Business Accounts: General Information

As you work with prospective customers, you need to create business accounts in the system, which can later be extended as customer accounts. (They can also be extended as vendor accounts if your company purchases some products or services from the company.)

A business account can be used when you create a new entity, such as a contact or lead, that is related to the account. You can associate a newly created contact or lead with an existing business account so that it becomes a representative of this customer or prospect.

This topic provides information about creating business accounts in MYOB Advanced.

Learning Objectives

In this chapter, you will learn how to do the following:

Become familiar with ways of creating business accounts
Create a business account manually
Specify a primary contact for the business account
Process a business account as it has different statuses
Learn about the synchronization of settings in leads, contacts, and business accounts

Applicable Scenarios

You may want to learn how to create business accounts in scenarios that include the following:

An employee of your company has contacted a lead and confirmed the contact information and the interest in company's products or services, and you need to convert the lead to an opportunity.
You have been assigned as the owner of a contact who is employed by a prospective customer interested in your company's products or services, and you need to create a business account.

Business Accounts in MYOB Advanced

In MYOB Advanced, a business account is a record on the Business Accounts (CR303000) form that represents a legal entity (a company or an individual) that your company deals with or intends to sell products and services to; it is generally created in the system when your company is marketing its products or services to the business account. This business account can later be extended as a customer (or as a vendor; a business account can be extended as both a customer and a vendor if you sell products or services to this account and buy products or services from it).

A lead and a contact (or multiple leads and contacts) in the system—which are created on the Leads (CR301000) form and the Contacts (CR302000) form, respectively—may be associated with a business account. To create a business account, you need to specify a contact for this account. If the needed contact has already been created in the system, you can create a business account and associate the contact with the account. If the needed contact has not been created in the system, the system will create it when you are creating the business account. When you are creating a new business account based on a lead, the system automatically copies the contact information from the lead to the business account.

You can delete a business account that has been created based on a lead. In this case, the lead and contact associated with this business account remain in the system.

Creation of Business Accounts in MYOB Advanced

The broader process of creating a business account in MYOB Advanced, which is maintained on the Business Accounts (CR303000) form, consists of the following steps:

Optional: If you are creating a business account based on an existing lead, validating this lead for duplicates. For details, see Validating Records for Duplicates.
Creating the business account (from a lead, contact, through lead conversion to an opportunity, or manually).
Optional: Creating a contact associated with the business account.
Specifying a primary contact for the business account.

You can create a business account in any of the following ways:

On the Leads (CR301000) form when you convert the selected lead to an opportunity by clicking Convert to Opportunity on the More menu. In the Create Opportunity dialog box, which opens, you specify the opportunity and business account settings; the specification of business account settings may be required or optional, depending on the conversion settings on the Lead Classes (CR207000) form for the lead. You then click Create or Create and Review to create the opportunity and business account. For detailed instructions, see Lead Qualification by Sales Teams: To Convert a Lead to an Opportunity.
On the Leads or Opportunities (CR304000) form if you are creating a business account associated with the selected lead or opportunity by clicking Create Account on the More menu. In the Create Account dialog box, which opens, you specify the basic business account and contact settings, and then you click Create or Create and Review to create the business account.
On the Contacts (CR302000) form if you are creating a business account associated with the contact selected on the form by clicking Create Account on the More menu. In the Create Account dialog box, which opens, you specify the business account settings and click Create or Create and Review to create the business account.
Directly on the Business Accounts (CR303000) form. In this case, you add a new record and manually enter the settings of the new business account.
Directly by using the MYOB mobile app. For detailed instructions, see Business Accounts: To Create a Business Account by Using the MYOB Mobile App.
By using import scenarios to import lists of business accounts on the Import by Scenario (SM206036) form. You can use the predefined Import Business Accounts from Excel import scenario.

Regardless of how you create the business account, you can select a business account class in the Class box on the Business Accounts form or in one of the dialog boxes mentioned above, which causes the system to insert default settings for the business account, easing the process of content creation. (For details, see Defining Business Account Classes.)

Once a business account has been created, you can associate one or multiple leads or contacts with the business account and select a primary contact for it, as described in the following section.

Creation of Contacts Associated with a Business Account

When you create a business account on the Leads (CR301000) or Contacts (CR302000) form by specifying the business account and contact settings in the Create Account dialog box, the system also creates a contact and associates this contact with the business account. On the Business Accounts (CR303000) form, you can view and modify the address details of the contact on the General tab and view the contact settings of the contact on the Contacts tab. On the Contacts tab, you can also create as many contacts associated with the business account as needed.

We recommend that you specify a primary contact associated with the business account, as described in the following section.

Primary Contact for a Business Account

In MYOB Advanced, you can specify a primary contact for a business account. A primary contact is the contact whose contact and address settings the system uses as the default contact for the associated records and documents that have contact settings on them, such as an opportunity created for the business account on the Opportunities (CR304000) form, thus ensuring that the contact who officially represents the business is used in these records. A primary contact gives you the following abilities:

Quickly add to the system the contact information of a business and the official representative of this business
Easily differentiate between the contact information of the business and the official representative of this business
View the contact information of both the business and the official representative of this business on the same tab (the General tab) of the Business Accounts (CR303000) form.

Only one primary contact can be selected for a business account. You can define a primary contact in either of the following ways:

On the General tab of the Business Accounts form, you can specify or change the primary contact.
On the Contacts tab of this form, you can select any contact associated with the business account and then clicking the Set as Primary button on the table toolbar. This causes the system to select the check box in the Primary column for the new primary contact and to populate the UI elements in the Primary Contact section of the General tab with the settings of the new primary contact.

For an existing contact on the Contacts (CR302000) form that is a primary contact of a business account, if you clear the value in the Business Account box, the system displays a warning about the possibility of changing the primary contact for the account. If you proceed with clearing the Business Account box for the contact—thus deleting the link between the contact and the business account—on the General and Contacts tabs of the Business Accounts form, the system clears all settings related to the primary contact.

Relations Between a Business Account and Its Associated Records

As you work with a business account in MYOB Advanced, you can track the records associated with the account on the Relations tab of the Business Accounts (CR303000) form. For details, see Managing Relations.

Processing of a Business Account Through Statuses

As a business account is being processed by a marketing or sales team, it progresses through various statuses. The current status of a business account is displayed in the Customer Status box in the Summary area of the Business Accounts (CR303000) form. You can manually change the status of a business account.

In MYOB Advanced, a business account may be assigned one of the following statuses:

Prospect: The business account is a prospective customer that may be interested in signing a deal but has not done this yet.
This option is available for selection if the business account has the Business Account type.
Active: The business account is active, appears in all Business Account lookup tables, and can be selected in documents and other records.
This option is available for selection if the business account has the Customer or Customer & Vendor type.
On Hold: The business account (and the corresponding customer account, if applicable) is temporarily on hold.
The business account and the associated customer cannot be selected in documents and other records, and they do not appear in lookup tables for the Business Account and Customer element.
Inactive: The business account (and the associated customer, if applicable) is inactive. The business account and the associated customer cannot be selected in documents and other records. That is, they do not appear in lookup tables for the Business Account and Customer element. Any existing document or record with an inactive account or the associated customer cannot be processed; any attempt to modify the document or record results in an error.
One-Time: The business account is for a one-time customer. The account becomes inactive after all the payments have been received.
This option is available for selection if the business account has the Customer or Customer & Vendor type.
Credit Hold: The business account has been put on credit hold, which prevents users from creating any new sales orders for the customer: Users cannot select the customer in the Customer box in the Summary area of the Sales Orders (SO301000) form.
This option is available for selection if the business account has the Customer or Customer & Vendor type.

To mass-change the statuses of multiple business accounts or mass-update their settings, you can use the Update Business Accounts (CR503320) form.

For details about extending a business account to be a customer or vendor, see Business Accounts: Extension of a Business Account as a Customer or Vendor.

Synchronization of Settings in Leads, Contacts, and Business Accounts

In MYOB Advanced, you can easily synchronize the contact-related settings of a lead with the same settings in the contact and business account related to that lead. With this synchronization turned on, changes to the contact information of any of these entities causes the settings in the related entities to be updated as well.

Tip: The synchronization or overriding of settings applies to all the settings on the Contact Info tab of the Leads (CR301000) form, all the settings on the Details tab of the Contacts (CR302000) form, and the contact and address settings (of the primary contact of the business account) on the General tab of the Business Accounts (CR303000) form.

You can synchronize contact information in leads, contacts, and business accounts by using the Override check box on the Details tab of the Contacts form as follows:

If the check box is cleared and the business account related to the contact has not been extended as a customer or a vendor yet, the contact information of the contact on the Contacts form is synchronized with the contact information of the related lead and business account on the Leads and Business Accounts forms, respectively, and can be updated in both directions. That is, if you update the contact and address settings on any of these forms, the settings will be also updated on the related forms.
If the check box is cleared and the business account related to the contact has been extended as a customer or a vendor, the address settings of the contact on the Contacts form are read-only and can be updated automatically only in one direction, from the Business Accounts form to the Contacts form.
If the check box is selected, the contact information for the selected contact on the Contacts form can differ from the contact information of the related lead and business account on the Leads and Business Accounts forms. If contact information is updated on any of these forms, the changes are not applied to the other forms.

Ability to Add User-Defined Fields to CRM Forms

User-defined fields are site-specific elements that have been defined to track information deemed as important to the organization. A customizer—a user with particular access rights in the system—can add user-defined fields to the Leads (CR301000), Contacts (CR302000), Business Accounts (CR303000), Opportunities (CR304000), Sales Quotes (CR304500), Cases (CR306000), Activity (CR306010), Task (CR306020), and Event (CR306030) form. From any of these forms, the customizer can open the Edit User Defined Fields (CS205020) form by clicking Manage User-Defined Fields in the Customization menu on the form title bar and specify a set of user-defined fields for the form.

For a lead, contact, business account, opportunity, sales quote, and case, the set of user-defined fields is applicable to either a particular class of the entity or all classes of the entity. For a class, each user-defined field can be defined as required or hidden; also, a default value can be specified for the field.

If user-defined fields have been added for a data entry form of a lead, contact, business account, opportunity, sales quote, and case, the original information in the Summary area of a record's form is displayed on the Document tab. The added user-defined fields are displayed on the User-Defined Fields tab. On this tab, by using these fields, you can easily specify additional information about records they are working with. For details, see Attributes and User-Defined Fields.

Copying of User-Defined Fields Between Records

The values of user-defined fields can be copied between records—CRM entities, project quotes, and customers and vendors—when an associated record is created from another record on the following forms:

Leads (CR301000)
Contacts (CR302000)
Business Accounts (CR303000)
Opportunities (CR304000)
Sales Quotes (CR304500)
Cases (CR306000)
Activity (CR306010)
Task (CR306020)
Event (CR306030)
Customers (AR303000)
Vendors (AP303000)
Project Quotes (PM304500)

In this context, the original record is the record from which the associated record is created. If any user-defined fields are listed on the User-Defined Fields tab of both the original record's form (that is, the form used as a starting point for record creation) and the form of the new record, the system automatically copies the values of the shared user-defined fields to the same fields for the new record.

If a user-defined field has been both added to and defined as required on the form of the new record, the field is displayed on the User-Defined Fields tab of each of the following dialog boxes, which are used for record creation and opened using an action on the original record's form:

Create Contact on the Leads, Business Accounts, Opportunities, Customers, and Vendors forms: The set of user-defined fields depends on the class of the new record.
Create Account on the Leads, Contacts, and Opportunities forms: The set of user-defined fields depends on the class of the new record.
Create Opportunity on the Leads form: The set of user-defined fields depends on the class of the new record.
Create Quote on the Opportunities form: The set of user-defined fields depends on the selected type of the quote (Project Quote or Sales Quote).

Note: The user-defined field is listed in the dialog box regardless of whether it has been added to the form of the original record and whether it is required on this form.

These dialog boxes do not have rows that list the optional user-defined fields (those not defined as required on the form where the new record is created). If a customizer has specified a default value for a user-defined field in the original record, this default value is inserted in the same user-defined field for a new record associated with the original record.

If a user creates a new record by using any of the following records as a starting point, the system copies the values of shared user-defined fields to the new record whose form opens in a pop-up window:

A lead, opportunity, or case created on the Leads, Opportunities, or Cases tab, respectively, of the Business Accounts form
A lead, opportunity, or case created on the Leads, Opportunities, or Cases tab of the Contacts form
A sales order or invoice created when the user clicks Create Sales Order or Create Invoice (under Record Creation) on the More menu of the Opportunities form
A sales quote created when the user copies an existing sales quote on the Quotes tab of the Opportunities form
A sales quote created when the user copies the existing sales quote by clicking Copy Quote (under Other) on the More menu of the Sales Quotes form
A project quote created when the user copies the existing project quote by clicking Copy (under Other) on the More menu of the Project Quotes (PM304500) form
A service order created when the user clicks Create Service Order (under Services) on the More menu of the Cases (CR306000) or Opportunities form
An appointment created when the user clicks Create Appointment (under Services) on the More menu of the Opportunities form

A user can change the value in a user-defined field of any record at any time if the record's current status gives the user the ability to edit the settings' values in the record.

Also, a user can select the values of user-defined fields when the user merges duplicate records. For details, see Record Validation for Duplicates: General Information.