Understanding Customer Types

Purpose: Use the Customer Maintenance programs to maintain existing customer information and create new customer records without creating orders. You use the Customer Maintenance programs when you need to:

• Enter customer address changes

• Construct a demographics profile

• Create a contract price for a short-term sale

• Change a customer's tax status, payment type, etc.

• Add a customer service action note

• Review a customer's ordering history

In this chapter:

• Defining Customer Types

• Customer Type Relationships

Defining Customer Types

Purpose: There are four customer types:

• Sold-to

• Ship-to

• Bill-to

You need to understand the customer types in order to work with Customer table maintenance.

Sold-to customers: A sold-to customer is a person who places an order. Name, address, and mailing information for sold-to customers is in the Customer Sold-to table only.

Note: The Customer Engagement Customer Integration includes only sold-to customers.

Ship-to customers: A ship-to customer is a person who receives an order. The system generates a temporary ship-to record for every sold-to customer when you enter an order. You can create permanent ship-to customers through Customer Ship-to when you enter an order.

• Permanent ship-to customers are customers who request a ship-to address different from their sold-to address. The Customer Ship-to table stores permanent ship-to customer information.

• Temporary ship-to customers are customers who receive the shipped order but do not place the order or pay for the order (for example, gift recipients). The Order Ship-to Address table stores temporary ship-to customer information.

Bill-to customers: A bill-to customer is a person who pays for an order. A bill-to customer record is required when the person who pays for the order is different than the sold-to customer.

You can assign bill-to customer addresses through Order Entry if the system control value Create/Assign Bill To Customers in Order Entry (A76) is selected.

The system generates bill-to records for business-to-business customers. Business-to-business customers are customers who ship to a consistent address, have a permanent account, and are commercial in nature.

You can define a business-to-business customer by selecting the Commercial flag for a customer. Once you have established a bill-to customer account, the account remains permanently in the Bill-to customer table.

Customer Type Relationships

The figure below illustrates the relationships between the customer types.

	(Sold-to) customer places, receives, and pays for order. Payment methods: Cash, Check, Credit Card
	(Sold-to) customer places and receives order, but someone else receives the bill. Payment methods: Credit Card
	(Sold-to) customer places and pays for order, but directs shipment to another (Temporary Ship-to) person. Payment methods: Cash, Check, Credit Card
	(Sold-to) customer orders for one or more (Permanent Ship-to) locations, and directs bill to a separate (Bill-to) accounting function. Payment methods: Credit Card
	One or more (Sold-to) customer orders for one or more (Permanent Ship-to) receiving locations, but each Sold-to directs their bills to a single (Bill-to) accounting function. Payment methods: Credit Card

Rules to remember: The following is a list of guidelines to keep in mind when working with the different customer types.

• Every order has at least a sold-to customer

• The system creates a bill-to record if the person paying for the order is different from the person placing the order

• More than one permanent ship-to record can exist under a single sold-to, if the sold-to regularly places orders to be shipped to different locations

For more information: See Creating and Updating Customers for options related to creating and working with each customer type.