This chapter covers the following topics:
There are two customer types in Quoting:
Person
Organization
Parties of type person are individuals purchasing on their own behalf. A person can have multiple addresses and telephone numbers, but must have a primary address.
Parties of type organization may be a company, a company subsidiary or branch, an association, a non-profit, or a government branch. Each organization must have a primary address, but can have multiple additional addresses and contacts associated with it. The address may belong to the organization or the contact.
A contact is a representative of an organization. Any individual at an organization can be a contact. Contacts within an organization are set up with roles such as contact for Organization A or employee of Organization B.
To create quotes and orders, certain standard customer information is necessary.
Note: The customer, referred to in Quoting as the Quote-to customer, is the party for whom the quote is being created. This party becomes the sold-to customer when an order is created from the quote.
The following table shows the mapping of the HTML UI terminology to the Oracle Order Management (OM) terminology.
| Location in UI | Quoting Terminology | OM Terminology |
|---|---|---|
| Quote Header | Quote-to Customer, Account Number, Quote-to Contact, Quote-to Address Note: The quote-to address is not passed into OM. |
Customer, Customer Number, Contact, Address |
| Shipping and Billing tab (Addresses > Shipping) | Customer Name, Account Number, Contact, Address | Ship To Customer, Ship To Customer Number, Ship To Contact, Ship To Address |
| Shipping and Billing tab (Addresses > Billing) | Customer Name, Account Number, Contact, Address | Bill To Customer, Bill To Customer Number, Bill To Contact, Bill To Address |
| Shipping and Billing tab (Addresses > End Customer | Customer Name, Account Number, Contact, Address | End Customer, End Customer Number, End Customer Contact, End Customer Address |
Customer information can be grouped into the following areas:
Quote-To Customer, Account Number — The name and financial account of the customer. Sometimes only the name of the customer is known, as there may not be a financial account set up for the customer. The quote-to customer is financially responsible for the order; for example, credit and collections contacts the quote-to customer if payment is not received.
Quote-To Contact — A person representing the quote-to customer, only when the quote-to customer is of party type organization. You cannot enter a contact if the Quote-To Customer is of type person. This field is optional.
Quote-To Address — Address for the quote-to customer or quote-to contact. This address is used for mailing purposes. The Quote-to address is an optional address. It may be passed to the quote from an opportunity, but it is not passed into Oracle Order Management when an order is created from the quote.
Bill-To Information
Bill-to Customer, Account Number — The name and financial account of the customer to be invoiced for the goods or service ordered.
Bill-to Contact — A person representing the billing customer who deals with all invoice-related issues for the order, only when the billing customer is of party type organization. This field is optional.
Bill-to Address — A physical location where the invoice is sent. This address can be associated with either the bill-to customer or the bill-to contact. If you choose an address that is not of the type bill-to, then it is created as a bill-to address when the quote is saved.
Ship-To Information
Ship-to Customer, Account Number — The name and financial account information of the customer to whom the goods or services are delivered.
Ship-to Contact — A person representing the shipping customer, only when the shipping customer is of party type organization, who deals with all shipping-related issues for the order, and who typically receives the shipment. This field is optional.
Ship-to Address — A physical location where the products are sent. The ship-to address can be associated with either the ship-to customer or ship-to contact. If you select an address that is not of type ship-to, it is created as a ship-to address when the quote is saved.
End Customer Information
End Customer, Customer Number — The name of the customer who will be the ultimate recipient of the products. In most situations, the Quote-to customer is also the end customer. However, there are exceptions to this. For example, you may create a quote for a reseller organization, ABC Corporation. ABC Corporation, in turn, sells to XYZ Corporation. In this case, ABC Corporation is the Bill To Customer and XYZ Corporation is the End Customer as well as the Ship to Customer.
End Customer Contact — A person representing the end customer, only when the end customer is of party type organization. This field is optional.
End Customer Address — A physical location where the products are sent. This address can be associated with either the end customer or end customer contact.
Out of the box, Oracle Quoting does not require financial accounts—for customers without any accounts—when creating a quote. Sales representatives can create quotes for either prospects or customers. A prospect does not have a financial account, while a customer has one or more financial accounts.
Note: If the customer does not have any active financial accounts, they will be treated as a Prospect.
Oracle Quoting allows you to determine at which point an account is created. For more information on the following profile options, see the Oracle Quoting Implementation Guide.
Account creation is based on the ASO: Auto Account Creation profile. It determines when an account should be automatically created.
Depending on how you set the profile option ASO: Auto Account Creation, you can set up account restriction in the following ways:
Always create accounts—Accounts are created for customers when the quote is saved.
Create accounts as necessary—Accounts are created only when a quote is web published or when a quote becomes an order.
Create accounts only when Place Order—Accounts are created only when an order is created from the quote.
The following table shows the behavior of Oracle Quoting based on the settings of the profile options.
| Profile Option Setting | Create Sold-To | Select Sold-To | Create Ship-To/Bill-To/End Customer | Select Ship-To/Bill-To/End Customer | Web Publishing | Order Conversion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASO: Auto Account Creation set to Always | Create account | Create account if party does not have any | Create account | Create account if party does not have any | NA | NA |
| ASO: Auto Account Creation set to As Required | Do not create account | Do not create account | Do not create account | Do not create account | Create account for all customers in quote without account | Create account for all customers in quote without account |
| ASO: Auto Account Creation set to Place Order | Do not create account | Do not create account | Do not create account | Do not create account | Throw error if any customers on quote do not have accounts | Create account for all customers on quote without an account |
If ASO: Auto Account Creation is set to Always, an account is created for each party on the quote (that does not have an account) when the user saves a quote.
If ASO: Auto Account Creation is set to As Required, an account is created for each customer on the quote (that does not have an account) when the quote is:
Web published
An order is created from the quote
If ASO: Auto Account Creation is set to Place Order, an account is created for each customer on the quote without an account when the quote is placed as an order.
A customer is typically created in Oracle Sales or Oracle Receivables. Oracle Quoting offers a generic procedure for customer creation, capturing the minimum information necessary to place an order.
If the customer details that you enter are similar to a record already existing, the system prevents you from creating a duplicate customer.
Prerequisites
The Create Customer button must be enabled using OA Personalization.
Field Behavior
Address fields
If the address combination is not set up in Oracle Receivables, an address validation error will occur. See the Oracle Quoting Implementation Guide for more information.
Contacts for customers are typically created in Oracle Sales or Oracle Receivables. Oracle Quoting offers a generic procedure for customer contact creation, capturing the minimum information necessary to place an order.
If the contact details that you enter are similar to a record already existing, the system prevents you from creating a duplicate contact.
Prerequisites
The Create Contact button must be enabled via OA Personalization.
Addresses for customers are typically created in Oracle Sales or Oracle Receivables. Oracle Quoting offers a generic procedure for customer address creation and updating, capturing the minimum information necessary to place an order.
Prerequisites
The Create Address button must be enabled via OA Personalization.
Note: The Quote To customer must have at least one active address (any usage) to create a quote.