Tip of the Month for: December 2014

Prospect System

One of the new enhancements in Answers 4.5 is the addition of a Prospect System.  The Prospect System allows you to enter and track sales calls, quotes, and other information for potential customers without having to set them up in your actual customer file.

With the Prospect System, your users can:

• Enter and maintain prospective customer addresses, notes, shipping and contact information.

• Enter, fax, and email quotes to prospective customers.

• Enter and keep track of sales calls and other Task Reminder history and information.

• Send credit reference requests and maintain credit history information.

 The Prospect System is found under Order Processing.  There is a maintenance and an inquiry, both which function similar to Customer Maintenance and Customer Inquiry. 

Prospects are set up with six digit numbers, similar to customers.  The system does not automatically assign a number, you have the flexibility of using the numbering scheme you desire.  Since the prospect system is completely separate from the customer system, it is possible for a prospect to use the same number as an existing customer.  If you convert a prospect to a customer, however, they cannot use the same number and you will have to assign the new customer a unique customer account number.

The maintenance and inquiry allow you to set up many of the same fields as are required for customers.  This includes tax jurisdiction number, terms, contacts, shipping addresses, credit limits, and many other fields.  All of this information will transfer to the customer master should you choose to make this prospect a customer at some later time. 

You can also set up additional contacts, notes, scanned images, and even take advantage of the Word documents for prospective customers.

Quotation Entry will allow you to search and select prospect customers.  When entering a quote and searching for a customer number, there is a Prospect Search button at the bottom of the customer search window.  When searching for existing quotes, there is a selection to search either customer quotes or prospect quotes.

The Salesman WorkCenter will allow adding new prospects as well, so that salesman can manage their prospects from their WorkCenters.

Once a prospect customer accepts a quote, they will have to be converted to a customer before you can convert a quote to an order.  Prospective customers cannot have sales orders, or account balances, so they must be converted to the customer file at that time.  There are two ways to convert a prospect to customer.  First, in Prospect Maintenance, there is an icon on the toolbar, , to allow converting to a customer.  At this point, the user will be asked what customer # they wish to give the new customer.  All the prospect information, including notes, images, contacts, shipping addresses, and credit information will be converted to the customer master file.  All quotes entered will also be converted to the new customer. 

The second way to convert a prospect to a customer is in Quotation Entry.  When you try to use the Make Order button on a prospect quote, Answers will prompt you to convert the prospect to a customer at that time.  Prospects cannot have open orders, so you cannot convert a prospect quote to an order without making the prospect a customer. 

There is a configuration option, #38 under A/R options that allows you to password protect the user ability to convert prospects to customers.

The Prospect System allows your users to more effectively manage the clients they are working with while they are not yet customers, to keep from "junking" up your customer data file.  There is a Prospect Listing that can be printed with criteria of a last action date to show you the last contact, quote, history with prospects to allow you to manage the prospect list and purge out those prospects that are unlikely to actually become customers.