Decide how you are going to identify your Customers, for example:

By automatically generated number. See Sales Ledger Options - Records.

By the first few characters of the Customer Name followed by, for example, two digits to cope with names such as Smith or Jones: e.g. SMIT01

By an artificially created Code, for example XX for type of Customer (Wholesale, Retail etc.), followed by AAA for their location, followed by perhaps the second example above, e.g. RETLONSMI01

Decide what trading Terms you are going to give your Customers.

Select Terms Template. Enter the default Terms you are going to give your new Customers.

Select Debtors ribbon

Select Customers

Click on Insert, and when the empty Customer record is displayed:

Click on the GB VAT menu bar and select whether this Customer is to be subject to GB VAT, is in an EU State, or is in a non EU State (i.e. is not in the 'Home' Country).

If you are not using automatically generated Codes, enter the identifier Code based on the decision above. You MUST enter this, but most of the remaining information is not obligatory, and CAN be entered later.

Enter the Customer Name

Enter the main Company Address

Enter the Town, Phone Number, County, Fax Number, Post Code and Mobile Number.

Enter the Customer's Email Address, if this is known - this enables the email functions to work with this Customer.

If this Customer is to be allowed to trade in Any Currency, click on this box.

On the Function icons at the top of the window:

This Customer will be given the default Terms that you have set up in Terms Template, if you wish this Customer to have different Terms, click on the Terms icon on the window's toolbar and the Terms for THIS Customer will be displayed, based on the Template. You can change any details that you want.

Unless you do not have the information now, click on the VAT icon on the window's toolbar, and enter the VAT Registration details. The other details can be entered if you wish. Some Transaction entry restrictions may result if required information is missing.

The Sales and Bank Analysis fields enable you to assign this Customer's Transactions to a specific Analysis, which overrides the defaults, but in turn can be overridden by another Analysis being selected when Transactions are being entered. (See Order of Precedence of Analysis Codes).

The VAT field enables you to assign a default VAT Code to this Customer, which will override the default when entering Transactions, but which can itself be manually overridden at that point.

If this Customer has been given an EU State status (above), then you can also enter or select the Delivery, Transaction and Transport SSD Codes.

Click on the Multiple Address icon. Check that the document flags are set correctly for the address carried across from the main record. If different addresses are to be used for some, or all, documents: enter the address details and set the document flags appropriately.

On the Tab Cards:

You can use the Sort Key and User Sort key fields on the Sort Key tab to categorise your Customers. For example: you could use these fields to associate a Customer with say a Sales Area, a Representative or to record their Industry Sector. These categories can then be used for selection in reports.

Click on the Contact tab, and enter the information you have about your Contact at this Customer. The Company menu bar enables you to give the Customer a very broad classification.

Click on the Bank tab, and enter this Customer's Bank details.

Click on OK to complete the record.