Chapter 6 Contact
Contact helps you manage Additional Contacts from Customers, Vendors, Employees. Contact also includes Notes used for system notifications and messages to other users.
Customers are often companies and their Contacts are people, roles, ship-to addresses. For a large customer you may have hundreds of Ship-to's invoiced as one big company.
Contact provides the tools to manage lookup and linking so you have Ship-To's, Email Addresses, and presets like Sales Tax or Ship Method easily selected and ready to use.
Contacts Inactive
Contacts Inactive lets you hide customer contacts or ship-to's that are no longer useful.
If a distribution customer closes a location, replaces an employee, or has a duplicate, set the Contact to Inactive to remove from lists like Ship To Other, or Send Email To.
Contacts Show
Contacts in Show menu finds all matching contacts including those marked Inactive.
Customer card has Additional Contacts for handling a few Contacts. The Contact tool next to Docs helps manage many Ship-To's, set Tax Status or Ship Method, and more.
But to see all contacts or ship-to's including any marked Inactive use Show, Contacts.
Contacts Converting
You can use Contact Cards to keep track of potential clients or suppliers. Big Business lets you automatically convert Contact Cards into Customer or Vendor Cards when needed.
This Solution describes Converting Contacts to Customers or Vendors. (3093)
You probably use Contact Cards to keep track of potential clients or suppliers. Big Business lets you automatically convert Contact Cards into Customer or Vendor Cards.
When you convert a contact, a new Customer or Vendor Card is created and the Contact Card is deleted.
To convert Contact Cards:
1. In a Contact Card, click the Convert to Customer or Convert to Vendor button.
2. Click the Convert button in the confirmation dialog box that appears.
Big Business converts the Contact Card and displays the resulting Customer or Vendor Card.
Contacts Assign Codes
Big Business includes Auto-Generate Codes features so that Duplicating a card or Converting (e.g. from Contact to Customer) will assign a new Code, such as Item Code, Vendor Code, or Customer Code.
This Solution describes the new behavior. (5905)
Big Business includes the option to Auto-Generate Codes for new:
• Customer Cards - set in the Customer Prefs
• Vendor Cards - set in the Vendor Prefs
• Item Cards - set in the Item Prefs
In the Prefs, you click the Auto-Generate checkbox and enter the Next Number and Big Business automatically assigns the next number to the next new card.
When you Duplicate an existing card, Auto-Generate Codes will assign the next number to the new card created by duplication.
When you Convert a Contact to new Customer or Vendor Card, Auto-Generate Codes will assign the next number to the new card created by conversion.
Contacts Customer Ship-To's
Customer Ship-To's are the main use for Contact especially with your large customers.
On Quote, Order, or Invoice after selecting Customer, click Other in Ship-To to choose a Contact to fill in Shipping Name, Address, Email, Tax Status, Store, and much more.
Choose Live List in My Prefs, Dialog Prefs, to use a dynamic list with column Filters. Filter to find addresses instantly among hundreds of Ship-To's for national customers.
Customer Email Addresses
Customer Email Addresses is another popular use for Contact for emailing to multiple.
In Print Options for a Quote, Order, or Invoice choose Send Email To and select a few. Contacts for the customer will be listed and selectable by name or title to send as CC's.
Contacts Bill-To's
Contacts Bill-To's let you select a Contact for billing and loads their contact information.
Use the Other button in Bill To on a Quote, Order, or Invoice to select a Contact card. This will update the Bill To and fill in Billing tab with Address, Phone, and Email info.
Contacts Email Addresses
If you accumulate Email Addresses in Big Business, you may want to Find and Export them for use in another program. This Solution provides some tips for:
• Finding Customers, Vendors, and Contacts with Email Addresses
• Exporting them
This Solution provides the Search criteria for finding entries containing email addresses and using Save To Disk to export them. (6010)
Big Business includes an Email Address field on Customer, Vendor, and Contact Cards. There is also a Phone Label that reads, Email, for storing Email Address in one of the four Phone Number fields. Here are some examples using Customer Cards.
To Find Customers with Email Addresses:
1. Choose Find Cust from the Customer toolbar.
2. Use the Search: Email Address, Is Not Equal To, [blank]
3. Click the Find button (or type Return).
To Export the results from the Customer List:
1. Click Export.
2. Name and Save the export file in a convenient location.
Export writes a Tab-Text (tab delimited) file that can then be imported to another program. For example, in the Thunderbird email client program, you can choose Import from the Tools menu, choose Address Books, choose Text file, and choose Tab delimited on the Open dialog, then map the import fields. See your email program's Help for specifics on if and how it imports from text files.
Contacts Ship-To's
Ship-To Lookup is a new feature to simplify:
- choosing a location for customers with many Ship To addresses
- choosing a contact for customers with many buyers
- B2B ecommerce from companies with multiple purchasers
- importing Orders for customers with multiple Ship To addresses
This Solution provides details (6767).
Ship-To Lookup works on the Sales Order Line Item import. Map an Email Address or ShipID1 to the Ship To (Lookup) field. The matching Contact will automatically be selected and used to populate Shipping Name and Address, Sales Tax, Ship Method and more.
Contacts Search
Big Business includes a Show menu entry for Contacts on the Customer Search.
This option makes it easy to find the Additional Contacts belonging to a group of Customers, such as All customers or those assigned a particular Salesperson. These Contacts are added to Customers to record Shipping Addresses , Email Addresses, and more.
This Solution describes this QuickFind entry. (6560)
The QuickFind on the Customer Search includes Contacts.
Choose Contacts to view the Contacts belonging to the found Customers. These are the Contacts that appear on the Customer Card.
Contacts Linked To
When you create Additional Contacts on a Customer Card or Vendor Card or Employee Card, they are added to the Contacts on the Contact toolbar. You can export or print labels from the Contacts Search, which shows Linked To. (5730)
Big Business includes Linked To in the Contact seach criteria. You can find Addtional Contacts created from Customer, Vendor, or Employee cards.
When you create Additional Contacts on a Customer or Vendor Card, they are added to the Contacts file on the InfoCenter toolbar. You can export or print labels from the Contact QuickSearch. You can also view the Contact and see the File of Origin (Customer, Vendor, or blank for Contact).
Contacts Roles
Big Business includes Contacts which are linked to Customers or Vendors to handle a few basic functions:
• you can list Ship-To Addresses for a customer for easy selection
• you can list Email Addresses for a customer for easy sending of PDF's
Contact Roles are checkboxes that let you set a Contact as:
• Refundee - to set a Mailing Address for Refund Checks
• Email Statements - to set an Email Address for Emailing Statements
Contacts Tool
Big Business includes the Contacts tool for quick access to phones, emails, and shipping addresses, where you need them.
This Solution provides details. (6747)
Contacts My Notes
My Notes is the new name of the Notes search on the Contacts toolbar. As always, My Notes finds Notes that were sent to you, including:
• Notes from other users in Big Business
• Notes you sent to yourself
• Notes from Big Business