Don't want to use client accounts? see here

As you create invoices and estimates Onyx will save the details that you enter; this saves a huge amount of time when the customer returns for their next job to be carried out.

That said, there may be occasions when you would like to create client accounts directly, this can be done via the ‘Maintenance’ task page or by typing View Customers into the command bar.  Once in the new screen you will see the following screens:

The ‘Main’ tab of a client account.

Each client account must have a unique Account Name, the format is up to you (don’t worry, you will not have to try to remember hundreds of different account names, the system provides many different search facilities and will also complain if you try to create a new account with an account name that has already been used).  The only other required field (on this tab) is Surname or Company Name.  Note the alert message field, whatever you record here will be displayed in Onyx whenever you use this account.  So if you find that the mobile phone number is dead, you can add a short message to remind you to ask the customer for the new number when they next contact you.

Onyx includes facilities to send out email statements, invoices etc (and even advertisements) to your clients.  Please tick the relevant boxes to respect the wishes of your clients in this regard.

The ‘Account Information’ tab of the client account.

Default discount is the discount percentage that you wish to assign to a particular customer and is on a per account basis (i.e. each account can have its own default discount).  This will be applied to all parts that you add to an invoice (though you can overwrite it).

Cost Price, if ticked then this customer will be charged the cost price of any parts.  To prevent any costly mistakes, when this is ticked the default discount will be disabled and Onyx will always use 0% (though you can still overwrite this when adding a part to an invoice if you wish), you can also add a percentage to be added to the cost price, so for example you could set to 5% and then any parts added to an invoice for this account will have 5% added to the cost price of the item (note, regardless of the figure added, the retail price will never be exceeded)

Credit Terms (Days) is the number of days before a newly created invoice is considered due.

Cash Only, if selected a warning is displayed on the invoice and payment screens reminding you that this user is regarded as a cash only customer.

Insurance Company  – Onyx links vehicles to clients via invoices.  If client A brings his vehicle in for an MOT in March, he will receive a MOT reminder in March of the following year.  However, if he brings it in in July for an insurance claim, and you create a new invoice for the Insurance company with this vehicle linked, then Onyx will think that the Insurance Company is the new owner and will send the MOT reminder to the insurance company.  To prevent this happening ensure that you tick the ‘Insurance Company’ tick box when creating insurance accounts. The same is true for any general purpose Cash Sale/Rapid Sale accounts you may have.

Stopped: when ticked will display a warning message whenever a new invoice is raised against the account, it does not prevent the invoice from being created though.

Credit Limit: if set to anything over £0.00 will provide a visual warning in the invoice screen if the account limit is exceeded.

The next tab provides you with a way to record information against a particular account.

The 'User Fields' tab allows you to keep extra information relating to customers in a structured format.  You can add additional text, number, yes/no, currency, and date fields. So if you decided you wanted to record how the customer found you, you might add a user field to record this:

The comments tab allows you to record additional data that is specific to this customer account only.  You can use the snippets feature to save free text for use elsewhere in Onyx.

The Links tab allows you to see (and optionally delete) the links that are automatically created between vehicles and accounts.

And finally the Attachments tab allows you to add various files, images, documents and videos to this account.

Press ‘Close’ and you will be asked if you want to save your changes.  You will be notified if any errors occur.