to a customer group or national account) to pay each invoice. You cannot change the figure.
The figure for each period is calculated by dividing the total number of days it took to pay the invoices that were fully paid in the period by the number of invoices that were issued to the account, both in the displayed period and in prior periods.
Use the Count column on the Statistics tab to view, edit, or add the total number of invoices, receipts, credit notes, and other transactions that were processed for the account during the displayed period.
Important! If you are entering statistics as part of the setup of your Accounts Receivable ledger, do not include amounts you will post for the customers when you enter historical and year-to-date Accounts Receivable transactions. If you do, the amounts will be added twice to the statistics.
If you use multicurrency accounting, specify whether to display statistics in the customer's currency or the functional currency. (Period statistics are recorded in the currency used by the customer or national account, as well as in their equivalent values in the functional currency.)
Select the fiscal period for which you are entering or viewing statistics.
The type of period by which you keep statistics is determined by the selection for the Period Type option for customers, customer groups, and national accounts on the Processing tab of the A/R Options screen. (Period types include Weekly, Seven Days, Bi-weekly, Four Weeks, Monthly, Bi-monthly, Quarterly, Semi-annually, and Fiscal Period.)
Select the year for which you want to enter or view statistics.
The type of year by which you keep statistics is determined by the selection of Fiscal Year or Calendar Year for the Accumulate By option for customers, customer groups, and national accounts on the Processing tab of the A/R Options screen.
Displays the length of time it takes a customer (or all the customers assigned to a customer group or national account) to fully pay each invoice.
The total that appears for a period is the number of days it took to pay all the invoices that were paid in full during the selected period.
You can edit this total, as needed, to set up and update statistics.
The Transaction Types column on the Statistics tab lists all the types of transactions for which totals and numbers are kept.
You can edit, view, and add total amounts and numbers of invoices, receipts, discounts, credit notes, debit notes, adjustments, write-offs, interest charges, returned checks, and refunds.
Important! If you are entering statistics as part of the setup of your Accounts Receivable ledger, do not include amounts you will post for the customers when you enter historical and year-to-date Accounts Receivable transactions. If you do, the amounts will be added twice to the statistics.
Overview
You use the A/R National Accounts screen to:
- Group customers who are subsidiaries or branch offices of the same large company for processing and reporting.
- Enter a name, phone and fax numbers, and an email address for a contact person for the national account.
- Process a single payment from the head office and apply it to the subsidiary accounts.
- Choose to print statements for the national account rather than for individual member customers.
- Select options for customer records you assign to national accounts.
Activity Tab
Use the Activity tab to:
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View current-year and previous-year account activity for national accounts, including:
- Current balance.
- Last statement balance.
- Number of outstanding invoices.
- Amount of last invoice.
- Edit activity statistics when first setting up national accounts.
Address Tab
Use the Address tab to:
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Change the national account's customer group, address, contact name, phone number, and fax number. More...
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Select On Hold or Inactive status for national accounts. More...
Contact Tab
Use the Contact tab to enter a name, phone number, fax number, and email address for a contact person. This contact information is separate from the information on the Address tab for the national account.
If you print statements for the national account, you can send statements to the contact's email address, rather than to the company's email address or billing address. (You select the delivery method on the Processing tab.)
If you use the Multiple Contacts (M/T) program, this tab includes a Multiple Contacts section that allows you to assign multiple contacts to a national account. For more information, see Setting Up Multiple Contacts for Customers and National Accounts.
Optional Fields Tab
Use the Optional Fields tab to:
- Assign to a national account any optional fields that are defined for customers, national accounts, and customer groups. (You define optional fields using the Optional Fields screen.)
- Specify optional field values for the national account. These values appear as defaults for new customer records that you add to the national account, if you use the same optional fields in the customer record.
When you add a new national account record, optional fields that you set up for automatic insertion in customer group, national account, and customer records automatically appear on this tab, along with their default values. For more information, see About Customer Optional Fields.
Processing Tab
Use the Processing tab to:
- Select the default account type (open item or balance forward) to assign to new customer records you add to the national account.
- Select the account set which, in multicurrency ledgers, identifies the currency for the national account and for all the customers that use the national account.
- Indicate whether you print statements for the national account.
- Specify a delivery method for sending statements to the national account.
- Specify whether to issue a credit warning if transactions for the national account exceed the specified credit limit, or if overdue transactions exceed a specified amount for a specified period.
- Specify a default credit limit and a default overdue limit for new customers that you assign to the national account (if the Allow Edit Of Credit Check option is selected in the customer group record).
- Enter credit bureau information for the national account, such as a credit bureau number, rating, and date.
- In multicurrency ledgers, select the rate type to use when converting transactions for customers in the national account to the functional currency.
- Select the billing cycle and interest profile to assign to customer records that use the national account.
Statistics Tab
Use the Statistics tab to:
- View the number and amount of all transactions processed for the customers in the national account in the year and period you select.
- View the total days to pay figure and the average days to pay figure for the national account and period.
- Change statistical information (if the Allow Edit Of Statistics option is selected for customers, national accounts, and customer groups on the Processing tab of the A/R Options screen).