This article serves as a reference to different elements of the customer information window. You can use the customer information window to look up or change many aspects of a customer record. Some common uses:
- Edit a customer's name or address;
- Review a customer's history of charges and payments;
- Add a customer to a route;
- Create or edit the container placements that show which container(s) a customer has;
- Add a charge for an extra pickup, bulk item, etc.;
- Make a note about what you and the customer discussed;
- Enter a payment for a customer who is in your office or on the phone; and
- Enter a bank account or card number that the customer wants to use for autopay.
Most of the work on the Customer Information menu will be done on the tabs across the middle of the window: Rates, History, Charge, Routes, Boxes, E.F.T., Notes, and Misc. Some of these tabs might not appear for you—it's dependent on which modules of Trash Flow you have. The accounts have different background colors depending on the account status; a list of the defaults is provided below. These can be changed by going to .
- Blue: The default color, this means a regular, active account.
- Red: Ended. The account has an end date and will not get any new charges.
- Yellow: Suspended. This usually indicates that the account is still open, but service is suspended until the customer pays.
- Green: Late, i.e. the has unpaid charges more than 30 days old.
- Gray: Sold to another company. Not commonly used, this means a Sold date has been entered on the Misc. tab.
- Aqua: Above credit limit. Not commonly used, this means a credit limit has been set on the Misc. tab and the customer's balance has exceeded it.
The following menu commands are also available from all tabs.
File
- Find: This brings up a selection screen where you can search for a customer by name, account number, address, phone, invoice, work order, dumpster number, or other.
- Duplicate Current Customer: Creates a new account with all the same information as the one you are working in. The only exception is History—the new account will have no transaction history and a 0 balance.
- Step by: This lets you choose whether to page through all your customers by order of name, account number, or address.
- Step-Within: Allows you to scroll through only a limited set of accounts with the PG UP and PG DN keys. Choose one of the following: account type, bill group, sales tax district, geographic region, source company, business, salesperson, the first bill code on the customer Rates tab, or Pay Type (invoice or balance). When you want to return to scrolling through all accounts click to uncheck this option. A form pops up: click without making any selection.
- Clear TB Password: Removes the password from a customer account on the Trashbilling.com website. Be sure to confirm that you are speaking with the correct person before clearing the password.
- Delete: This allows you to delete a customer. Note that any account can be made inactive by setting an end date but cannot be deleted unless they are taken off of any routes, all containers are removed, and they have no outstanding balance.
- Exit: This exits the customer information screen.
Edit
- Name: This allows you to edit the name of the active customer.
- Physical Address: This allows you to edit the physical address on the active customer.
- Billing Address: This allows you to edit the billing address on the active customer.
- Force Geocode: This forces trashflow to attempt to geocode the physical address of the active customer once again. This option is available if you have TrashFlow's AVS (Address Verification System) module.
- Inv by Placement: This allows you to change how invoices are created for a customer that is set to pay by invoice. This bundles charges together in an invoice based on their associated container rather than by their date.
- Bill: This prints the active customer's bill.
- Coupon Book: This prints the active customer's coupon book. These are dated slips that customers can send in with their payment and are usually printed in a batch.
- Day's Receipt: This prints out a receipt for all payments entered on the current day for this customer's account.
- Info: This prints a summary of information about the current customer. You can customize the report as needed with basic billing details to all aspects of the customer' bills, payments, and history with your company.
- Customer Employee Comments: This prints a history of the current customer's comments about all your employees. This option is available if you have TrashFlow's Commercial Billing module.
- Customer Events Report: This prints a report of all events for the current customer. This option is available if you have TrashFlow's Commercial Billing module.
- Credit Report: This prints out a history of a customer's invoices and payments in a format that shows how quickly they pay their bill; this lets you determine whether the customer consistently pays late or on time.
- Tip Ticket Truck Report: This prints out a report of container ID numbers, size, Tare weight, yards, and associated customers used by Trash Flow's Tip Ticket landfill module.
- Posting Report: This prints a summary of the number and amount of statements/invoices, charges, payments, credits, and write-offs to a customer's account within a given range of dates.
- Work Order: This creates a printable work order for the active customer that can be tracked and charged.
- Letter: This opens a form that lets you print a customized letter to the active customer.
- Postcard: This opens a form that lets you print a customized postcard to the active customer.
- Bag Label: This prints bag labels for customers who stick prepaid labels onto garbage or leaf bags.
Reminder
- Add Reminder: Opens a window for you to enter a reminder on Trash Flow's built-in reminder system.
- Show Customer's Reminders: This opens the reminders window to show only reminders for this customer.
- Current Reminders Report: This prints out a report of all reminders current to your business date.
- Reminders Report: This prints out a report of all reminders for the customer within a given range of dates.
Payment
This opens the customer payment window to process a payment for the active customer.