• From: Netherlands
  • Registered: 10/29/2009
  • Posts: 64

Topic: Why Branche + Customer

My business is focussed on retailers selling to end-users and small companies.

I'm trying to increase efficiency on the invoicing. Invoicing with frontaccounting requires me to add a customer AND a branche. Why this choice? I would prefer one customer list without having to add branches and link these to the customers.

Or what I'm at least looking for is an easier new customer generation because now I have to go to the Sales menu, add a customer, go back to the sales menu and then add a branch. Would there be a smarter (shorter) way of entering customers?

I hope you can advise as maybe I overlooked something.

  • Registered: 12/25/2007
  • Posts: 2,448

Re: Why Branche + Customer

You can entry one general 'Retail client' customer. After this you can entry all your customers as branches. The only shortcoming is that you cannot entry individual GST numbers for yor cilents, but in most cases this is not needed.

FrontAccounting was designed mainly for B2B sales, where multi-branch company structure are often standard.
Janusz

  • From: Netherlands
  • Registered: 10/29/2009
  • Posts: 64

Re: Why Branche + Customer

I tried your suggestion to setup a 'Retail client' and use brances for my end-user clients. However the side effect is that I see 'Retail client' on my invoice without any reference to the real client name which I then entered as the branch name.

I think I better stick to the customer-branche structure. I just discovered the button to add/edit new branches within the customer form which will also speed up efficiency.

I just have to get used to it that it are two forms. Maybe when all was integrated into one form then the header would be the customer and the detail lines to be the branches.

Oh wait, while I'm typing I tried to enter a billing address at the branche and now I get that billing address on the invoice. This brings me to reconsider you suggestion. Do you know if there are (potential) other side effects so I can anticipate?

The one for the VAT number is ok for me. I don't track the customer VAT number. It does however surprice me that the VAT number is fixed to the customer because even different branches could have different VAT numbers. Especially for international companies.

  • Registered: 12/25/2007
  • Posts: 2,448

Re: Why Branche + Customer

There should be no side effects.

In our model two companies with different VAT numbers are two different companies. And they in fact two different companies from accounting/fiscal point of view. They have to pay taxes for different authorities, and the fact they share e.g. company name or have the same owners does not matter.

Janusz

  • Registered: 10/12/2011
  • Posts: 6

Re: Why Branche + Customer

I agree with shopimport, a speedy entry of an invoice requires an easy user friendly process of adding new customer without living the invoice screen in first place. Furthermore, many businesses have individual customers; no branching is required. Being forced to enter a Customer Branch is a nuisance for users. I highly recommend FA to implement a popup dialog with a simple New Customer Form, save the data with AJAX call and fill Invoice Entry screen using DHTML. As far as Customer Branch the Company Setup should have the option to simply Enable or Disable it. Please let us know if and when you would implement such functionality. Thank you!

  • HROP
  • New member
  • Offline
  • From: Canada
  • Registered: 04/08/2012
  • Posts: 9

Re: Why Branche + Customer

I would alo like to be updated if there is a possibility to remove the branching for customers. I also work in retail, and there is no need for suchfeature, turning it off would be very useful.

  • joe
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 03/15/2007
  • Posts: 5,107

Re: Why Branche + Customer

The branches are containing many more fields than the customer. AS per default a branch is created every time a customer is created, so you don't have to bother. This requires that the variable $auto_create_branch is set to 1 (default) in config.php about line 77.

/Joe

  • Impaq
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 03/23/2012
  • Posts: 3

Re: Why Branche + Customer

as advised above, changed variable $auto_create_branch to 1, but still ask for the branch? why? also, when you select a customer, can you just select a customer full name instead of short name? or a drop down list start with a same letter?

  • Impaq
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 03/23/2012
  • Posts: 3

Re: Why Branche + Customer

try to do order entry, got this: The selected customer and branch are not valid, or the customer does not have any branches.