About Advanced Contracts (text-based)
Previously, you could assign a customer up to four different contracts. You set up contracts in the (ET) Inventory Contract Price screen and assigned each one a contract number. You then could assign each customer four different contracts using the Contracts fields in the Customer database.
With Advanced Contracts, customer contract capabilities have been expanded. You can assign a customer or a customer’s departmental account as many contracts as needed. You can also assign groups of customers to a contract number. (This feature utilizes the Group box in the Customer Master tab.)
Note: This feature is not included in all software packages and may require authorization. For more information, contact ECi sales.
To do this, we've made several changes to the (ET) screen. The Customer # and Dept fields let you assign a contract to a group of customers, a specific customer, or a customer that has yet to be created in the Customer database.
There are also a few slight changes when assigning contracts. These affect all users. First, you can choose the contract default type by setting a parameter in the (LE1) screen. This lets you customize the (ET) screen so that the Fixed/Flexible field defaults to the contract type you use most.
The second change affects the way you assign specialty contracts. Previously when you assigned the contract number, the first character you entered had to be a symbol, for example, % ! $ #. This signaled you were setting up a specialty contract. A new prompt in the (ET) screen lets you enter the specialty symbol. Since you can assign the specialty symbol when the prompt displays, you can use the Contract # field to specify a specialty contract number of up to two alphanumeric characters instead of one. This greatly increases the number of specialty contracts you can have.
In addition, the way a fixed contract's best price is determined has also been slightly modified. With Advanced Contracts, the Customer # and Dept fields in the (ET) screen are searched first, the Customer # field in the (ET) screen are searched second, and the Group field in the (AQ) screen is searched next. If a price is found on a fixed contract, the search stops. These fields are searched before the Contracts fields in the Order Entry Record of the (A) screen or Customer Order Entry tab.
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