File Structures

The primary files that are maintained or updated by the CRM module include the following.  A short description of each file is provided below.

•      Company Master File – The Company Master file contains the company records that have been set up on your system.  There is normally one record in this file for each Customer that you do business with.  Each Company record must have a unique Account Number and is also assigned a unique company name.  The Company records store a large amount of information including the company default payment terms, credit limit, address information, telephone numbers, and statistical and demographic information.  Customer records can also store optional billing names and addresses, parent company information and user defined information.

•      Company Contact Master File – Contacts are records that store information about the individuals (people) that are associated with a customer, prospect or lead (a contact can also be created without being associated with a customer and then later assigned to the correct company record once it has been created).  An unlimited number of contacts can be assigned to each customer or Company Master record.  Contact records store phone and address information, demographic information, dates, user defined fields and other information.

•      ShipTo Master File – The ShipTo master file is used to store the shipping addresses that are associated with each company in the Company Master File.  An unlimited amount of ShipTo records can be maintained for a single Company record, and these records store shipping, sales tax and other information that can change by state, country or county.  Each customer record is normally assigned one default shipping address, but all ShipTo records for a company are available as you need them during processing.  If a company has no ShipTo records, the billing information for the customer is used during processing.  ShipTo records can be created “on the fly” during order processing as needed.

•      Comment File – The comment file stores text information or notes which are attached to the master and transaction records in the database.  Comments are like miniature word processing documents that can be accessed from logical places in the CRM and other modules in the system.

•      Opportunity File - The Opportunity file is used to create and store “opportunities” or records about potential business.  Opportunity records can be created and attached to customer or contact records.  Comments can be attached to opportunity records, and quotes, orders and actions records can be created from opportunity records.

•      Actions File - Actions records are used to create and store specific tasks or actions that need to be performed.  These actions records may apply to Opportunities, or Incidents, or items such as Sales Orders, Shop Orders, and Return Authorization or Repair records.  Actions may be manually or automatically created and closed based on the activity or status of the records related to them.  In general the actions file is used to create To Do items and lists for the reps and other operators in the system to act upon.

•      Question File - The Question file is used to store the questions or information gathering scripts that you use to collect detailed information about your customers.  It is one of the primary components of the Scripting and Profiling system that is discussed in later sections of this document.

•      Answer File - The Answer file is used to store the answers or information that you have gathered from your customers using the Scripting and Profiling system. This system is discussed in more detail in later sections of this document.

•      Sales Order Header, Sales Order Line Item, and other transaction files - The CRM module also displays information from many other data files in the system such as the Sales Order and Invoice Header and Line item files, the RA, Special Pricing, and Catalog and Inventory files.   These files are accessible from the CRM system and records can be created in many of these files by processes you perform in the CRM Module (sales order entry is an excellent example).  The CRM module also makes use of control files such as the Gencode Table, Longcode file, and the System Parameter files during processing and these files can also be accessed and updated from within the CRM system as appropriate.

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CRM System Training Outline