Lesson 9-- Customers & Projects

Goldenseal is small business management software that includes customer relations and project management features for small businesses.

In this lesson you will look at Customer and Project accounts. Use Customer accounts for anyone that pays you money for sales or services. Use Project accounts for each piece of work that you do.

When a prospect accepts an estimate from you, create a Customer account for them, and then also create a Project account for the work you'll do.

HINT: You may eventually do more than one project for the same customer.

When to Use Customer Accounts

Use a Customer account for each person or business that pays you money for goods or services.

HINT: If you have anonymous customers or customers that buy from you only rarely, create a Customer account for them all, and turn on the Allow One Time Names checkbox in it.

Creating Customer Accounts

If you already have a Prospect record for a person, follow these steps to create a customer account for them:

Choose Prospects from the Income menu.
Locate the prospect who is becoming a customer.
Click the Convert To Customer button. When you are asked to confirm the change, click OK.
Goldenseal will create a Customer account, with all the prospect's info included. It also converts all contracts, estimates and contact records with the prospect, so they refer to the new customer account.

To create a new customer account for someone who was never entered as a prospect, follow these steps:

Choose Customers from the Accounts menu.
Click the New button, or choose New Record from the Edit menu.
Enter the data that applies to this customer.

HINT-- The basic Customer account window shows phone, address and other contact info. Click the Sales Setup button to enter delivery and billing info for this customer.

Using Customer Accounts

Customer accounts are a permanent record of everyone that has paid you for goods or services.

If you sell goods or services, enter Sales transactions for them. If you do project work for customers, enter them into Estimates and Project accounts. You can then use the Billing commands to send out bills to them.

To keep track of the time you spend with your customers, enter them into Appointment and Contact Log records. To see those records while you are working in Goldenseal small business software, click on the View Appointments or View Contact Log buttons on the customer record.

You can also use the Print Forms command to print mailing labels or envelopes, so you can send marketing materials to some or all of your customers.

When to Use Project Accounts

Use Project accounts for construction work, professional services, rental property improvements, and other large tasks. You can use them for work you do for other people, or for your own internal projects.

Create a project account whenever any of the following conditions exist:

Job Costs-- When a piece of work is large enough or special enough that you want to track its job costs separately.
Draw Schedules-- If you will use a fixed schedule that includes more than one payment when you bill for this work.
Progress Payments-- If you will bill based on the progress of work-- at regular intervals, at irregular intervals, or at certain project milestones.
Time and Materials Work-- if you will bill for actual expenses, with or without an additional charge (sometimes known as 'cost plus' work).
Change Orders-- If the project involves formal change orders that specify changes in the work.
Retainage-- If the client will 'hold back' a part of the payment until the work is completed.
Paperwork-- When you'd like to use a project log for a piece of work, or when you'd like to track contracts and documents for a project and keep them separate from other work that you do for the same client.

Creating Project Accounts

To create a project account, follow these steps:

Choose Projects from the Accounts menu.
Click the New button.
Choose the type of account that will pay for the project. Usually it is a customer, but it can also be an equipment, investment, overhead or real estate account.
Enter the specific account that will pay for the project. NOTE: When you leave the Customer field, Goldenseal fills in information from the customer account.
Enter a brief project name.
If the project uses an estimate, enter it into the Estimate field. The field only shows estimates for the customer entered previously. NOTE: If you want to track 'estimated versus actual' job costs for the project, you'll need to create an estimate for it, and use a Category or Item breakdown in the estimate.
Choose a job type in the Job Type field. The job type determines overhead allocations and other posting details. It also lets you group together jobs that are similar to each other. NOTE: To view job types, choose Account Groups from the Options menu, then choose Job Types from the submenu.
Fill in the other project fields. If you didn’t use an estimate, type in the cost for this project.
Click the More Info button to fill in billing and job cost info, then click OK to save the changes.

More Accounts

Goldenseal includes nineteen different classes of accounts.

Each account class handles one type of business relationship. There is a separate browser window for each class of account.

To view any other class of account, double-click on an icon in the Chart of Accounts, or use one of the menu commands in the Accounts menu.

Job Accounts consume expenses, and generate income-- customers, projects, and overhead accounts.
Asset Accounts handle things that you own-- cash, checking, equipment, inventory, investment, real estate, and savings accounts. Available only in the full version of Goldenseal.
Liability Accounts handle things that you owe to someone else-- credit card, loan, owner equity, and escrow accounts. Available only in the full versio"n of Goldenseal.
Cost Accounts get money from you for expenses-- employee, equipment, material supplier, subcontractor, and other cost accounts.
Utility Accounts store basic accounting information. Available only in the full version of Goldenseal.

You might want to take a quick look at each class of account that you think will apply to your business.

Using Multiple Windows

When you open more than one browser window, they will all be shown on the screen at the same time. You can have any number of windows open at once, and you can arrange them on the screen any way you'd like.

HINT: Goldenseal remembers where you put each window, and puts it back into the same place the next time you open the program.

The window that is in the very front is called the active window. Any typing or menu commands will apply to the data in the active window.

To work with a different window that is visible but not active, click anywhere in the inactive window to bring it to the front.

If you can't see an open window, follow these steps to make it active:

Click on the View menu (Macintosh) or the Window menu (Windows).
Look at the list of open windows (at the bottom of the menu), and choose the window that you'd like to bring to the front.

Grouping Accounts

Each account includes a field that you can use to group together similar types of accounts. For example, you can use the Cost Types field for basic cost areas such as 'electrical', 'plumbing' and 'carpentry', and the Job Types field for types of work such as 'remodeling' and 'new construction'. Asset and liability accounts can be grouped into Company Divisions.

The account groups are helpful when you want to find a specific group of accounts, or want to make a report that is broken down by different account types.

You do not need to use the account groups to identify income or expense categories. That is handled instead by cost categories, cost locations or income tax classes.

Using Accounts

Once you have created customer and project accounts, you only need to change them if some of their basic information changes-- for example, an address change or a change in credit rating.

When you enter transactions, you'll reference one or more accounts in each record. That way it's easy to track the source of your income and expenses.

Many of the account records have buttons that show you a list of transactions for that account.

To see a compact list of reports, choose Accounts from the Reports menu, and choose one of the submenus. You can also see transactions broken down by account in many of the reports.

Finishing Up

This lesson has introduced you to customer and project accounts in the Goldenseal business management software.

This might be a good time for a break. Wouldn't you like to go home for a while and take a hot bath? Is there a rubber ducky in your closet who perhaps has been feeling neglected lately?

Remember, with just a bit of duct tape, you can transform a rubber ducky into a chic, yellow hat. It will even squeak pleasantly when you go through low doorways, or when ducks of a similar species fly overhead.