Company Types are used to categorise your records, such as:
Prospect
Customer
Competitor
Supplier
Partner
Lapsed
By setting an appropriate Company Type, these can then be used to filter Reports, such as a list of all Companies with a Company Type of 'Customer'. A Company's type can also be configured to change automatically based on their ordering activity.
You can also use Company Types to indicate whether a customer has lapsed and no longer ordering from you. Lapsed can be set after a defined period or manually set.
Please note that Company Types are set at Company Group level within the hierarchy.
Prerequisites
You'll need CRM Admin rights in order to follow the steps in this article
Step 1: Go to Settings Centre
To edit your Company Types, select System Settings in the navigation menu.
Step 2: Navigate to People & Places in Settings
Once within the Settings Centre, navigate to the People & Places page and scroll down until you reach the 'Company Types' configure option.
Step 3: Add New Company Type
By selecting the 'Click to Configure' link, the Configure Company Types window will open. Within this window all of your current Company Types will be listed. To add a new one click on the plus icon in the top right-hand corner.
Step 4: Add Information to the new Company Type
You'll then be able to start entering information about your new Company Type:
Description - This will be the name of the new Company Type. Make sure this is relevant to your users to ensure this type is assigned correctly.
Change to when lapsed - A Company Type can automatically change if the Company hasn't purchased from you after the pre-selected lapsed period. Within this drop-down, select which Company Type the Company will update to if the Company lapses with this Company Type. This saves you having to do this process manually.
Change to on sale - A Company Type can automatically change if the Company has started spending with you and places an order with you via the CRM. Within this drop-down, select the Company Type that the Company will change to when an order is placed. For example, the original Company Type could be 'Prospect', but when they place an order, this could automatically change to 'Customer'.
Once happy with the information entered, click 'Create' and your new Company Type will be added.
Step 5: Assign a Colour
You can also assign a colour to a Type, allowing the user to quickly and easily see from each record what type of company they are dealing with. To configure a colour, click on the pencil icon for the required Company Type and a side panel will appear. Here, you can select the desired colour from the colour wheel.
Step 6: Setting the Lapse Period
Finally, you'll need to set the Lapse Period if you have chosen to set a Company Type to change to once a Company's reached the Lapse Period. To do this, navigate back to the Settings Centre and to the Company Type option within the People & Places page.
Here, you can choose to automatically change the Company Type when a customer hasn't purchased anything from you within the set time frame.