Corporate Customer

A corporate customer is a bill-to customer that is associated with a group of other bill-to customers.  A typical corporate customer structure is shown below.

   Corporate Customer Structure.

To define the structure shown above, you would perform the following steps:

1.   Use the Customer Master Maintenance conversation to define bill-to customer 001.  Enter 001 in the Corporate Customer field.

2.   Use the Customer Master Maintenance conversation to define bill-to customer 002.  On the Billing Information screen for customer 002, enter 001 in the Corporate Customer field.

3.   Repeat step 2 for bill-to customers 003 and 004.

Note that 001 is defined like any other bill-to customer in the system.  It can request quotations and purchase items just like any other customer.

The corporate customer relationship supports  three different functions in Order Processing and Accounts Receivable:

·     Contract Pricing

·     Credit Checking

·     Payment Application

Contract Pricing

The corporate customer may be used in the Order Processing module to maintain and use contract pricing.  For a description of this processing, refer to the Order Processing User Manual Key Concept on Pricing Methods.

Credit Checking

The Credit Check Type field on the Credit Information screen of the Customer Master Maintenance program determines whether or not corporate credit checking is used for the bill-to customer.  In general, if you use corporate credit checking for one entity in the corporate customer structure, you will wish to use it for all entities.  In the situation shown in the Corporate Customer Structure figure, you would specify corporate credit checking for customers 001, 002, 003, and 004.  Note, however, that you do not have to use corporate credit checking for all of the subsidiaries.  For example, you could use corporate credit checking for 001, 002, and 003 but not for 004.

Whenever you enter a sales order for any of the entities in the corporate structure (001, 002, 003, or 004), MAC-PAC will perform corporate credit checking.  It will access the Customer Master File information for the corporate customer and determine the credit limits for that customer:

·     The total balance for all subsidiary customers will be totaled and compared to the limit defined for the corporate customer.

·     If days overdue are used in credit checking, MAC-PAC will compare the days overdue for each entity in the structure to determine whether or not ANY entity exceeds the limit on the corporate customer record.  If any entity exceeds the credit limit, the sales order will be placed on credit hold.  For example, a sales order for bill-to customer 002 would be placed on credit hold if customer 004's past due days exceed the limit defined for customer 001.

·     If amount past due is used in credit checking, MAC-PAC will total the amount past due for all entities in the structure.  It will then compare this total to the limit defined on the corporate customer.  If the total exceeds the corporate limit, the sales order will be put on credit hold. 

For more information, refer to the Credit Checking Key Concept in the Order Processing User Manual.

Payment Application

Within the Accounts Receivable module, you may use the corporate customer to record corporate payments.  You may record a check for the corporate customer, then apply it to documents for any of the associated customers.

For example, you could use corporate payment entry to apply a check from customer 001 to documents for customers 001, 002, 003, or 004.  During the Corporate/Multi-Customer Payment Application conversation, you will be able to enter 001 in the Corporate Customer field.  Open items for customers 001, 002, 003, and 004 will then be displayed, allowing you to apply payments to them easily.

Note that you can apply checks from one customer to another customer's receivables even if you do not define a corporate customer structure.  The Corporate/Multi-Customer Payment Application conversation allows you to apply payments from any customer to documents for any other customer.  The advantage to using the corporate structure is that the pre-existing relationship between the customers provides an additional level of control.