Understanding Customers and Customer References [Guide]

A Customer entity is a "master" record for a client. Creating this entity allows you to manage all associated information from a central location at an Account level, and use it when creating Sales Orders.

While it is possible to manage orders setting their Ship To or Bill To properties, creating a Customer entity provides advanced functionality. A Customer is a manageable record that links a name, contact information, addresses, and specific references together.

This article provides a conceptual overview of the Customer entity in techOMS and explains the function of Customer References.

NOTE: For instructions on how to manage Customers, see: How to Manage Customers: Create, Edit, Delete, and Import [Step-by-Step guide].

This article is divided into the following sections:

1. Customer Identity
2. Customer References

I. CUSTOMER IDENTITY

techOMS automatically assigns a unique, system-generated ID to every new Customer created. This identifier's primary purpose is to ensure every customer record is distinct.

Separately, techOMS uses a validation rule to prevent the creation of accidental duplicates. It checks for the uniqueness of the following fields combined:

• Contact Name

• Ship To and Bill To Name

• Ship To and Bill To Address Line 1

• Ship To and Bill To City

• Ship To and Bill To Postal Code

• Ship To and Bill To Country

• Ship To and Bill To State/Province

NOTE: This criteria allows, for example, a single contact name to exist multiple times, provided they have different Ship To or Bill To addresses.

II. CUSTOMER REFERENCES

Customer References are key-value pairs that can be stored on a Customer entity (e.g., GLAccount = 12345 or SalesRep = John Doe).

The primary function of Customer References is automation. When a Customer is assigned to a Sales Order (specifically in the Ship To section), techOMS automatically copies the references from the Customer record to the Sales Order. These references are displayed with their Type set to Order, alongside other order-level references. 

WARNING: The reference-copying process is a one-time action that occurs when the order is saved. Any updates made to a Customer’s references afterward will not retroactively update existing orders.

If you manually change the Ship To Customer on an existing order, techOMS will add the new Customer's references but will not automatically remove the previous Customer's references. You must manually delete the obsolete references from the References tab to prevent duplicates.

NOTE: If a reference with the same Type and Code already exists on the order, its value will be overwritten by the Customer Reference.

 
The following rules apply to reference management:

• Manual (UI) Creation:
  When a Customer is selected, the references are copied to the order upon saving. For more information, see: How to Manually Create a Sales Order [Step-by-step guide].
   
  
  NOTE: You may need to refresh the page for the copied references to appear in the order's References tab.
  

   

• API Creation:
  When an order is created via the API with a Customer assigned, the references are correctly attached and are visible in the UI's References tab. For details, see: Getting started using techOMS API [Information].
   
• File Import:
  The Sales Order Import method does not apply Customer References, as this method does not link the order to a Customer entity. For more information, see: How to Import Sales Orders via file [Step-by-step guide].