Planning a sale or receiving a purchase request

Prior to a sale or following on a non-contractual purchase request, it can be useful to create a prospect, an opportunity and a billing table beforehand.

To create a prospect, go to People > Customers/Prospects, click on the arrow at the right of , then select New customer or New prospect.

Note

When a new customer prospect is created, this prospect is not booked right away, meaning the subledger account is not created automatically. This prospect must be turned into a customer in order to be booked.

When a customer is created, it is booked right away unless the Not booked option is checked from the Finances tab > Accounting parameters section. In this case, you must go through Edit > Accounting view > Manage the customer in accounting to create the subledger account.

Entering general information
1 Under the General tab, enter the customer or prospect's call name and contact details.
2 Drag and drop the customer or prospect's company logo on Logo.
3 Enter the SIRET / SIREN # to identify homonyms.

If the SIRENE API is configured, click on at the right of the field to identify the SIRET or SIREN number and therefore automatically fill in the following fields: the call name, the APE code, the full address (SIRET only), the legal form and the SIREN number (only if the SIRET number was already indicated).

Important

Only empty fields can be specified by the SIRENE API. Fields already specified will not be modified.

Reference

For more information about the SIRENE API setup, see Configuring the SIRENE API.

4 Under the Contact details section, enter the name of the country.
5 In the Miscellaneous section, enter information about your teams in charge of the customer/prospect, for example:
  • your company's code, the internal entity or team in charge of the customer or prospect;
  • the salesman and the account manager;
  • the status: out of target, prospect, short term...;
  • the customer or prospect account's open and closure dates.
Entering financial information
1 Under the Finances tab, enter the accounting parameters such as the account numbers: general account, reconciliation account (the general account linked to a third-party's account and the customer Interco code).
2 Check the following boxes:
  • Group, if a customer/prospect belongs to the same group as the working company.
  • Not booked, if a customer/prospect is not booked.
  • Factoring supported, if the payment of the customer/prospect outstanding amounts is issued by a factoring company. This box is visible only if the company associated with the customer is ***** or set up with the country FR.
  • Dematerialize invoices, if the customer/prospect accepts electronic invoices.
  • External / Internal / Virtual, depending on the type of customer/prospect. An internal customer is used to create internal projects. For example, a company can order services to another company of the same group.
3 Enter the payment terms as well as the banking information, the invoice pricing method, the currency and the bank journal.
4 Enter the No. Days in the Holdback section. This number of days enables you to calculate the due date for holdbacks associated with the customer. If there is no value, the information will be searched for in the company's record sheet.
5 Specify VAT-related information:
  • Exempt: Check the option if you want the main site to be exempt from VAT. This option is only used to check the Exempt from VAT option on the main site. This option is displayed only if the customer is in the same country as the connected company.
  • EU exempt. : Check the option if the EU customer or EU customer prospect is exempt from VAT. This option is displayed only if the customer is an EU customer, meaning when the customer's country is checked EU.

Note

If the customer's country is neither France nor an EU country, the customer is considered VAT-exempt.

  • VAT number: the intra-community VAT number.
  • Functional Area: this code refers to a table that enables equivalences between VAT codes associated with customers / prospects. When creating a management object, the system can replace the sold product's VAT by the VAT defined in equivalence.
6 Specify the fields of the Payment schedules generation rule section if you want to automatically apply a payment schedule to invoices linked to this customer:
Option Description
Generate payment schedule on invoices

Check the box to enable the payment schedule on invoices linked to the customer.

The payment schedule will be calculated and added no matter how the invoice is created (manually, from an order, intra-group rebiling, etc.).

Due dates are displayed in the Due dates tab of invoices.
Number of due dates Specify the field in order to set the number of due dates in which the amount of each invoice will be paid.
Periodicity Select the periodicity of due dates (monthly, quarterly, etc.).
End of month Check this box if you want each payment due date to correspond to the last day of the month.

Note

When the payment schedules is set up on contracts, customers and/or projects at the same time, Akuiteo determines the payment schedule to take into account based on the following priority order:

  1. The payment schedule on the contract if the invoice originates from a contract for which a payment schedule is set up;
  2. Or else, the payment schedule set up on the project record sheet;
  3. Or else, the payment schedule set up on the customer record sheet.

The payment schedule set up on a project cannot be used if the invoice is multi-project. In that case, the payment schedule set up on the customer will be taken into account if it is set up.

Entering marketing information
1 Under the Marketing tab, specify the following statistical information:
  • Customer or prospect's family and sub-family.
  • Customer or prospect’s profession, job category, grouping code or sector.
  • Type: Select in the help list the desired type. If the SIREN required box is checked in the Supplier and customer type setup, it is necessary to specify the SIREN no field in the General tab before saving the customer recordsheet.
  • Exclusion codes: the codes or keywords allowing you to exclude the customer from some of your analysis and reporting systems.
  • Keywords to enter when searching for a customer or prospect.
2 Enter the legal and additional information
[Customer only] Enter the information to block if the threshold is exceeded.
1 Click on the Blocking rules tab > .
2 After entering the total or outstanding amount, indicate the features to be blocked as soon as the ceiling is exceeded.

Tip

By default, the In progress tab is not displayed. To show this tab, disable the Hide the 'In progress' tab preference from Edit > Preferences > Sales > Customers.

Associating salesmen with your customer
1 Click on the Salesmen tab > > .
2 Under the Employee section, select the main salesman and click on , on the right side of the screen.
3 Repeat the operation to add additional salesmen.
4 Save your customer or prospect record sheet by clicking on the icon on the upper left.
Applying color indicators

Prerequisites:

  • The CLIPRO_COULEUR management rule must be enabled.
  • Indicator colors must be set up.
  • On-going modifications on the customer or prospect record sheet must be saved.

Up to 3 color indicators can be associated with each customer record sheet. Those colors give additional information on customers and their meanings are specific to each company (ex: customer's reliability). The customer's color indicators will be displayed on all management objects linked to the relevant customer.

1 Go to Desktop Application > People > Customers/Prospects and open the customer or prospect record sheet.
2 From the General tab > Identity section, double-click on one of the three desired boxes next to the third-party's name.

A window opens and contains the list of available color indicators.

3 Double-click on the color indicator to apply to the selected box.

The color indicator is linked to the customer.

You can do this procedure on other boxes in order to apply up to 3 different color indicators.

To remove a color indicator, click on the relevant box then click on Reset.

The prospect is created. You can now define the products to be sold.

Creating a sales opportunity
1 Open an opportunity record sheet, either from:
  1. Management > Sales > Opportunities > .
  2. An Event record sheet linked to your prospect (e.g.: a phone call). Go to Edit > New management object > New opportunity. Some fields are pre-filled.
2 Under the Header tab, in General information, enter the following information:
  • Opportunity's code and call name.
  • Name and code of the customer/prospect, and customer site if necessary.
  • Source type: the third party who initiated the opportunity or the type of action (e.g. marketing campaign, phone call, employee).
  • Source: the name of the third party or action that initiated the opportunity.
  • Opportunity's stage and date (e.g.: to be qualified).
3 In the Calendar section, enter the important dates such as the opportunity's open date (mandatory), expected signature date, production start and end dates and the signature probability in due date.
4 In the Classification section, enter the information about the project to be linked to the opportunity, such as the entity to which the offer is linked, the business sector, and the project's family and sub-family codes.
5 In the Tags section, click on , then double-click on the tag of your choice in the list, to associate it with the opportunity. You can add as many tags as necessary. Tags make it possible to search for and filter issues with multiple criteria that can be customized to your needs. Tags are set up from the menu General setup > Cross-cutting > Tags.
6 In the Lines section, click on , then specify the products' lines to be sold:
  • Sale type and name of the product to be sold.
  • Expected quantities to be sold.
  • Amounts and margins. The weighted amount is calculated based on the opportunity's probability level.
  • Duration in months.
7 Under the Managers section, enter the name of the various managers associated with the opportunity.
8 Save.

Once data are saved, the Contact tab is displayed. Under this tab, you can make necessary modification and link a person (customer's contact or employee) to the opportunity.

Linking a person to the opportunity
1 Click on the Contact tab, then on .
2 Click on the arrow beside and select Customer contacts or Resources (Employees and Subcontractors).
3 In the screen that displays, select the relevant person and validate. The contact or employee is displayed in the table.
4 If you want to delete a person from the line, select the person and click on .
Modifying the opportunity

From Edit, you can:

  • Duplicate the opportunity: enables you to create a new opportunity's record sheet based on the content in the opened record sheet.
  • Modify: enables you to modify the content in the opportunity's record sheet.
  • Delete: enables you to delete the opportunity.
  • Print the opportunity: enables you to print an opportunity after selecting a template in a list of templates.
  • Send the opportunity by email.
Generating management objects from the opportunity

From Edit > Dashboard, you can:

  • search for all the projects linked to the opened opportunity's record sheet.

From Edit > New management object, you can create:

  • a New project: the information about the prospect that became a customer is pre-filled. The projected amount of the Line tab is retrieved in the Budget field of the project's record sheet.
  • a New quotation: the customer information is pre-filled.
DMF 010219 PROSPECTING OPPORTUNITIES BATCH UPDATE

Custom data can be modified on multiple objects or third parties at once.

1 Start a search and select the results to modify.
2 Right-click on the selection and click on:
  • Edit custom data to modify opportunities' custom data, which means custom data set up in Setup > General setup > Sales > Custom sales opportunity data.
  • Edit custom data: Opportunity lines to modify opportunity lines' custom data, which means custom data set up in Setup > General setup > Sales > Custom sales opportunity line data.

The Modify custom data window opens.

3 Check the custom data to modify and enter the new value for each checked element.
4 Click on Validate.

Custom data are modified in the selected management objects.