We are a manufacturer and have several end users that make up the majority of our business. Our sales group works both with our customer and with the end user and wants to be able to track that information. My IT group wants to set up the end users as prospects and then use them as the ship to on orders. Is anyone else tracking this information or have ideas on how to do it?
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Canât wait to see the responses!
Setting up the end users as customers/prospects is the correct way to do it. We did it the wrong way, which is to have the End users as Ship Toâs on the customers. Its terrible. So much duplication and mess. Its very hard to tell if we are poaching an end user or not, and have gotten burned several times.
You could add a UD field to track what kind of customer they are, we did this and made it a drop down, so it can be an OEM/Dealer/end user
Thatâs how weâve handled it for years regardless of platformâŚbut that sort of business was/is ALWAYS done through a specific customer or buying group so no poaching situation is possible.
It depends on how your orders come in. Is it always one order to an end user? Do you have customers that are distributors that buy a quantity of parts and then they tell you at a later time who they went to? Are your parts serial tracked?
These types of situations can end up being a maintenance nightmare. You might also want to think outside the box and maybe use Cases to track the end user if your parts are serial tracked.
Just based off of your post, I would agree with @Evan_Purdy that creating the end user as the Sold To would probably be best. You will not be able to keep them as Prospects though as once you create a sales order they will automagically flip to a Customer.
Yes, if you donât sell to end users directly that wouldnât be such a bad way of doing it.
If multiple dealers/buying groups could sell to the same end user, it might still make sense to have a central record instead of having the end user data duplicated across multiple customers.
Doesnât have to be the Sold To, but it needs to be an actual Ship To Customer
We were making end users simply a Ship To on the main dealer. So an end users was nothing more than an address.
If you want them to stay an end user, I would uncheck Valid Sold To on the âend userâ customer and check the 'Allow Ship To Third Party" on the âdealerâ customer.
Itâs theoretically possible - and if it happened weâd want to see it with Customer A and Customer B selling to Enduser 1.
Consider that the end user customers - can be set to be shipto only customers.
They shouldnât be sold to customers
Why not?
It an assumption that the OP wants to avoid âpoachingâ the end users, I believe. At least, that is why I suggested it.
I should have included a picture.
The End Users would be set up like this to allow Third Party Shipments to occur.
This is assuming that all sales, including spare parts, are run through the distributors.
Setup this way, only shipments would occur and all financial transactions would be with the distributors.
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This would be my preference, and all financial transactions would be with the distributors.
A lot of this depends on the structure of the company and their relationships with distributors.
Clarifying our business model: We make equipment that we sell thru a distributor network but those distributors provide the end user with more than just our equipment. Because of the volume of what the distributors do, thereâs no way a single one could satisfy a single end user so there is overlap where multiple distributors service the same end user just on different projects.
Some of our equipment is designed specifically to meet a single end userâs needs and being able to quantify how much of our business is that end user helps us to justify developing that equipment for that need or not.
All financial transactions need to be at the distributor level and the ship tos between distributors could overlap.
Have you looked at using the âMark Forâ functionality at the Order Line Release level? Would allow you to ship to your distributor and still note the end user that the release is for