One of the questions that I receive most often is what options are available to help manage customer credit limits in VISCO. This is one of the more flexible areas of the system with lots of options available:
Integration with QuickBooks-For the credit limits to have any use, we need to know the open balance from the accounting system. Although VISCO offers integrations with several accounting systems, as of this writing we only offer credit limit integration with QuickBooks. So the credit limit is set in VISCO but then anytime we need to check the customer balance against their limit we pull the open balance in QuickBooks plus any open orders in VISCO that have not been posted to QuickBooks and compare that to the customers limit.
Set up at customer level-For proper customer credit handling we normally set up a few fields at the customer level including Credit Limit (total credit you are willing to extend to this customer), Credit Hold Y/N (you can manually put a customer on credit hold so no orders can be shipped to the customer), Credit Notes (big memo box to put notes)
Warnings and Alerts-Here is where a lot of the flexibility comes into play. The most common option is to present the user entering the order with a warning when they click on the Sales Order Assign button if this order brings the customer over their credit limit (by comparing open balance in QuickBooks, plus open orders in VISCO against credit limit and also checking if the customer is on manual credit hold).
At that point we can put a “hard stop” in the system that does not allow the user to finish the order until the credit limit is raised or the order amount is reduced
Another option is to offer the user a “soft stop” which is present the warning message so they understand the situation but allow them to continue. The system can also set the order on credit hold where it will accept the order but not let it be issued until the credit hold is removed. Removal of credit hold can also be password protected.
Credit holds can also be applied if the customer has a past due balance, or anything older then 45 days (etc)
At the time the order is set on credit hold, an automated email can also be sent to the sales rep and management to alert them of the situation so they can deal with it.
Credit reporting-We have designed custom reports that allow you to see by customer all open balance in QuickBooks plus any open orders in VISCO, so you can see what % of the limit is remaining and alert you if there are any concerns on receivable aging
For more information on credit limit handling please watch the video from the 2013 user conference custom alerts and reports 1 and custom alerts and reports 2
We can help customize a credit limit handling plan specifically for you.
