Structure and Concepts

Customer Concepts

The Accounts Receivable module was designed to accommodate the complex and ever-changing needs of corporate structures. To accomplish this goal, there are four key customer-related fields. In the most simplistic scenario, all of the fields have the same customer code. In the most complex scenario, all of these fields could have different customer codes.

Every customer must be assigned to a billing customer.

Customer	This is the customer used for sales order entry and sales analysis. For mass merchant customers (e.g., Wal-Mart), this would equate to one of their retail stores.
Billing Customer	All of the customers for the same billing customer are aggregated together for collection and chargeback management. All accounts receivable open items are posted directly to the billing customer.

Each billing customer must be assigned a credit customer and a paying customer.

Credit Customer	All of the billing customers for the same credit customer are aggregated together for credit management (e.g., processing sales orders for credit holds)
Paying Customer	All of the billing customers for the same paying customer are aggregated together for payment application (and non-sufficient funds reverse deposit entry) .

Accounts Receivable Transaction Concepts

An accounts receivable transaction (e.g., invoice, chargeback, etc.) is never permanently closed. It is temporarily closed if the open amount is zero, however, it can be re-opened if adjustments are made to it. For example, if a customer pays an invoice twice, that invoice could have a negative open amount.

Team Concepts

Each billing customer is assigned a chargeback team and a collection team.

Each credit customer is assigned a credit team.

A team acts as a user security filter for billing and credit customers for certain programs. If you are a member of a team, then you are allowed to view and perform accounts receivable-related activities on all customers assigned to that team.

Each team can have one or multiple users as team members. A user can be a member of multiple teams. In order for a user to be eligible for selection as a team member, they must be given that capability in User Extended Options.

This team structure provides flexibility and is easy to maintain. If users leave the company or move to another department, it’s easy to remove them from teams. As new users begin working in the accounts receivable department, it’s also easy to assign them to teams.

To create a hierarchical structure using teams, the users at the top of this pyramid would be assigned as team members for all teams. As you move further down the hierarchical structure, users would be assigned as team members for fewer teams.

For example, you have set up five chargebacks teams, as follows:

	Team 1	Team 2	Team 3	Team 4	Team 5
User 1
User 2
User 3
User 4
User 5

User 1 can perform chargeback-related activities for all customers. User 5 can only perform chargeback-related activities for billing customers that have been assigned to Team 2.

Customer, Group, and Division Concepts

Customers are grouped together to share the same rules for analytical purposes, as follows:

Accounts Receivable Area	Customer Type	Group	Division
Chargeback management	Billing customer	Chargeback group	Chargeback division
Collection Management	Billing customer	Collection group	Collection division
Credit Management	Credit customer	Credit group	Credit division

Example Credit Group ABC Is set up with a credit limit of $5,000. All credit customers in Credit Group ABC (that are set up to default to Group) will have this same credit limit. Customer 123 in Credit Group ABC can override the credit limit to $7,500, but still use the other credit rules set up for Credit Group ABC.

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