How do I compare a vendor's customer list to my list of customers?
What to ask your vendors for:
When you ask your vendor to send you their current customer list, the following guidelines will help you to be able to use what they send you and match their list to your existing list of customers.
No matter what computer system your supplier uses, they should be able to export their customer list in at least one of the following formats:
Any of these file types can be opened by a program such as Microsoft Excel. An MS Word document or even an Adobe (pdf) file will be helpful but can not be imported and must be visually compared. The disadvantage to Adobe format files is that they are difficult to cut and paste from. If the supplier is using Excel or ASCII columnar formats, your data should just be organized into uninterrupted rows and columns without any headers other than the optional first row. Each row is 1 record (customer), each column is 1 field (piece of information).
To simplify the task of comparing names, ask your vendor to alphabetize their list and to either divide their customer list into a separate list for each of your reps or to at least include the necessary information such as the zip code so that you can divide out the territories. Following is a list of fields to ask for:
Current customers only! Please filter you customer list to those that have had significant purchases within the last two years. If you can include their totals last year and year to date, it will greatly improve your sales and targeting of your customers.
Ship To Company name, ship to phone, fax, address, city, state, and ship to postal code. Each data element (name, address, city...) should be in a separate field (column). Shipping address information should be separate from billing address information.
Contact first name, last name, and position (owner, manager, etc). Separated first and last name is preferable but, a single field for the name will work.
The supplier's unique ship to customer number for each of their customers. This may be one unique number column or a combination of Bill To and Ship To number columns that establishes the ship to location as unique. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT if you will be exporting orders electroncially or importing their invoices into BrokerForce®.
Price list that the customer qualifies for e.g. Wholesale, Distributor, Level1...
Credit Terms e.g. 2% 10 Net 30. Credit limit should be a separate column if available. If your vendor uses terms codes instead of text, the code should be provided.
A summary of sales volume e.g. Total shipped last year, and year to date this year (optional)
Store category - this depends on the industry however, categories canhelp you to target your marketing to be appropriate to the customer.
Bolded items above should be required.
How to Import a list:
For users of BrokerForce Enterprise with Internet synchronization services, there are tools for automating the import of a vendor's customer list and/or invoices. This is not supported for other versions of BrokerForce. Please contact our sales associates if you would like to upgrade.
How to visually compare a list:
It is assumed that you are looking to compare a customer list from a new vendor to your already established list of customers. If not, and you want to begin with using a vendor's customer list, you should discuss the import options with the knowledgeable service staff at DataForce.
Computers are not particularly good at comparing for duplicates so, importing them en-masse into an established database can cause duplications when minor spelling differences are not recognized. If time permits, a visual comparison by a user is more reliable and helps users to familiarize themselves with a new vendor's account list.
For a visual comparison, separate your list by rep and distribute each list to the appropriate rep. Each rep should then use his/her list to enter their own customers as customers of this vendor. Be sure to ask the vendor to include their customer number for each of their customers. Updating their customer number can help facilitate posting or importing invoice information and reduce order entry errors.
The fastest way to do a visual comparison is by using the <Customers> tab (circled in red below) on the Vendor form. If a name is missing from the list, one can test the name for presence in the database by typing the first few letters of the name to see if the customer is already in the database. If not, the user is prompted to add them at that time via a pop-up form.
Numbers highlighted in yellow are temporary numbers assigned by BrokerForce®. When these are edited to be the vendor's number for the customer, they will not be highlighted.
One can also use the Windows copy and paste commands and toggle between Excel and BrokerForce® to paste missing information into BrokerForce®.