An Account is typically a company/organisation that is being sold to (hence, often also referred to as the Sold-to account). This can either be an account that has already purchased, continues to purchase, or is currently being pitched to as a prospect with the intention to close a deal and convert.
By default, an Account has the following tabs available:
Tab |
Additional Information |
---|---|
A summary page of key Account information. |
|
Detail |
General details and attributes such as Account Name, IDs, Account owner and creator, ABC classification, industry data, etc. are maintained here. |
Notes |
Users can maintain notes and comments, <virtual team> This tab acts like a journal: users can maintain notes / comments. Upon saving, the system will store the respective text together with a time stamp and the user information who created the note. |
Addresses |
Addresses associated with the Account. |
Contacts |
Contacts associated with the Account. |
Sales Data |
Sales Data which is maintained on the account (can be used to restrict visibility, restrict products, etc.) |
Opportunities |
Opportunities created for the account. |
Quotes |
Quotes created for the account. |
Activities |
Activities created for the account. |
Equipment |
NOTE: this is a 20/08 release feature. Here, equipment (i.e. serialized machines/products) related to the account are listed here. |
Attachments |
Files that have been uploaded and attached to the account. |
Role / Functions |
Related partners (e.g. users, contacts, other parties). |
Portal Users |
NOTE: this is a 20/08 release feature. Here, existing contacts can be converted to portal users. An email will be sent with login credentials for the after-sales portal. |
Account Overview
The Account Overview page provides a holistic overview of a company that keeps everyone (e.g. sales reps, sales managers, technical sales engineers, service reps, etc.) aligned. In the Account Overview, all critical information about the current pipeline, sales teams, activities, existing quotes, etc. is stored and can be accessed by the user. The following figure depicts the overview page:
The following tiles are available in the Account Overview page:
- Open Quotes (sorted by last updated date)
- Contacts (with easy action to call or send an e-mail)
- Pipeline for the next 3 months and total pipeline to understand the future outlook.
- Team: who is who in this Account based on the various roles defined in Partner functions.
- Open Tasks which helps as a reminder with due dates.
Detail Page
On this page, the user can obtain information such as name, website, ABC classification, industry information, and other data points:
When integrated with SAP ERP or another CRM solution, this data will be replicated and stays updated as soon as changes in the source system trigger a delta load.
When emails are integrated via Application Programming Interfaces (API)s, the field ‘Account Domain’ also helps to link the contacts based on the e-mail addresses to the right account in an automated way. For additional information refer to ‘Email’ for additional details.
Notes
Users can create notes in a journal like a format: for this, every note – upon saving – will be added a timestamp when the note was created, as well as the username who created the note will be associated with the entry.
Account notes facilitate a collaborative sales approach and share time-sensitive information. Any user who has marked an account as a favorite is kept informed, with an instant e-mail notification when notes are added or when using @mentions. In this case, the mentioned user will be notified via email, that s/he was tagged in a note. The system also provides the flexibility to mute a conversation to avoid sending unwanted updates.
Address
Multiple addresses can be maintained at an account level, while one (1) address can be maintained as the default / main address:
Contacts
It represent natural persons which are typically associated with accounts and are used in sales transactions such as opportunities and quotes. Contacts, therefore, are used to store information about the people sales representatives interact with on a regular basis. Contacts inherit authorization from the account, meaning that if a sales rep has access to the account, the access is inherited and therefore also granted on the contact person level. Customer contacts associated with the account are listed below:
Move Contact Between Accounts
Contacts that might have moved, were wrongly assigned, or previously orphaned, can now be managed for future follow-up. Opportunity and Quote can have multiple contacts involved with one flagged as primary. This feature allows a contact's account field to be editable and the Account field is mandatory on contact create (via UI). On changing accounts, Sales Info is removed by the system and the user needs to reassign the sales info based on the new account.
Note: If a commerce user exists for contact, after moving to another account - the commerce user will be able to view Orders & Inquiry linked to the new account and will lose access to Inquiry/order created for the previous account (if any).
Sales Data
For additional information on sales data refer to ‘Organization Unit, Distribution Channel and Division’.
Opportunities and Quotes
Associated opportunities and quotes are linked below:
Activities
Associated activities (such as tasks, phone calls, meetings, and emails) can be found here:
For additional information on activities, refer to ‘Introduction to Activities’.
Attachments
Any important documents can be uploaded for each account, under the attachment section. Click on the 'add file(s)' icon and click to add files or drag and drop into the section below:
All uploading files will be shown below:
Cross-functional collaboration and documentation is essential element of a digital workspace. Users can store attachments as URLs/links (for items stored in external services like Dropbox or SharePoint) on all business objects having an attachment tab.
Role / Functions
In this section, the user can obtain related partners such as other users (e.g. an employee responsible or other sales employee parties), other accounts (such as partners/distributors or competitors).
User related roles will be mapped to the account team tile available on the Account Overview Page. Newly added roles will automatically be updated.