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Partners

What's a partner ?

In Tiny ERP, a partner is an entity with which we can make deals. There are several types of partners: suppliers, manufacturers, customers, employees and prospects. The principle of partner is much more flexible than in the majority of the existing business applications because a partner can be one of these types or a combination of several of these types. That avoids the double encoding and allows a greater flexibility on the functions available for each one of these types of partners.

Thus, in Tiny ERP a partner can be, in the same time, your supplier and your customer. This functionality is particularly important for affiliates or franchises, because in that case, the sales between the main company and the affiliates are generally done in the two directions.

A partner has several contacts, each one being able to have his own location and data. The information regarding the bank, historical events, accounting and relations between partners are also present in a partner record.

Categories of partners

To segment the partners, Tiny ERP integrates the concept of hierarchical categories. Four great functionalities make that this segmentation system is the most evolved and flexible of the CRM market: the categories hierarchical structure, the automated or manual allocation to categories, the partner system and the fact that partners can belong to several categories.

To obtain the available partners categories, go to: Partners > Definitions > Partners Categories.

The categories are structured in a hierarchical way. So it's possible, to apply a rule to any level of the hierarchy. For example to define special offers for all the customers or only for the category 'Customers > Dealers > Important'.

The tree structure is also very interesting for the different statistics reports. Indeed, you can print reports by partners segments, and that, at any level of architecture.

We will see in one of the following sections that the categories can be manually allocated to the partners (example : newsletter, great prospecs) or automatically by a segmentation rule (example: customers having a turnover greater than 1.000 euros).

To define a new category, use the menu: Partners > Definitions > Categories > Edit Categories.

Define a partner

The Tiny ERP partner is defined using the menu option : Partners > Partners.

The first tab contains general partner information and his different contacts. Only the name is mandatory. The partner title indicates the social function of the company: sarl, sa, eurl, asbl, etc. You can define your own titles thanks to the menu: Partners > Definitions > Titles.

The partner code is often used to type the partner short name. Thus, when you search a partner (for example, from a sale order), it's sometimes easier to use the code than by name. The research of a partner is first done with his code, then if no partner is found, with his name.

The partner language allows to define in which language the documents have to be printed for this partner. To define new languages, use the menu: Administration > Interfaces > Languages. When you load a translation file for a new language at the server installation, Tiny ERP automatically adds it to the list of the available languages.

The following section allows to define the different partner contacts. Each contact has his own location and contact information. Those can be of different types: by default, invoicing, delivery, contact or other. That allows, for example, when placing an order, to automatically fill the delivery / invoicing and order addresses, according to the selected partner.

The last section of the first tab allows to indicate the categories to which this partner belongs. You can add or delete as many categories you need thanks to the buttons 'Add' and 'Delete'.

Additional information is indicated in the second tab : 'Extra Info'.

You will find there the VAT patner number, his payment term and credit limit. The 'Debit' and 'Credit' fields respectively indicate how much the customer owes you or how much you owe to the supplier. This couple of fields are automatically accessible in read-only mode and are calculated thanks to the interface with the accounting module.

There is also a field 'active' which allows you to deactivate a partner, without having to delete it. When a resource is deactivated, it is no more available during the research, except if you select the criterion not active. This Tiny ERP functionality is very interesting for hiding partners with whom you don't work anymore but which have to remain in the database because historical data are linked (invoices, orders,...). That is also used as functionality for archiving.

Tiny ERP is able to manage the hierarchical relations between different partners. Thus, to indicate that a partner is an affiliate, a franchise or is simply linked to another partner, fill in the field 'parent company'. That makes it possible to build structured relations between different partners as represented by the figure below.

The field 'note' allows you to type any type of informal information related to this partner. There is no limit of size. Finally, in the middle of the second tab, you can type the different bank accounts.

Contacts

The contacts can be directly typed in the first tab. A partner can have as many contacts as necessary. But you can also reach your address book directly with the menu option: Partners > Partners Contacts.

Any update or creation done in this form is equivalent to the same operation done directly in the partner form, for this contact. In Tiny ERP, this principle is called 'manage by two different views of the same object'.

The advantage of using this menu option is that the search for a contact is directly about his fields: partner name, contact name, addresses, country, zip code,...

Partners relations

Tiny ERP is able to manage the relations between partners on 3 different levels:

In the same partner, it is possible to modify the contact role thanks to the field 'Address type'. This one can take several values: delivery, invoicing, contact, by default or other. This operation is only valid for the use of the contacts of the same partner.

To structure the relations between partners, you can use the field 'Parent company'. Thus, in an affiliate, a franchise or a store of a central merchandizing, fill in this field with the parent company. To obtain the structure graph of the intercompany relations, from the parent company, click on the Actions icon. Select the action 'hierarchical structure'. To obtain this same diagram from the affiliate, use the functionalities of the right-click on the field 'Parent company'.

The third solution to manage the relations between partners is to install the optional module “base_partner_relation”. This one adds a fourth tab named “Relations” to the form. You can give to it for each need type (invoicing, delivery, contact), a partner who has to be used. Thus, thanks to this functionality, when an order is placed by a shop, Tiny ERP automatically fills in the central purchasing agency addresses for the delivery, and the addresses of the company which you have to invoice, according to the 'Partners Relations' tab information.

Partners properties

After selecting a partner on the screen, you can click on the icon 'Properties'. Tiny ERP then gives you the list of the properties available for this partner. If a property is empty, Tiny ERP then uses the values defined by default. The list of the defined properties is the following:

If you install additional modules, those can add properties to each partner. These properties will be explained more in the detail in the chapters concerning them.

Actions on partner

To execute actions on partners, make a research and select a partner (form mode) or a group of partners (list mode) and click on one of the 'Action' or 'Print' icons. Tiny ERP gives the list of the available actions:

In the same way, several reports are available thanks to the 'Print' icon:

The following picture gives an example of follow-up letter when you print a customer account:


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