8 Ramping up to the first sale 8 Ramping up to the first sale 8.2 Sending out a quote

8.1 Creating a customer

A customer is considered type of entity or counterparty ¹¹ 1 The terms ”counterparty” and ”entity” mean the same thing in LSMB.. There are two types of counterparties, ”company” and ”person”. A ”company” entity is legalized by the state and typically incorporated, a sole proprietorship, or an LLC. A ”person” is considered an unincorporated entity.

The first step in creating a customer is to create the counterparty, then annotate the counterparty as a ”customer”.²² 2 A single counterparty can also be annotated as a vendor allowing both sales to and purchasing from a single entity.

Jack is going to setup a company as a customer and starts by navigating to add contact screen using the menu path Contacts $\rightarrow$ Add Contact $\rightarrow$ Company.

Refer to caption — Figure 8.1: Add contact screen

Referencing the workflow defined at Section 33.2 on page 33.2 Jack creates the company using the screen shown in Figure 8.1 on page 8.1.

Jack does the minimum to set up the counterparty by making these changes to the screen:

Table 8.1: Company data

Field Name	Field Value	Notes
Name	ABC, Inc.
Class	Customer
Country	United States

When Jack is done entering the data he clicks the Generate Control Code, then clicks the Save button, which brings up the screen shown in Figure 8.2 on page 8.2.

This brings up the ”Credit Accounts” screen Figure 8.2 on page 8.2 where Jack can make this company counterparty a customer.

Jack does the minimum to set up the customer by making these changes to the screen:

Table 8.2: Credit Accounts data

Field Name	Field Value	Notes
Number	1	There can be multiple credit accounts associated with this counterparty. This is the first of those accounts. The number must be unique to the counterparty.
’Pay To	ABC, Inc.

When complete jack clicks the Save New button.

Now that the customer credit account is setup, Jack wants to add the customers address. He clicks the Addresses tab at the top of the screen and sees the screen shown in Figure 8.4 on page 8.4.

Jack has to decide where to attach his customer’s address. An address on the ”entity”, which is also called a counterparty, is an address that applies to all accounts associated with that entity. An address on a ”credit account” applies to that specific customer/vendor instance. One entity may have multiple customers, multiple locations, multiple departments, etc., each with their own address details

Jack enters the address by making these changes to the screen:

Table 8.3: First company address data

Field Name	Field Value	Notes
Attached To	Entity	This company has only 1 address
Type	Billing
Address	123 Main St	In the first address field
City	Augusta
State/Province	Mariana Islands
Zip/Post Code	00000

When Jack is done entering the data he clicks the Save New Location button.