7 Centralized Customer

Centralized Customer enables a Central Office user to enter and manage customer data. Centralized Customer also provides Point-of-Service the ability to retrieve customer information from a central database. This functionality enables Point-of-Service to support customer-specific pricing. It is also useful for other features such as assisting in pickup and delivery orders, and obtaining tax ID numbers for customers required to manage specific tax forms. Retail stores and cashiers also benefit from this functionality. Since customer information can be retrieved from a central database, customer information does not have to be reentered at different stores.

The Centralized Customer functionality enables the user to manage existing customer information and add new customers to the central database. The user has the ability to search for a customer, modify existing customer information, or mark a customer's record for deletion from the database. The user can also assign a pricing group to the customer. This provides the ability to offer customer specific pricing. Pricing groups can be assigned to a price promotion or discount rule.

There are two types of customers: individual and business. Business customers require slightly different data than individual customers, such as tax certificate numbers.

Figure 7-1 Centralized Customer Object Model