4.2. Define Business Partners

Business Partners are entities you engage in business transactions with. The SocrateCloud concept of the business partners is more flexible than that of most applications, since a business partner can be a Vendor, a Customer, an Employee, or any combination of the three.

Business Partner

The Business Partner window, located in the Partner Relations -> Business Partner Rules menu, allows you to define the entities you engage in business transactions with. The following fields are available:

• Name, Name 2, Search Key - information used to identify the business partner within the system;

• Organization - the organization engaged with the business partner;

  • the Business Partner Organization process allows you to change the organization ownership of business partners or business partner groups and their dependent entities (Location, Contact/User, Bank Account, and Withholding). NOTE: If you select a business partner group, the process will update all business partners within the respective group regardless whether a business partner has been selected or not;

    • starting 16.06, you can no longer select both a business partner and business partner group as process parameters;

• Greeting - enter a greeting for the business partner. Details in Greetings;

• Active - indicates if the business partner is active within the system;

• Summary Level - indicates if this record will be used as a parent record in business partner trees. Details in Hierarchies;

• Tax ID - identifies the legal Identification number of the business partner;

• • • SocrateCloud offers the option of automatic or manual validation of the fiscal code associated with a business partner. The validation is done on the Ministry of Finance website or on VIES:

      • Automatically if at tenant level, in the Tenant Info tab, the Automatically Validate Tax ID checkbox has been selected, when introducing the fiscal code in the Tax ID fields, a web validation service is automatically called. The validation is done in the Romanian Ministry of Finance database for all the codes starting with "RO", and in VIES ( http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/vatRequest.html), for all the other EU codes. If the Business Partner can be found in one of these databases, the Name field will be automatically be completed with the name of the Business Partner. Otherwise, the Invalid Tax ID message will be displayed. Note: the fiscal code must start with either two or three letters (e.g. RO, DE, ES, AUT);

      • Manually - by pressing the Validate Tax ID button in the Business Partner window. This is a process that will fetch the name and the address of the business partner, should this information be found in the aforementioned databases.

• D-U-N-S - creditor check (Dun & Bradstreet) number. Used for EDI and Credit Check;

  • Validate Tax ID - starts the tax id validation process using the parameters defined at tenant level (Tenant window);

  • Tax ID Validation Date - date when the tax id was last validated;

  • Tax ID Valid - if checked the tax ID was successfully validated;

• Individual, Has Special Regim - applicable only when generating the D394 report;

• Tax Delayed - checked for all organizations registered at the Delayed VAT Operators Registry;

• Tax exempt - indicates if the business partner is exempt from taxes;

• Credit Status field is determined by the Open Balance field and the Credit Limit field from the Customer tab. It can take one of the following values:

  • System maintained values:

    • Credit OK -> Open Balance < 90% Credit Limit;

    • Credit Watch -> 90% Credit Limit < Open Balance < Credit Limit;

    • Credit Hold -> Open Balance > Credit Limit;

  • Manually set values:

    • No Credit Check - no credit management. Same when there is no credit limit (Credit Limit = 0);

    • Credit Stop - in addition to credit hold restriction, it also prevents invoice completion;

  • Credit check consequences:

    • Orders cannot be completed and will enter Credit Block status if:

      • Credit Status = Credit Hold or Credit Stop

      • or if Open Balance + Total Order Value > Credit Limit

    • Shipments cannot be completed and will enter Credit Block status if:

      • Credit Status = Credit Hold or Credit Stop

      • or if Open Balance + Shipments Value Not Invoiced > Credit Limit

    • Invoices Cannot be completed and will enter Credit Block status if:

      • Credit Status = Credit Stop

    • Payments to Business partner cannot be completed and will enter Credit Block status if:

      • Credit Status = Credit Stop or Credit Hold

• Open Balance - it indicates the sum of all unpaid supplier and customer invoices for this business partner;

Other Info section:

• Reference No. - informative field, can be printed on orders and invoices;

• Industry Code - used for business partner industry classification. (defined in the Industry Code window);

• NAICS/SIC - standard industry code value;

• BP Status - used for lead tracking;

• Rating - used to differentiate the importance of business partners;

• Business Partner Group - the business partner must belong to a group. Details in Business Partner Group;

• Language - identifies the language used to display the format for multi-lingual documents;

• URL - web address for the business partner;

• Prospect - indicates whether the business partner is a potential or active customer;

• Potential Life Time Value - total expected revenue from the business partner;

• Employees - number of business partner employees;Acquisition Cost - cost of changing the customer status from prospect to active;

• Sales Volume - total volume of sales for the business partner;

• Share - the business partner's market share;

• BP Size - used to classify business partners by categories, defined in the Business Partner Size window;

• Life Time Value - total revenue resulted from transactions with the business partner;

• First Sale - first sales transaction with the business partner;

• Available to Sync - available to be synchronized with other systems.

• Link Organization button - can be used to link the business partner to an organization with the purpose of generating counter-documents". Details in Counter Documents.

Obs: Starting with v17.11 a read-only checkbox called "Has attachment" has been added, which indicates whether the Business Partner has an attached file.

Customer

The Customer tab from the Business Partner window can be used to make "customer" specific settings if the business partner is a customer. The following fields are available:

• Customer - select to classify the business partner as a Customer. The checkbox will automatically be checked for each newly defined business partner. If you add a new business partner and you do not want it classified as a customer, deselect the Customer checkbox in the Customer tab;

• Document Copies - indicates the number of additional copies of each document that will be printed for this business partner;

• Invoicing Rule - select how a business partner is invoiced and the frequency of invoicing: After Delivery, Immediate, After Order Delivered, Customer Schedule after Delivery;

• Invoice Schedule - identifies the frequency used when automatically generating invoices;

• Invoice Currency - currency in which invoice is issued;

• Shipping Rule - select when an order should be delivered: Availability, Force, Complete Line, Manual, Complete Order, After Receipt;

• Shipping Method - indicates how the products should be delivered: Delivery, Pickup, Shipper;

• Discount Schema and Flat Discount % - are used to define additional discounts that will be granted to this customer.

• Payment Method and Payment Term will be used as default values when generating a Customer Order or Invoice for this Business Partner.

• Return Policy - the number of days for which goods sold to this customer are eligible to be returned;

• Payment Method, Payment Term and Payment Mode - select default values that will be used when entering Customer Orders and Customer Invoices;

• Representative - select a representative that is acting on behalf of the company with the customer;

• Dunning - indicates the rules and method of dunning for past due payments;

• Discount Printed - indicates that the discount granted for a product will be listed in the document. If there is no discount or if the discount conferred does not result in a smaller price than the listed one, then the Discount field will not be printed;

• Order Reference and Order Description - will be printed on all orders related to this Customer. These can be modified for a specific order if wished.

• Invoice Print Format - select if this customer requires a specific print format. This will replace the default print format defined for invoices in the Print Format window.

• Credit Limit - is used to indicate how much credit will a business partner be granted before his orders are restricted. The '0' value signifies that there is no Credit Limit. If there are unpaid invoices, the system will display the amount due in the Credit Used field.

  • the credit limit uses the currency on the accounting schema selected at tenant level;

• Credit Covered Amt - balance amount covered by checks that are not cashed yet;

• Credit Used with Covered - current open balance considering the uncashed checks;

• Min Shelf Life % - this is used if you wish to restrict the shipment of warranty period-products. This will check that the Shelf Life % of the product due to be delivered is greater or equal to the value entered here;

• Penalty percent - informative field - percent value used to determine penalties for due payments.

To enter accounting information related to the customer, click on the Customer Accounting tab. The values displayed here are a result of the selected Business Partner Group. These can be left as default values, or can be updated to define specific accounts for the Business Partner. In most cases, this is not necessary should the Business Partner be defined as an item in the Account Element.

• Customer Receivables account - used to record the transactions with this customer, when Customer Invoices are issued for a product.

• Receivable Services account - used when customer transactions are recorded and an invoice for a service is issued.

• Customer Prepayment account - used when a payment for an order is received and the products have yet to be delivered.

Details in Accounting.

Vendor

The Vendor tab from the Business Partner window can be used to make "vendor" specific settings if the business partner is a customer. The following fields are available:

• Vendor - select to classify the business partner as a vendor;

• Sales Rep - indicates whether the business partner is a company representative;

• Payment Rule - indicates the method of purchase payment;

• Purchase Pricelist - identifies the price list used by a the vendor for it's products;

• PO Payment Term - indicates the payment term that will be used when a purchase from this vendor order becomes an invoice;

• PO Discount Schema - used to calculate vendor discounts;

• Vendor Return Policy - select the policy that applies to goods being returned to the vendor;

• Representative - select a representative that is acting on behalf of the company with the vendor;

• Minimum Ordered Amt - minimum purchase order amount allowed for this vendor;

• Dunning - indicates the rules and method of dunning for past due payments to the vendor;

To introduce the accounting information related to the Vendor, click on the Vendor Accounting tab. The values displayed here are a result of the selected Business Partner Group. These can be left as default values, or can be updated to define specific accounts for the Business Partner. In most cases, this is not necessary should the Business Partner be defined as an item in the Account Element.

• Vendor Liability account - used when transactions with the vendors are recorded and vendor invoices are issued.

• Vendor Service Liability account - used when transactions with and invoices for service vendors are recorded. This account may be different from the Vendor account should you want to differentiate them.

• Vendor Prepayment account - used when a payment has been made to the vendor for a product that has yet to be received.

Details in Accounting.

In the Supplier Inventory window, located in the Product Setup menu, you can enter inventory information for a vendor/supplier.

In the Shipper window, located in the Product Setup menu, a vendor can be defined as a "shipper". In the Freight tab, for a vendor, you can specify a price for each freight category available.

Employee / Sales Rep

If you want a business partner to be an Employee, click on the Employee tab and enter the appropriate values.

• Employee - select to classify the business partner as an Employee;

• Sales Rep - select if the employee is sales representative;

• Timekeeper - the employee's timekeeper, responsible for entering the monthly time;

Additional employee related settings can be made in the Employee window. Details in HRM Setup;

To introduce the accounting information related to the Employee, click on the Employee Accounting tab. The values displayed here are a result of the selected Business Partner Group. These can be left as default values, or can be updated to define specific accounts for the Business Partner. In most cases, this is not necessary should the Business Partner be defined as an item in the Account Element.

The Employee Expenses and Employee Prepayment accounts are not currently in use.

Bank Account

To enter information regarding the business partner bank accounts, click on the Bank Account tab and enter the corresponding values:

• User/Contact - optionally the bank account can be linked to one of the business partner's contacts;

To define electronic transfer account select ACH checkbox and complete the following fields:

• Account Usage - select how the account will be used;

• Bank - select a bank defined in the Bank window;

• Bank Account Type - select from the list the type of account used;

• Routing No - for electronic transfer;

• Account No - number assigned to this bank account;

• BBAN - the Basic (or Domestic) Bank Account Number is used in Bank transfers (see also IBAN). For details see ISO 13616 and http://www.ecbs.org/;

• IBAN - International Bank Account Number.

  • you cannot define multiple accounts with the same IBAN, except for IBAN's with containing "TREZ", (Romanian public institution);

  • you cannot define accounts with an invalid IBAN (according to http://www.ecbs.org), although you can define accounts without an IBAN;

The Validate Business Partner process, can be used to verify all business partners or groups for data consistency (invoices, payments and balance).

(v14.11 ) The Validate IBAN / Business Partners report can be used to check if a bank account has been defined for a business partner and if the bank account is correct (IBAN code validation).

Starting with v15.09 the unique IBAN restriction was removed for Treasury accounts - the accounts with the TREZ account code. The unique restriction has been removed because certain Romanian institutions use the same IBAN account.

To define a credit card account, clear the ACH checkbox and complete the the following fields:

• Credit Card - select the credit card type from the list;

• Number - enter the credit card number;

• Exp. Month and Exp. Year - credit card expiration date;

The reference section contains a mandatory field, Account Name, where the name on the credit card or the name of the account holder must be completed. Additional account information can be introduced in the optional fields in this section.

Location

To introduce information regarding the location of a Business Partner, click on the Location tab and enter the corresponding values.

• The Address field is mandatory, while the following ones are optional: Name, Phone, Fax, 2nd Phone, ISDN.

  • the Country, Region and City window, located in the System Admin -> General Rules -> System Rules menu, can be used to define the physical locations available (towns, countries, regions) when defining an address;

    • • Country has Region - if not checked, the "Region" tab will be unavailable, and when defining an address, you will not be able to select a region for the respective country;

  • the Location window, located in the System Admin -> Data -> Utilities menu, contains a list of all the addresses in SocrateCloud and can be used to complete/update address related information;

• The following checkboxes can be selected, depending on what you want to use this location for:

  • Ship Address - the location is used to ship goods to a customer or receive goods from a vendor;

  • Pay-From Address - this location is the address the business partner pays from and where dunning letters will be sent to;

  • Invoice Address - the location is used to send invoices to a customer or receive invoices from a vendor;

  • Remit-To Address - the location is used to receive payments;

• Default checkbox - indicates if this location will be used as a default value;

• Manual checkbox - if checked, the sales region is not updated when the location changes;

• Sales Region - select a sales region from the list (defined in the Sales Region window);

• Global Location Number - www.gs1.org;

• Warehouse - complete with a warehouse associated with the defined location, if the business partner is linked to an organization defined in SocrateCloud and counter-documents are used.

User/Contact

To introduce information related to a User/Contact associated with a Business Partner, click on the Contact (User) tab. Here you will find the list of users linked to the business partner. The available records and fields can also be found in the User window. Details in Users.

Automatically Send Invoice by Email - starting with v15.05 SocrateCloud provides a new functionality through which, after processing customer invoices, they are sent automatically to customers, by email, as PDF files:

• • this process uses the settings made for each business partner, in the Contact (user) tab. t

  • the invoice will be sent by email to all the business partner contacts with the following properties:

  • Automatically Send Invoice by Email = checked

  • Mail Template - the corresponding mail template which will determine the structure of the email;

  • Notification type = "Email" or "Email +Notice"

Automatically Send Order by Email - starting with v17.01 SocrateCloud provides a new functionality through which, after generating processing orders, they are sent automatically to customers, by email, as PDF files:

• • this process uses the settings made for each business partner, in the Contact (user) tab. t

  • the invoice will be sent by email to all the business partner contacts with the following properties:

  • Automatically Send Ordr by Email = checked

  • Order Mail Template - the corresponding mail template which will determine the structure of the email;

  • Notification type = "Email" or "Email +Notice"

Contact email settings:

• • the email is sent from the user who responsible with processing the invoice (document action "Complete" or or through SocrateCloud processes).

  • for this to work, the responsible user must have the necessary connectivity settings it's email account defined.

The Open Order Alert Process:

• • located in the Performance Measurement menu,

• allows you to send email notifications to contacts corresponding to business partners on open orders (representatives, customers or vendors):

• the following parameters are available:

  • Limit Days - selection filter for the orders for which email notifications will be sent (represents the number of days passed since the order was entered);

  • Sales Transaction - selection filter for the orders for which email notifications will be sent (checked for sales orders and cleared for purchase orders);

  • To Email - the process will also send an email notification to this address;

  • Send to Sales Rep - if checked, the process will send an email to the order representative contact;

  • Send to Contact - if checked, depending on order type, the process will send an email to the order customer or vendor contact;

• details in Sales Orders and Purchase Orders;

• the process can be scheduled using the Scheduler functionality.

Subjects of Interest tab:

• • is used to define contact subjects of interest

  • contacts can be grouped by subject of interest with the purpose of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), managing Email distribution lists and Marketing (e.g. newsletters, various notifications).

  • SocrateCloud allows the users to send e-mails to the business partners depending on the interest areas defined for said business partners:

The Send Mail Text process located in the Partner Relations -> Business Partner Rules menu, is used to send emails to the active subscribers to a certain interest area, or to particular business partners or users. Select a Mail Template from the list of pre-defined templates (mail templates can be defined in the Mail Template window, located in the Partner Relations -> Business Partner Rules menu). Before running the process you can specify the following parameters (selection filters): Interest Area, Business Partner Group, To EMail, From User.

The Send Mail Text v2 process:

• • located in the Partner Relations -> Business Partner Rules menu;

• offers the possibility to select the sender (From User), the department that the user belongs to (Position) and can save the e-mail locally (Save To File);

• the From User email address must be compatible with the tenant email settings;

• Note: If you don't select a user, the Mail will be sent from the tenant "Request Mail" user.

Withholdings

Starting with version 14.03, a new tab can be found in the Business Partner window: Withholding. Here is where you can select the predefined withholding rule that will be used in the transactions with this business partner. Details in Withholding Tax.

• Withholding - select the withholding defined in the Withholding window

• Active - select this checkbox to indicate that the record is active

• Has Certificate from Vendor - select this checkbox to indicate that the business partner has a valid certificate

• Valid from - mandatory field, used to indicate the start date of the validity period of the withholding

• Valid to - optional field, used to indicate the end of the withholding validity period

• Comments - optional field, you can use this to enter a short description

Go to the Beneficiaries tab when the reporting of the withholding tax or part of it is done on business partners other than the ones you have transactions with. Select the Beneficiary and enter a numerical value in the Percent field to indicate the percentage of the tax that will be reported on the defined beneficiary. If the sum of the percentages in all the Beneficiary lines is different than 100%, then the rest of it will be reported on the business partner from the master window.

When registering the withholding, you may also attach scanned copies of the received certificates (by using the Attachment button in the main toolbar).

Quick Initialization

SocrateCloud offers the possibility to create partner templates that may be used to quickly define Business Partners when introducing documents. The templates are defined in the Tenant Info tab found in the Tenant window accessed via Main Menu>Initial Setup>Tenant Rules>Tenant. In In order to denote a Business Partner Template, you need to select a business partner in the Template B. Partner field.

To create a new Business Partner Template you need to create a business partner in the Business Partner window, found in Main Menu>Partner Relations>Business Partner Rules>Business Partner and then select it in the Tenant Info tab.

To use a Business Partner Template right click on any field that requires a Business Partner (Customer, Vendor, Employees). A list with available actions will be displayed. By clicking on New Record, the Business Partner definition window will open, where you have to fill in the Name and Address.

The partner will automatically be saved and you will be able to view/modify it in the Business Partner window. This save will absorb the data from the Business Partner Template, including the credit limit established at template level.