Introduction to Customers and Customer Records

This Knowledge Base article serves as an overview of the Customers module inside the Operations App, where you’ll create and manage all your customer records.

Customer records are used inside the Operations App as profiles for your clients, containing key information like their address, contact info, accounting details, as well as important settings for their Shipment behaviors, Client Portal capabilities, Alert notifications and more. You will associate a unique ID number with each Customer record as well.

Customer records are a critical component for both On-Demand and Routed workflows within the Operations App.

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Navigating the Customers Module

You can get started by going to the Maintenance tab in the sidebar > Customers.

Once you’re in the Customers module, you can use the Search bar to look for specific customer records, filtering by Name, ID, Address and more.
You can also use the icons in the top right to Edit Layout, swap to Table View or swap to Card View, respectively.

Now, you can use either the Create New button in the top right corner to make a brand new Customer record OR select an existing Customer record for editing.

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Creating and Editing a Customer Record

Now that you have a Customer record open, you can begin entering in key information.

If this is a new customer, under the General view, start by assigning an ID, either by manually entering a number or using the Generate Customer ID button to automatically add the next available ID number; you can configure the Customer ID assignment behavior in the Global Options menu under the Misc tab > Customer ID Algorithm.

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General

This view is used to enter in basic information about the customer. The most commonly used fields and settings are:

• The customer’s name and unique ID number within your Operations App

• The customer’s address

• The primary contact for the customer and their details

• Assigning labels to the customer, useful for generating reports around customers that all have the same label; labels can be managed under the Maintenance tab > Labels

• Assigning a Business Unit (typically used for accounting and reporting purposes)

• Assigning a Customer Source (to keep track of how this customer first heard about your business)

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Shipments

This view is used to configure Shipment behavior for this customer, for both On-Demand and Routed work, and what options are available to them when they place an order through the Client Portal. The most commonly used fields and settings are:

• Requiring Visual-Proof-of-Delivery (VPOD) from the driver for Shipments and/or a Signature on delivery of the Shipment

• Credit card payment method settings:

  • Never Accept Credit Cards when a customer is placing an order in the Client Portal

  • Accept Credit Cards when a customer is placing an order in the Client Portal

  • Only Accept Credit Cards when a customer is placing an order in the Client Portal (preventing invoiced orders)

• Force Location Scan on Delivery/Pickup, requiring the driver to perform a barcode scan before they can advance; typically used to enforce a strong chain-of-custody record

• Default fields, such as Default Order Type, autofill on every Shipment to make creation quick and easy, and can be changed at any point as operational requirements evolve

• Caption fields can be used to change field headings on the Shipment form, useful to fit customer-appropriate verbiage, like renaming the Origin field to “Pickup” instead

• Several fields are available to place notes about the customer, including notes for the driver, reminders for the CSR, etc.

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Accounting

This view is used to set billing info, frequency, invoice appearance and behavior, rate charts, surcharges, and payment methods for the customer. The most commonly used fields and settings are:

• Billing Contact, who will typically be the customer’s primary accountant who will be reviewing invoices you send to the customer

• Account Status, which lets you designate whether the customer is in good standing, is past due, on credit hold, blacklisted, etc.

• Require verification before invoices and/or settlements (requires the user to manually confirm all the entered information is correct each time)

• Billing Cycle frequency; daily, weekly, etc.

• Create a separate invoice for each order, which determines whether each Shipment gets a separate invoice or they’re all added together

• Route Surcharge Adjustment and Calculated % (including Global), which lets you make Routed work percentage-based fee adjustments for this specific customer

• Add a New Card as a payment method

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Contact

This view is used to manage the primary Contact person/s for the customer. The most commonly used fields and settings are:

• Require during order entry forces a user creating a Shipment to select a Contact person, or create a new one

• Automatically save during order entry will save any new Contact persons added during creating a Shipment for future usage

• Add a Contact lets you add a Contact person, their role with the customer and any information needed to reach them like email or phone number

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Alerts

This view lets you configure Alert notification behavior for the customer, keeping them updated on the status of their Shipments with email and/or SMS messages.

The most commonly used fields and settings are:

• Default Email Address/SMS Text Alerts will autofill this notification method onto all Shipments for the customer

• Required during order entry forces the user creating the Shipment to set up Alert details, ensuring the customer will receive Alerts on every Shipment

• Automatically save during order entry will preserve the Alert details set up on a Shipment for future use

• The View Message Format button will take you to a new window where you can edit the Message Format for the Status Update. For more information, read our Knowledge Base article on Message Formats.

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Inet Users (AKA Internet Users)

This view lets you add and manage Inet Users for this customer; Inet Users access the Client Portal to place orders for Shipments, track Shipments in real-time, review invoices, and more.

The Operations App gives you powerful, granular control over what your customer's Inet Users can see and do in the Client Portal, so for a full breakdown of every feature, read our dedicated Knowledge Base article on Inet Users.

Display Driver Location controls the visibility of the driver’s current location map pin in the Client Portal for this customer; you can also configure this behavior on individual Inet User records under Inet User record > Options tab > Display Driver Location, or universally in the Global Options menu under Inet Options > Display Driver Location. In other words, you can set the behavior at the customer-level, Inet User-level or Global-level.

Click + Add Internet User to create a new account or select an existing one to edit.

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More (Dropdown Menu)

The dropdown menu includes extra options for this customer record. The second-to-last view selection bubble is dynamic and will change to whatever you selected last from the dropdown menu; by default, it’s Inet Users.

Notes

This simple view lets you create internal notes for this Customer record, with date stamps.

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CRM Fields

This tab is for viewing and managing the customer’s CRM Fields, an optional feature typically used to record detailed Customer Relationship Management info like customer disposition, lifecycle, etc.

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Commissions

This view is an optional, simple tool used for creating and tracking commissions, percentage-based payments typically used to compensate sales staff. These are included in Settlements and can be used to generate reports.

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Parcels

This view is for managing Parcels behavior for the customer. Parcels are an optional feature that lets you associate much more information with a delivery item, such as type, sub-items inside, refrigeration requirements, and more. They also make it much easier to track the journey of an item and chain-of-custody.

• Available Parcel Types sets which kinds of Parcels are available for the customer to select in the Client Portal and which kinds the driver can select when scanning parcels for the customer (Box, Pallet, Envelope, Cooler, Specimen, etc)

• Available Parcel Items sets which Parcel Items (smaller units inside a main parcel, like Red Tops and Blue Tops inside a medical cooler parcel type) drivers can choose from on a shipment (driver also selects the quantity of each).

• Required Mobile Route Parcel Types prompt drivers to enter the quantity of the specified Parcel Type upon arrival at the specified type of route stop (Pickup, Delivery, Exchange, etc)

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Req. Input (AKA Required Driver Input or RDI)

This view lets you set prompts for drivers, for both On-Demand and Routed work. They will be required to complete the prompt (“Enter Code”, “Check Fridge”, etc) before they can proceed. You can select whether the on-demand prompt is for Pickup or Delivery, and the type of prompt (entering in Text, Numbers, activating a Toggle, a Gallery photo, etc).

For Routed work, you can also choose which Stop Types this applies to. For more information, read our Knowledge Base article on Required Driver Input.

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Billing Groups

This view is used for managing billing group behavior for the customer. Billing groups are typically used to break down an invoice into sub-groups for an organization, such as per department line items (sales, maintenance, etc).

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Tasks

This view offers a simple task management tool that shows both your To Do tasks and Completed tasks. You can set the name of the task, the user responsible for it, a time-based reminder, a due date, comments, and use a Mark As Completed button with attached timestamp when it’s finished.

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References

This view is used to create and manage references for customer shipments. References are customizable fields that appear on Shipments in the Operations App and within the Client Portal. An example of use would be a courier service that does pharmaceutical deliveries; they might need a specific field for capturing pharmacy license number.

First, click + Add a Reference, give it a Reference Name and select a Reference Type to enable the field appearing, then save; use the fields and settings below to configure its behavior. If you select a Reference Type of Reference 1, you would use Display Caption 1 and Reference 1 Format fields to configure.

• The Display Caption field is what you want your customer to see in the Client Portal for this field when they are submitting an order; per the above example, for the pharmacy’s Inet User placing the order, you might name this field something like “Pharmacy License Identification Number”. It also changes the header text on the Operations App Shipment form.

• Reference Format puts light grey text in the custom field as an example: per the above example, we might put in a dummy pharmacy license code like [PSC1234567890A] to indicate they need to enter their own pharmacy license number

• Require Reference forces an entry for the field; again, per the above example, this would require the pharmacy’s license number before submitting the order

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Attachments

This view offers a simple tool for adding and managing attachments like images, videos, text files, and more for this customer record.

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Status Codes

This view lets you choose which Status Codes (Left at Door, Damaged, Rejected, etc) are available on all On-Demand and Routed work for this customer. Enforce Status Codes List means drivers and users will only be able to add Status Codes that are ticked. For more information, read our Knowledge Base article on Status Codes.

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Invoices

This view lets you view and manage individual invoices sent to this customer, as well as set Credit Limits for them and the length of grace periods of overdue payment before Credit Hold Enforcement begins.

• Enable Credit Limit means that after the set $ limit is reached, the customer will not be able to place any additional orders on credit in the Client Portal

• Start Past Due Warning and Start Credit Hold Enforcement let you set automated behaviors for the customer when they are delinquent on payment; either option can be set to Use Global Option, Never, 15 Days, 30 Days, 45 Days or 60 Days.

• For individual invoices, in their menu, you can modify their payment status, email them, or save them as a PDF

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Audit Trail

In the bottom right corner of every customer record, you can use the menu to access the Audit Trail; this record shows changes made to the customer record, which user made the change and a corresponding timestamp. The Audit Trail can be used to identify errors in your workflow or if a specific user erroneously altered a customer’s settings.

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