Company

A Company record is the most singular important record used in CRM. Companies are customers, prospects, partners, competitors, or other businesses you want to keep information on. The company record contains company data and contacts with a complete history of all interactions with any given customer or prospect.

Search for a company record in Global Search or Search by Record Type (Navigation Menu>Companies>Search)

Selection of one company record from the search results displays the company details. You can find this as a drawer view on the right side of the page listing company’s basic information for a quick look. Click the left arrow to return to the search results.

Click the Open button in either the search results (tile view) or the selected company’s drawer view to open the company’s main view page. You can find the complete details of the selected company in this page.

Company Main View Interface

The main view page contains multiple tabs such as Company Details, History, Profile, Map, and more. Each tab has a different toolbar that allows the users to perform specific tasks.

The Company Details tab provides basic company information for effective business development such as addresses, phones, web addresses, type of business, status, profile, representatives and territories. Refer Company Fields, for more details.

• Contacts lists all contacts associated to the selected company.

  Click the specific contact to view the complete contact record.

  The Settings icon in Contacts allows you to perform related functions such as creating new activity, sending an email and more. To add a contact or a link an existing contact, click Options.

• Recent Activity list shows all correspondence activities. Click Options > New to add any new activity if needed.

• Summary Badges displays 4 dashboard panels with valuable statistic information for a company including Active Opportunities, Open Cases, To Do’s, and Month to Date Sales. Click each badge to drill down for more details. You have Options to select the specific badges for display and to restore defaults.

The History tab is a list of all the activities related to a company, including both open and completed ones. Activities include appointments, meetings, telephone calls, emails, etc. The Activity grid view displays all the interactions and future actions to build an effective relationship for business development.

The Profile tab is to maintain additional information about the selected company. For example, industry classification, annual sales, number of employees, company relationships, and Marketing Information (interests, sources, lists, leads and more.). Refer Best Practices – Using Interest, List, and Source for more details.

Map tab allows you to view the location of the company on a map. From the map, you can view nearby companies, or plan a trip with the route planning feature.

The following tabs can be found under More:

To Do’s is a list of all open activities that need to be completed against the selected company. Clicking any activity opens a Card displaying all the information related to the specific activity. Click the Add icon to create any new task to the To Do list.

Opportunities helps you to plan and manage the sales process while monitoring the effectiveness of strategies for closing deals.

Accounting records basic accounting information. This tab can be set up by your system administrator or person related to your accounting system.

Cases allow you to track the issues that requires customer service or technical support.

Notes display general notes associated with the company.

Attachments link any type of important files (for example, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat) to the selected company.

Business Processes display the business process steps the customer is assigned to. Refer Setup > Business Processes, for more details

Sales Orders display the list of all the issued sales orders. You also have the option to export the data by clicking Export To Excel.

You will find other available tabs such as Quotations, Invoices, RMAs and A/R Aging Summary on integrating CRM with ERP. Refer ERP Integration, for more details.

Company Options

Select the Edit icon to modify the existing company records. Add companies to your favorites by clicking Add to Favorites. On adding, the favorite icon turns green.

Options give you the ability to perform related actions specific to the selected company. You can access the Options button from the main view title menu bar and drawer menu bar.

Options that are available on the main view include:

• Refresh

  Refreshes the page you are currently on.

• New Alert

  When you click New Alert, the Add Alert dialog box opens. You can specify the target audience, expiration date, description of the reminder (required field), and any additional notes.

  You can find the blue bell icons on the Main view interface if alert is added to the selected company. Number of alerts is also displayed on the bell icon.

  Once an alert has been saved, they can also be seen on the top right corner next to user options icon.

• Mail Merge

  This option is a merge to Word feature that takes the company information and places it in a Word template that you select. Additionally you can create activities from this merge function.

• Email Link

  It opens a blank email that includes a link to the company.

• Review Guidance

  It displays up the information to provide step by step guidance on the various icons of the company page.

• Design Control

  This option can be used to customize the screen.

Company Drawer View Interface

On the Company search, click the specific company record in the tile list to open the Company details. Typically, this drawer interface is the quickest and easiest way to navigate to the company information.

The Company drawer contains the basic company information such as Addresses, Phones, Representatives and more. You can also find the last activity, Note and Attachment in the groupboxes below.

To modify the existing company record, select the Edit icon.

To add a company to your favorites, click Add to Favorites.

Create any New Activity by clicking the Clock icon.

Click Options for more operations such as Mail Merge, Activity History, and more.

Company Fields

The company header fields are found on both the main view and the drawer view. Some fields, such as web addresses, are free-form text fields that accepts alphanumeric characters.

Any fields that have a plus(+) icon opens as an edit card to add database entries for the specific field.

Talk to your system admin or other admin users to set up and maintain lists to add database entry fields. Refer to Administrators and Setup section of the doc for more details.

Below is the list of default Company record fields that are used to enter relevant activity information. Not all the fields have been listed as few of them are of obvious description.

Add a New Company

To add a new company record, you can choose one of the following options.

• From the Navigation menu, New > Company
• From the Company quick search, click New Company(+) icon to add a company record.

Before adding a new company record, you can start by searching for the company you want to add to ensure it isn’t already in the database. If no matches are found, then continue.

1. Click New > Company on the left side navigation panel.

2. Enter the Company Name which is the only required field (red field name).

   However, it’s best practice to enter all the data you can.

   Another good practice would be to check for possible duplicate records by clicking More - Duplicates.

3. You can search for the address by entering the associated zip code. This will automatically populate the City and State fields preventing any kind of errors.

4. Click Save. Your Company record is now saved. You can also add Contacts, Activities or other records if needed.

Create Relationships Between Companies

1. Search for the Company that you want to define a relationship.
2. Open the Company record > Profile tab. Click the plus(+) icon on the Company Relationships field.
3. Select the Type of relationship that exists between the two companies.
4. For Company 1 (current company record selected) choose the Company Role it plays with Company 2. For example, select Parent Company.
5. Search for Company 2 by clicking the Search icon and select the company that company 1 has a relationship with.
6. Next, select the Related Company Role that Company 2 plays with Company 1. For example, select Division.
7. Repeat steps 3 through 8 for each relationship that needs to be assigned.
8. Click Save.

Best Practice

One of the most important records in CRM are Company records. The company records tie into everything including all contacts, marketing and sales.

Customer Service team needs information to resolve issues quickly. The following fields are important to populate the Company record and display in the company header:

• Status
• Type
• Profile

These fields allow you to categorize any Company and learn more quickly when you open a record. These are also searchable fields, meaning you can easily pull out groups of companies for purposes such as mail merge.

Example:

The Interest and Interest Subgroup fields are intended to describe the set of products or services that your customer is interested in. By populating these fields, you can search for all the customers interested in your specific products and target your marketing efforts towards them for best outcome. This type of information helps your Sales representatives to have effective track of the customers.

Example:

These fields can also be applied on the Contact or Opportunity records.