A customer may be set up using standard maintenance function, or on-the-fly in Point of Sale.

Basic customer information includes name, address, email, two contact names, fax numbers, and phone numbers. A customer may be assigned to a specific user-defined category to group similar customers for reporting and analysis.

Customer numbers may be manually entered or assigned automatically. When a new customer is added, much of the basic information may be copied from another customer to help reduce errors and speed up the entry process, or a template customer may be defined.

Customers can be selected by entering the customer's number, scanning a customer ID card, or by searching for keywords that match any portion of the customer's name, company name, telephone number, etc.

For a charge sale, CounterPoint checks the customer's credit limit, and only an authorized user may override credit limits.

Easily remove inactive customers from CounterPoint. Inactive customers are those that have no open orders or layaways, no open balances, no unposted balances, and no sales activity after the specified cutoff date.

Customers

You can select a customer by entering the customer's number, company name, telephone number, ZIP code, customer card, or just a portion of the first or last name. You may also designate a walk-in customer with a single keystroke. For charge sales, the customer's credit limit is checked, and only authorized users may override the credit limit.

You can zoom in on the customer's account to see balance owed, credit limit, last payment date, account aging, and even detailed sales history.

New customers can be added on-the-fly from Ticket Entry, and customer numbers can be assigned automatically. Unlimited pages of notes can be displayed for a customer. A specially identified page of notes can be automatically displayed whenever you access the customer.

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Customer profiles allow you to build a valuable database of information to assist in analyzing and marketing to your customers. Up to 20 user-defined profile fields may be tracked for each customer, such as birthday, preferences, shoe size, membership status, etc.

Each user-defined profile field is set up to only allow certain types of information. For example, "birthday" would only allow valid date entries, "shoe size" would only allow numeric entries between a specified range of values, etc. In addition, you may set up user-defined profile codes to ensure that (for example) "membership status" is selected from a list of valid user-defined values (e.g., Gold, Silver, or Bronze).

Easily select a customer by entering the customer number, scanning a membership ID card, or by using LookUps. With LookUps, you can find the customer using a keyword search by entering any portion of the customer name or number, or by any field designated as a keyword search field.

Customize LookUps by setting the order in which the records display or by specifying which fields display (category, sales rep, email address, etc.). You can filter LookUps so that only customers that match specific criteria will display. For example, you could define a Filter that displays only your A/R customers that live in New York that are in the "Preferred" category. You can save LookUps and Filters by name for future use.

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You can easily view detailed customer information whenever you look up or view a customer.

Zooms provide information about the customer including current balance, last payment date, recent sales, open orders, ship-to addresses, layaways, customer-specific purchases, images, customer notes, and detailed ticket history. You can customize the format and the fields that display in the Zoom.

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Each customer may have an unlimited number of shipping addresses, and the default ship-to address can be different from the primary address. Each shipping address may have its own tax code, preferred shipping method, and specific ship-to notes that can be printed on invoices.

For basic retail sales, a tax code is assigned to the store.

Customers may have multi-level tax codes assigned that indicate special tax rates or taxing authorities. If applicable, a customer may be non-taxable, and the customer's tax exemption number may be entered and retained in CounterPoint.

You can optionally specify a tax code for each customer's ship-to address. If a ship-to tax code is specified, tax calculations are based on that code instead of the customer's tax code.

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Credit limits ensure that customers do not exceed management's guidelines for open credit. In addition, individual customers may be prevented from paying by check, making charge sales, making any kind of sale, or even from placing orders.

For charge sales, the customer's credit limit is checked, and only authorized users may override the credit limit.

Credit card information may be retained for each customer and may be retrieved automatically when paying for a purchase.

Each customer must have a sales rep assigned. Point of Sale may be configured to allow a different sales rep (other than the one specified in the customer's record) to receive credit for a particular sale.

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A customer may have unlimited pages of notes. These notes may be viewed, printed on forms and labels, and even be set to automatically display when the clerk references the customer.

Easily find your notes simply by entering a key word or phrase. For example, enter "special order" in the keyword search field to find all item notes that contain that text.

Labels may be printed for any range or grouping of customers. Customer labels can be printed from ticket history based on merchandise purchased during a specific time period. For example, you can print mailing labels (ordered by ZIP code) for charge customers who purchased at least $100 worth of merchandise from your downtown store last year.

A multi-year monthly summary view is available for each customer showing sales, cost, profitability (dollars and percent), number of sales, and average sale amounts. Complete, detailed history shows every item sold on every ticket, or summarizes individual categories of merchandise.

Historical reports are available using the Sales History application.

Customer listings (brief and full) are available, organized by type of customer, customer number, ZIP code, name, etc., to show basic customer information, credit rating, and payment information. Customers may be included in reports based on their categories, their profiles, or any other criteria.