Customer Service is the pivot point of today's successful distribution system. Its design must incorporate the ability to enter orders correctly, process orders quickly and respond to customer requests effectively.

The unified nature of Alliance provides these capabilities along with real-time visibility into inventory, credit, future receipts, back orders and other vital information about your business. Alliance is designed and programmed with all the features needed to maximize the productivity of a customer service operation.

With the proper security clearance, Alliance gives your Customer Service seamless maneuverability among the following systems:

Please click the following links to jump to the information quickly or simply scroll down.

Consolidated Credit Master

The file contains the credit information needed to prepare invoices. It identifies AR terms, credit available and limit, past due number of days and amount, finance charge information and credit ranking. This file also establishes the consolidated credit entity to which the ship-to and bill-to accounts are linked.

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Customer Master Files

The information that identifies a customer is found in the Customer Master Maintenance File, the Customer Order Entry Information File and the Customer Credit Master File.

Before an order can be executed, a customer must be established in Alliance. The system supports default customer files to add a new customer quickly.

This file contains the entire information needed to establish the customer's name, address, and phone number, abbreviated name and type. The file also displays the parent company and consolidated credit entity to which the customer is linked.

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Customer Notes

Notes about a customer are maintained in the Customer Note File. Notes have dates and user IDs attached to them and can be viewed at your discretion.

A manager can type an important comment in a note that literally "pops" on the screen when that item or customer is called up. You must press Enter to continue processing the order and are therefore likely to read important messages.

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Customer Order Entry Information File

The Customer Order Entry Information File contains all the information needed to place an order. It includes information needed for normal shipments to customers including back-order code, price group, shipping method, sales territory, salesperson, and ship-from warehouse. This data defaults to the Order Entry screen and can be changed at order entry time.

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Finding Customer Information

The customer service representative does not need to know the customer's ID number to enter a sales order. Entering a portion of the customer's name, telephone number or zip code is enough to get started.

One keystroke displays a window, beginning a search for the customer's records by:

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Order Comments

Order-specific comments can be added to line items or to an order at order entry time. Comments can be flagged to print at the top, bottom or attached to specific line items on the order. Comments can also appear on other documents, such as the invoice, bill of lading, acknowledgment and shipping documents.

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Partial Customer Information

• A string of characters in the customer name
• An abbreviation of the company name or alphabetically by customer name
• Telephone number
• Zip code

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Ship-to Accounts

There are three ship-bill scenarios in Alliance:

• Ship-to and bill-to addresses are the same.
• Multiple ship-to locations are associated with one bill-to location.
• Ship-to and bill-to locations are associated with a consolidated account.

An unlimited number of ship-to locations or accounts for a bill-to customer can be established. In addition, an unlimited number of bill-to customers can be set up for a consolidated customer. If credit checking is performed, it is done at the consolidated level.

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Alliance enables you to ship customer orders directly from the manufacturer by two methods:

• An item can be defined in the Item Master as one that is always direct-shipped.
• A warehoused item can be flagged to be direct-shipped for a particular order.

Alliance automatically generates purchase orders for direct-shipped items for each ship-to location. Each order line can create a purchase order for a different vendor and multiple products can be listed for each purchase order.

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Activity Summary Inquiry

This inquiry summarizes daily activity for Accounts Receivable, sales orders and invoices by company, division, and warehouse. It reports the number of orders and the total dollars for today's sales, receipts and invoices.

Other Customer Service inquiries available in Alliance are:

• Order status inquiry
• Sales order inquiry
• Shipper status inquiry
• Customer hold status inquiry
• Sales invoice inquiry
• Order detail by customer
• Open orders by item number
• Bookings file inquiry

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Alliance Reports Document

A full list of the reports related to Customer Service Management will be provided upon request. Contact us for more information.

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Cash Payment Terms

Alliance handles an unlimited number of cash payment terms. Each terms code is user-defined, offering complete tailoring of the system to accept specific terms. The rules for calculating discounts and due dates are handled within the definition. Basic discounts, prox terms, split payments and dated terms can all be handled by the system.

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Flexible Order Inquiries

Orders can be viewed in several ways, such as by customer, item, order date, required date, invoice number and customer P.O. Order information can be viewed in summary or detail form.

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Freight Allowances

You can define rules governing freight allowances for orders over a certain value or weight. A freight discount or a total order discount can be assigned based on these criteria.

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General Ledger (GL) Accounts

Specify the GL account number for the discount or handling charge applied when setting up those charges.

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Invoicing

In a normal billing cycle, each line item of an order affects four accounts: Inventory, Cost of Goods Sold, Sales and Accounts Receivable. Miscellaneous accounts such as sales tax and special charges are also affected when appropriate.

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Lost Sales Reporting

For the purpose of developing accurate forecasts, both the item originally requested by the customer and the one shipped are tracked by Alliance. Use this function to track sales lost due to a shortage or non-stock condition.

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Order Takers And Order Fillers Report

Alliance tracks the number of orders booked by order takers and tracks the number of orders filled by picking personnel.

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Tax Tables

The Tax File Maintenance Program creates tax tables for multiple tax authorities. Tax rates are housed in user-defined tax tables. The tax calculation is made when an invoice is created. Customers can be defined as tax-exempt or assigned to various taxing authorities. Also, individual line items on a sales order can be overridden to make them tax-exempt.

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Taxes, Service Charges and Miscellaneous Charges

You designate if taxes for freight, merchandise, or services apply. Both taxable and non-taxable items can be entered on the same order. This reduces the need for multiple invoices and the errors they can create. Service charges and miscellaneous charges are entered on the same screen as the rest of the order.

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Inventory can be committed to the order at any time defined by you. The system can allocate inventory right after the order is taken, or periodically in batch mode.

Allocation Priority Code

Alliance can assign an allocation priority to specific customers. The orders for these customers receive a higher allocation priority when the system is allocating inventory in batch mode.

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Automatic Customer Back-orders

Alliance can create back-orders automatically for partial shipments. If a customer does not accept back-orders, the order can be shipped and considered complete. All inventory can be reallocated to the entire backlog at any time.

A back-order can be deleted, or it can be filled when inventory becomes available.

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Manual Inventory Allocation from Sales Order

Use the Sales Order Manual Allocation function to allocate or reserve items for you to override the normal system allocation sequence and allocate manually. For example, you can manually allocate items in short supply to specific customers.

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• Automatically Turn Quotes Into Orders
• Carrier Selection
• Check Inventory Availability From Order Entry
• Contract Pricing
• Copy Orders Automatically
• Copy Price Lists
• Cost Plus
• Customer Required Date
• Effective Date for Quotes
• Effectivity Dates
• Group Shipments
• Inventory Search from Order Entry Screen
• Line Item Order Entry Options
• Line Item Discounts / Markups
• Maintaining Orders
• Multiple Warehouse Capability
• On-line Real Time and Concurrent Order Processing
• Order Discounts, Markups and Promotions
• Order Form Pricing
• Order Forms (Templates)
• Order History
• Order Summary Screen
• Pick, Ship From Multiple Warehouses on One Order
• Pop-up Windows
• Previous Buy History
• Price List Inquiry
• Pricing
• Pricing Elements
• Print All Required Documents
• Printing Proforma Invoices
• Promotions
• Quantity Breaks
• Quotes
• Sales Order Shipping Confirmation
• Single Order Entry
• Standard or Specialized Pricing
• Substitute Items
• System Generate Order Numbers
• Units of Measure
• Use Customer's Item Numbers
• User-defined Order Types

Automatically Turn Quotes Into Orders

Quotes are defined in the system as specific order types and can be converted into sales orders simply by changing the order type as previously described.

Alternately, a quote can be copied to a sales order enabling you to maintain a history of the quote. Copying the order also tracks the win/loss record for quotes.

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Carrier Selection

When Alliance is supplied with zone, state and zip code information, the system automatically selects the best carrier for the order based on weight/quantity information.

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Check Inventory Availability From Order Entry

As items are entered on an order, the item description blinks in reverse/red to notify you of inventory shortages. You can open a window containing the inventory status of an item across all warehouses.

You can also call a window to check for item availability, quantities per warehouse, expected receipts, on hand, location, lot number, and units of measure.

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Contract Pricing

Individual customers or groups of customers can be set up for contract pricing. Typically, Alliance will assign the highest system priority to using a contract price, although effectivity dates are often placed on the relationship. Any or all of the above mentioned pricing features can be applied to a contract pricing situation.

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Copy Orders Automatically

Alliance's copy feature enables you to duplicate a new order from an existing one . The copy function can be used to copy one order to another, copy an order to a credit memo, and copy an order for one customer to several new orders, or convert an order from one type to another, for example, sales order to credit memo.

The copy function is particularly useful for chain store distribution where several stores receive the same items.

The Alliance copy function is exceptionally useful for submitting standing orders and for copying quotes to orders. The copy feature allows a quote to be entered as an order without re-keying and retaining the quote history.

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Copy Price Lists

Alliance can copy a price list using a markup percentage or dollar amount. This function, used in conjunction with pricing effectivity dates, provides a simple method of implementing future price increases.

Cost Plus

Alliance supports true cost-plus pricing by retrieving the most current item cost and applying a percentage markup. Because Alliance processes orders in real time, the cost-plus price is calculated with the current item cost.

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Customer Required Date

A user-defined number of days is supplied for the default required date on all orders. In addition, each individual line item can have its own required date, which overrides the default required date. A promised-date field is provided for each line item to assist in tracking service levels.

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Effective Date for Quotes

Alliance provides the ability to assign an expiration date to a quote. You can print a report that lists all outstanding quotes for review. Rather than automatically deleting quotes, Alliance gives you the opportunity to follow up on those quotes.

Quotes can be stored on the system for as long as desired, provided disk space is available.

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Effectivity Dates

The time period during which the price list is in effect is included in the price list information. It can be established in advance of the effective date and automatically invoked by Alliance on the designated date.

Group Shipments

Pick slip generation can be in user-defined carrier sequence. Through a special routine, the system identifies customers on the same route. It then identifies and prints all orders ready to be shipped in that group.

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Inventory Search From Order Entry Screen

Alliance enables you to search for item numbers without leaving the Order Entry program. If an item number is unknown, search for the correct number by a partial number, description, or generic name. Selecting one of these options opens a window, permitting you to browse for the item. Alliance retrieves the item field to the Order Entry Screen with one keystroke.

Line Item Order Entry Options

Alliance helps you to perform a wide variety of functions at the line item level on the order entry screen. This makes it unnecessary for you to leave the order entry screen when more information is needed during order entry. Alliance saves you valuable time by speeding up the order cycle.

To access the range of functions available for each line item, type the code letter for the function next to the line item:

Line Item Discounts/Markups

Line item discounts or markups can be defined in the system and applied to orders in conjunction with order discounts. Line item discounts can be chained.

Maintaining Orders

Changes to open orders can be made until they are invoiced. You call up the order and press a function key to enter the change mode.

Multiple Warehouse Capability

Alliance supports multiple warehouses, facilitating order taking at any location for shipment from any other.

On-line, Real-Time and Concurrent Order Processing

In Alliance, orders can be processed in a batch, using concurrent processing, or on-line in real time. Batch and concurrent processing are handled in a background process for the highest overall performance on the AS/400.

An individual order can be processed on-line if it must be invoiced immediately. On-line processing is accomplished with a single keystroke on the Order Entry Screen.

Order Discounts/Markups and Promotions

Discounts and promotions can be established for a price group as needed. Discounts are allowed when certain pre-defined conditions are met. The criteria you can use to discount an item are dollar amount, weight and quantity. Discounts or markups for an effectivity period can be applied as percentages or dollar amounts.

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Order Form Pricing

Order forms can also supply pricing unique to that form, regardless of price lists and price groups.

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Order Forms (Templates)

Another powerful Alliance tool enables you to set up order forms to handle standard purchases, contracts or any other defined lists of items typically purchased by one or more customers. Order forms can be built from customer historical purchases, promotional offerings, catalog pages or any other convenient grouping.

Order forms are also useful for cross-selling complementary items.

Once the customer's order form is displayed, you can type in the quantity requested only for the desired items on the form. Those items and quantities are automatically added to the order. An order form can make up an entire order or one line item on an order. Order forms save keying time and reduce order entry errors.

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Order History

Alliance can display a customer's order history sequenced by most frequently ordered items. An option on the Alliance order entry screen displays the history. Items that were on the last order are highlighted. Type an "X" or number of units for line items on the previous buy list to automatically add those items to the current order. Alliance maintains this list, which contains all the items ever ordered by the customer.

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Order Summary Screen

An Order Summary screen is available in Alliance to display the totaled order information for all orders processed on-line. To access the Order Summary screen, you simply press one function key.

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Pick, Ship From Multiple Warehouses On One Order

A single line item on an order can be shipped from a warehouse other than the warehouse shipping the balance of the order. Simply "unfold" the order and change the warehouse designation for the line item.

At order picking time, pick tickets automatically print in the correct warehouse. If all items are shipped the same day, one invoice is generated. If the items ship on different days, multiple invoices are generated, one for each shipment.

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Pop-up Windows

• Pop-up windows in Alliance display:
• Item numbers or descriptions
• Vendor item numbers
• Customer item numbers
• Competitor catalog or item numbers
• Inventory availability across warehouses
• Substitute items
• Alternate pricing
• Previous purchases, last purchases, open purchase orders for a specific item

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Previous Buy History

The Order Entry Screen displays a history of every customer purchase: dates, quantities and prices charged for the items are sequenced by purchase date.

Price List Inquiry

You can see all prices for an item in Price List Inquiry.

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Pricing

Alliance pricing is a very flexible system that supports pricing structures ranging from simple to complex, including:

• Simple pricing with one price per item
• Complex pricing with multiple prices per item or customer
• Matrix pricing based on a customer code and an item code
• Promotional pricing
• Cost plus
• Chained discounts
• Contract pricing

Price can be customer-specific or applied to a group of customers; item-specific or applied to a group of items. Pricing can be supplied by the system as described below, or overridden on an item or order basis at order entry. The system keeps a history of pricing by item and by order.

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Pricing Elements

The elements used to define price structure are Price Group and Price List.

A price group specifies which price list the system applies for a customer and determines the priority of each price list. A price group also determines if any item, order or promotional discounts apply.

There are several types of price lists. Price lists in Alliance permit you to have:

• Unlimited item quantity price breaks
• Groups of items for quantity price breaks
• Effectivity dates of prices

Alliance permits you to:

• Copy a list to another list with a markup or markdown
• Create a list automatically from the item master with cost-plus

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Print All Required Documents

Alliance can print all shipping, acknowledgment and invoicing documents to any printer location. Duplicates can be printed at any time and as many times as required. The documents include:

• Acknowledgments
• Pick lists
• Packing lists
• Bills of lading
• Reprint invoices
• Proforma invoices
• Return goods authorization

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Printing Proforma Invoices

Trucking firms or international orders with a letter of credit requirement may need a proforma or replica of the invoice. Alliance can print the proforma invoice at shipment time.

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Promotions

Alliance recognizes and applies promotional pricing, such as buy-one-get-one-free.

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Quantity Breaks

Alliance supports quantity breaks. Also, similar items can be combined during order totaling to permit quantity breaks on families of items.

Quotes

Quotes can be entered on the same screen as sales orders. Quotes are a type of order with user-defined characteristics. All the features available to the order entry department, such as automatic pricing or inventory inquiry, can be used by the sales staff to create quotes.

Sales Order Shipping Confirmation

A sales order shipping confirmation function confirms shipments at an item/order level. You have the option of using a single-step order confirmation if the entire order is shipping as ordered.

You can correct lines as needed and ship all lines together.

If the shipment does not match the order, confirm the lines that are shipping as ordered and override the amount in lines that are different. The system automatically creates a back-order if allowed by the customer.

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Single Order Entry

Sales order entry is completed on one fully-featured order entry screen. Default order information, which can be easily overridden at order entry time, is brought up from the established Customer Master records. This provides order-takers with the flexibility to quickly enter an order and provide other valuable order information to the customers. Learning to enter and maintain an order is simple because customer order maintenance is handled on the multi-functional screen

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Standard or Specialized Pricing

The system applies prices to an order using the standard pricing tables you define. If no price is defined for an item or if a special price is needed, you can price the item manually at order entry time.

The system retains a history of how an item was priced.

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Substitute Items

If an alternate item selection is necessary, a window displays a list of substitutions. Substitutions are defined in a cross-reference file and allow you to easily enter an order using your customer's item number.

System Generated Order Numbers

Order numbers are automatically generated by the system, or you can manually assign the next number.

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Units of Measure

Alliance supports multiple units of measure: sales, inventory, pricing and packaging units of measure using conversion factors for ease-of-use.

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Use Customer's Item Numbers

Alliance accepts a customer's or manufacturer's item and catalog numbers for order entry. A cross-referenced table links various names and numbers for an item.

User-defined Order Types

Order types are used for a variety of tasks within your distribution system. Primarily, they determine how an order is processed and what documents are printed.

For example, an order type can be set to update and automatically allocate inventory, perform credit checks, update history and bookings files, and/or print the necessary packing, acknowledgment and shipping documents.

Alliance enables the user to create new order types without modifying application programs. This is possible because of the many information tables you define during installation.

Creating a new order type is simple. You complete a table that defines the order characteristics. This feature dramatically reduces the time required to change a software package to reflect individual operations.

History is automatically maintained for a new order type.

The following order types can be created with a single keystroke:

• Ship and invoice order
• Credit memo
• Debit memo
• Credit and return
• Quotes
• Interbranch orders
• Direct ship
• Ship only (no charge)
• Bill and hold
• Will call
• Work orders
• C.O.D.s

Use one screen to create and maintain all order types. Consolidating these functions on one screen reduces the learning curve and helps meet new business needs in a timely manner.

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Activity Summary Inquiry

This inquiry summarizes daily activity for Accounts Receivable, sales orders and invoices by company, division, and warehouse. It reports the number of orders and the total dollars for today's sales, receipts and invoices.

Other Customer Service inquiries available in Alliance are:

• Order status inquiry
• Sales order inquiry
• Shipper status inquiry
• Customer hold status inquiry
• Sales invoice inquiry
• Order detail by customer
• Open orders by item number
• Bookings file inquiry

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Alliance Reports Document

A full list of the reports related to Customer Service Management will be provided upon request. Contact us for more information.

Flexible Order Inquiries

Orders can be viewed in several ways, such as by customer, item, order date, required date, invoice number and customer P.O. Order information can be viewed in summary or detail form.

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Order Takers And Order Fillers Report

Alliance tracks the number of orders booked by order takers and tracks the number of orders filled by picking personnel.

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Lost Sales Reporting

For the purpose of developing accurate forecasts, both the item originally requested by the customer and the one shipped are tracked by Alliance. Use this function to track sales lost due to a shortage or non-stock condition.

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