Register New Customers

Customers are your source of income. You must register each customer you sell to as a customer card. Customer cards contain the information required to sell products to the customer. Learn more at Invoice Sales and Register New Items.

Before you can register new customers, you must set up various sales codes to choose from when you fill in customer cards. Learn more at Setting Up Sales.

Adding new customers

You can add new customers manually by filling out the Customer Card page, or you can use templates that contain predefined information. For example, you can create a template for different types of customer profiles. Using templates saves time when adding new customers, and helps ensure the information is correct each time.

If you create:

• Multiple templates for use with more than one type of customer, you can choose the suitable template when you add a customer.
• Only one template, it is used for all new customers.

After you create a template, you can use the Apply Template action to apply it to one or more selected customers. To create a template, fill in the information to be reused on the Customer Card page, then save it as a template. Learn more in the To save the customer card as a template section.

Tip

It can be helpful to personalise the Customer Template page when you create a template. For example, you might want to add the Credit Limit field to a template. Learn more in the Personalise your workspace section.

You can also create a customer from a contact. Learn more in the To create a customer, vendor, employee, or bank account from a contact section.

To create a new customer card

1. Choose the icon, enter Customers, and then choose the related link.

2. On the Customers page, choose the New action.

   If only one customer template exists, then a new customer card opens with some fields filled with information from the template.

   If more than one customer template exists, then a page opens from which you can select a customer template. In that case, follow the next two steps.

3. On the Select a template for a new customer page, choose the template that you want to use for the new customer card.

4. Choose the OK button. A new customer card opens with some fields filled with information from the template.

5. Proceed to fill or change fields on the customer card as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description.

The Prices & Discounts action provides options for managing special prices or discounts for a customer when an order meets certain criteria. Examples of such criteria might be when they're purchasing a certain item, ordering a minimum quantity, or buying before a date, such as when a campaign ends. Learn more at Record Sales Price, Discount, and Payment Agreements.

The customer is now registered, and the customer card is ready to be used on sales documents.

To save the customer card as a template

You can use a customer card as a template when you create new customer cards.

1. On the Customer Card page, choose the Save as Template action. The Customer Template page opens showing the customer card as a template.
2. Fill in the fields as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description.
3. To reuse dimensions in templates, choose the Dimensions action. The Dimension Templates page opens showing any dimension codes set up for the customer.
4. Edit or enter dimension codes you want to apply to new customer cards created with this template.
5. When you have completed the new customer template, choose OK.

The customer template is added to the list of customer templates, and you can use it to create new customer cards.

Deleting customer cards

If you have posted a transaction for a customer, you cannot delete the customer card because the ledger entries may be needed for auditing. To delete customer cards with ledger entries, contact your Microsoft partner to do so through code.

Managing credit limits

Credit limits, balance amounts, and payment terms make it possible for Business Central to issue a credit and an overdue balance warning when you enter a sales order. Furthermore, reminder term and finance charge term elements enable you to invoice interest and/or extra fees.

The Credit Limit field on a customer card specifies the maximum amount you allow the customer to exceed the payment balance before warnings are issued. Then, when you enter information in journals, quotes, orders, and invoices, Business Central tests the sales header and individual sales lines to see if the credit limit has been exceeded.

You can post even if the credit limit has been exceeded. If the field is left blank, there will be no credit limit for this customer.

You can choose not to have warnings tell you the customer's credit limit has been exceeded, and you can specify which types of warnings you want to see.

To specify credit limit warnings

1. Choose the icon, enter Sales & Receivables Setup, then choose the related link.

2. On the General FastTab, in the Credit Warnings field, choose the relevant option as described in the following table:

   Option	Description
   Both Warnings	Both the Credit Limit and the Balance Due fields on the customer's card are checked, and a warning is shown if the customer exceeds its credit limit or has an overdue balance.
   Credit Limit	The value in the Credit Limit field on the customer's card is compared with the customer's balance, and a warning is shown if the customer's balance exceeds this amount.
   Overdue Balance	The Balance Due field on the customer's card is checked, and a warning is shown if the customer has an overdue balance.
   No Warning	No credit warnings are shown regarding the customer's status.

See related Microsoft training.

See also

Defining Payment Methods
Merge Duplicate Records
Create Number Series
Enable Partial Shipments with Shipping Advice
Sales
Setting Up Sales
Use Online Maps to Find Locations and Directions
Work with Business Central

Find free e-learning modules for Business Central here