Ranking Customers

The customer ranking program is a sales performance and credit management tool that analyzes customer sales activity, and assigns up to seven levels of rank for up to five different ranking methods. In addition, the customer rank can be used to determine pricing if you use the customer velocity pricing utility in the sell matrix. Different ranking work IDs can be saved and the process can be run immediately or scheduled to run on a regular basis. The program is usually run once a month.

After you run the program, you can view a customer's ranking information on the Customer Ranking screen. For more information on this screen, see Viewing Customer Ranking.

To rank customers:

From the A/R > Utilities menu, select Customer Ranking to display the Customer Ranking screen.
In the Work ID field, do one of the following:

To display an existing customer ranking work ID, do one of the following:
Press F10 and select from a list of work ID names.
Enter a name for the work ID. At the prompt, select the work ID you want to display information on, and press Enter.
To create a new set of customer ranking parameters, do one of the following:
Type New. At the new Work ID prompt, enter the name of the new work ID and press Enter.
Enter the name of the new work ID. At the New prompt, press Enter.

In the Br/Tr/All field, enter the name of the branches for which to run the program.
In the Ranking Method area, in each Rank level field, press F10 and select one of the following ranking methods:

Ranking Method	Sorts in...
Gross Sales $ (12 Mths)	descending order with the greatest dollar amount being given an A ranking and the least amount being given an E or lower ranking.
Gross Profit $ (12 Mths)	descending order with the greatest dollar amount being given an A ranking and the least amount being given an E or lower ranking.
Gross Profit % (12 Mths)	descending order with the greatest percentage being given an A ranking and the least percentage being given an E or lower ranking.
Avg Weighted Days to Pay	ascending order with the lowest number of days being given an A ranking and the highest number of days being given an E or lower ranking.
Avg AR Balance	ascending order with the lowest balance being given an A ranking and the highest balance being given an E or lower ranking.
Transaction Ct (12 Mths)	descending order with the greatest number of transactions being given an A ranking and the least number being given an E or lower ranking.
Avg GP$ per Order	descending order with the greatest dollar amount being given an A ranking and the least amount being given an E or lower ranking.
Avg Sales$ per Order	descending order with the greatest dollar amount being given an A ranking and the least dollar amount being given an E or lower ranking.

Note: Two of the ranking methods, Average Weighted Days To Pay and Average A/R Balance, are appropriate to credit management. Credit management should consider devoting one or two of the eight possible rankings to reflect their customers' credit ranking as well as their sales performance.

In the Ranking Breakpoints area, starting with the Top field and continuing with successive Next fields, enter the percent of customers to be assigned to the corresponding rank. The percentages must add up to 100.

Most distributors use the standard economic 80/20 rankings shown in the following example:

Rank	Activity
A	First 80% of activity
B	Next 15% of activity
C	Next 4% of activity
D	Last 1% of activity
E	No activity

When you are finished defining the parameters, use any of the following hot keys to process the ranking program:

Hot Key	Function
Begin	Runs the calculation program immediately.
Schedule	Displays the Phantom Scheduler screen, which lets you schedule the running of the program. This program is usually setup for the evening following the end of the month, and to repeat on a monthly basis.
Delete	Deletes the currently displayed Word ID. When you use this hot key, the system prompts you to confirm the deletion.

Note: If you use the Begin or Schedule hot key, you can process the ranking parameters you have set up. However, you must press Esc in order to save the parameters for future use.

Press Esc to save the information and exit the screen.
If you have an ID entered in the Work ID field, the system saves the template currently displayed on the Customer Product Ranking screen as a Word ID.
If you do not have an ID entered in the Work ID field, the system displays a save prompt.
To save the information, enter Y at the prompt, and then enter a name at the new Work ID prompt, and then press Enter. The system saves the template currently displayed on the Customer Ranking screen as a Word ID.
To not save the information, enter N at the prompt. The system clears the information and exits the screen without saving the information.