• Simplifies Customer Order Management
• Expidites Customer Return Processing
• Improves Company Image
• Ensures Fast Customer Quotation Processing

This module consists of the following functions: Sales Order Processing, Shipping and Invoicing, and Customer Service. The Customer Service subsystem consists of an exhaustive assortment of customer, order, line item, and pricing queries that provide your customer service department with advanced information processing technology that will greatly improve their level of performance. In addition, the Customer Service subsystem includes a variety of sales order maintenance transactions that support the order processing and shipping functions.

Order Support

The Customer Service subsystem provides the mechanisms necessary to release orders on hold, convert quotations to regular sales orders, enter credit and debit memos, authorize customer returns, manually allocate inventory, and perform sales order maintenance.

DMACS sales orders can be placed on either regular hold or credit hold. Regular hold indicates problems dealing with the customer or the order that are of a non-financial nature. For example, shipments to the customer may have been suspended, or the customer is inactive. A variety of credit hold codes are available, such as insufficient credit, overdue account, customer bankruptcy, etc. The Customer Service module provides the mechanisms necessary to easily remove sales orders from both regular hold and credit hold status.

The Customer Service module also provides a very simple mechanism for converting quotations to regular sales orders. The conversion process does not require re-entry of the quote; you simply need to indicate the quotation order number you wish to convert. The system will then automatically convert the quote to regular sales order status, re-price each line item if necessary, and automatically allocate inventory when applicable.

While the DMACS Order Processing module provides the means for entering debit and credit orders, the Customer Service subsystem allows entry of debit and credit memos. Whereas debit and credit orders provide multiple line item billing adjustments for service charges or for previous items shipped (that do not effect inventory), credit and debit memos are simply single charge adjustments directly to a customer’s account.

Customer returns are processed through the Customer Service subsystem by initiating a Return Authorization Request (RAR) transaction. This provides the customer with an RAR number for subsequent return tracking. Returns can be identified as either defective or non-defective. Defective returns have no effect on inventory; whereas non-defective returns are used by the Requirements Planning module to off-set any subsequent requirements by return date.

The Customer Service subsystem also controls the process of manually allocating inventory to sales orders. DMACS provides the ability at the item level to indicate whether an item can be automatically allocated to sales orders, or whether it must be manually allocated. Manual allocation is usually reserved for items requiring tighter security control that do not lend themselves to automatic inventory allocation. The manual allocation process simply entails browsing through the open orders for a given item and indicating the quantity to be manually allocated to the appropriate line items.

Sales order maintenance can also be initiated through the Customer Service module. Maintenance can be performed on an order’s header, and line items can be added, changed, or deleted. Options also exist to place an order on regular hold, to automatically re-price an entire order, to cancel an order, and to un-cancel a previously canceled order.

Customer Queries

The Customer Service subsystem provides an extensive assortment of on-line queries into customer, sales order, line item and pricing activity.

These queries provide powerful short cut and intelligent navigation capabilities that maximize the customer service rep’s visibility into all aspects of the sales management function.

DMACS provides a variety of customer browse queries that can be used as a short cut to an assortment of queries for a selected customer. Customers can be immediately identified via browses by customer name, telephone number, zip code, or customer number. Customers are highlighted on the browse screens if they have been placed on credit hold, or if their Accounts Receivable or Marketing parameters have not been completely set up.

For any given customer, the customer service representative can use a short cut from the browse screens to any number of customer-related queries or sales order processing screens. This effortless navigation provides automatic links to customer master information, customer ship-to information, customer net and promo prices and quantity breaks, sales order summary and detail line item information, and more. For a given customer, the customer service rep can also initiate the sales order entry function and the Return Authorization Request (RAR) function.

Order and Line Item Queries

Sales order browse inquiries are available by customer, by item number, by sales order, and by customer Purchase Order number. Short cut navigation provides automatic links to sales order header and line item information for a selected order.

A delivery schedule browse is available to query into the delivery schedule for a given order. For any selected delivery, short cut navigation allows automatic links to the sales order header, all line items, backordered line items, and allocated line items.

A sales order comment query displays all comments by comment type for a given order. You can request to see only those comments with a specific comment type, or you can see all comments for the order. The various comment types include internal comments that are not printed on any documents, in addition to comments that are printed on the acknowledgment, Bill of Lading, invoice, and shipper.

A customer marketing comment transaction allows you to maintain up to 9999 lines of Marketing comments for each customer and customer ship-to location that is maintained in the system. These comments are internal marketing notes that are maintained for your own reference purposes – they are not printed on any document that is generated by the system.

Line item browses by order and by item are also available. The line item browse by order provides the option to display all line items for an order, backordered line items, or allocated line items. The line item browse by item number displays all sales orders, warehouse transfer orders, and quotation orders for which an item is entered.

Pricing Queries

The Customer Service module also provides visibility into net and promotional pricing by customer and item, and quantity break pricing by customer and item. Each query provides short cut navigation to the other.

For example, as you browse through the net and promo pricing for items assigned to a customer, you can simply select an item and immediately navigate to the quantity break pricing browse for that selected item and customer. This query will display the twelve quantity and price breaks for each customer and item combination, starting with the item selected on the net and promo pricing screen. From here, you can simply select an item to navigate back to the net and promo pricing query, which will start with the selected customer and item.