Working with Partners

Introduction to Working with Partners

Partners in opentaps are the independent organizations that help sell your products. In opentaps you can define the Partner accounts they will cover for you, and you can support your Partners by creating End-Customer invoices for your Partners, covering their resales of your products to End-Customers. The relationship with your Partner is managed using an Agreements in two parts:

• The Partner Sales Agreement part defines who your Partner's Customer will be, and what they will sell to them. This is located in CRMSFA > Partners Tab > [Find Partners] > "Partner Details" Screen You will have one of these agreements with the Partner for each of their end Customers, thus there may be several of these agreements for each Partner.

• The Partner Agreement part located in FINANCIALS defines the terms and conditions of sale between you and your Partner, including such key items as the discount you give to your Partner, the terms of payment for your deliverables to the Partner, and other key terms you may need to include. This is located in FINANCIALS > Partners Tab > "Agreements" section.

• Prices and product specific information is contained in CATALOG sections that you configure according to the Setting Up Your Products manual section.

You can manage your Partners in the CRMSFA application's Partners Tab, which provides for:

• Creating Partners
• Creating and using Partner Sales Agreements which includes identification of the specific Customer accounts that your Partner will cover

You manage your Partner invoices and financial agreements in the FINANCIAL applications Partners Tab, which provides for:

• Creating invoices for your Partner, from the Partner to the End Customer (using the "Create Partner Invoice" link).
• Creating and managing invoices to your Partner (using the "Invoice Partners" link).
• Creating and managing Partner Agreements using links under the "Agreements" section.

As we just mentioned, there are two types of invoices involving Partners.

• First, you can support your Partners by creating invoices from your Partners to each of their End-Customers in these screens. Then, when each of these Partner to End-Customer invoices are created and approved (marked as Ready), the second type of invoices from your organization to the Partner's company can be created.
• Second you can invoice your Partner for the total for all the Partner's resales for which the Partner owes your company under all of the Partner Sales Agreement terms. Thus, all of the end Customer resales made by your Partner are considered in calculating these second type of invoices.

In the opentaps CATALOG section prices can be set for each Partner or Customer situation, if you choose to offer specific pricing for them. Otherwise your regular pricing defined in the CATALOG section can be used. Refer to Setting Up Your Products.

Part I -- Working with Partners in CRMSFA

Navigate from the main menu to CRMSFA > Partners Tab to the "Find Partners" screen. This screen opens with a list of your current partners displayed in columns of the information you have selected to see as explained below.

The shortcuts for this screen are:

• [Find Partners], and
• [Create Partners]

The Partners are created first using [Create Partner], and including all the general information needed for a profile, such as: name, location, industry, revenue, contacts and addresses.

In the [Find Partners] "Find By" window you can specify a particular partner by name, ID, or any of several other characteristics you enter in the tabs within this box, before you click [Find Partners]

In the "Partner List" window you can sort on any column you select using the drop down box on each column header, and you can change the columns displayed by pointing to "Columns" in this drop down box and selecting which columns to display.

To work with the details of a Partner, click on their name in the Partner List to open the Partner Details screen. The basic Partner information can be viewed and edited, and access is provided to the full range of teamwork and coordination functions including:

• Pending Activities
• Activities History
• Bookmarks and Files
• Notes

Before you create a Partner Sales Agreement, you must have created both of the parties that will be named in the agreement, as follows:

• you must create the Partner as discussed above, and
• you must create the End-Customer of your Partner as a Contact or an Account in CRMSFA. Refer to The Contacts Tab or The Accounts Tab sections of the Users Manual.

The Partner Sales Agreement is Created, Viewed, or Edited from the Partner Details screen. It documents which Accounts will be serviced by this Partner (reseller) and you can include other information like what products they can resell, or other terms.

The Partner Sales Agreement is captures four important items:

• The name of your Partner who is reselling for you, the (From Party) entry
• The name of the Customer Account that your Partner is selling to, the (To Party) entry
• The Partner to Customer payment terms which can be identified using the drop down box selection, and is described in text entered in the box provided and saved by clicking [Create Agreement Item].
• Partner to Customer Terms of Service identified using the drop down box selection, entered as text in the box provided, and saved by clicking [Create Agreement Item]

When these entries are finished you can save them and create an agreement by clicking [Complete]. [Cancel] and [Edit] buttons are also provided. When the new agreement is completed that Partner Sales Agreement will be listed on the appropriate Partner Details page.

In opentaps initial release 1.4 these information items are stored as reference items, but may incorporate specific parameters used in system calculations in a later update to the release.

Part II -- Working with Partner in FINANCIALS

Navigate from the main menu to FINANCIALS > Partners Tab which opens the "Partners" screen containing links for "Invoices" and links for "Agreements".

Create Partner Agreements

The first step in FINANCIALS is to create the Partner Agreement.

*  Click: the [Create Partner Agreement] link.
*  Select a Partner from the "To Party" drop down box that you created in CRMSFA [Create Partner].
*  Enter the effective dates for the agreement or leave blank if the effective date is today and 
there is no termination date required.
*  Enter text of this agreement as a preamble to the sections to follow, which are terms such as 
the payment terms and the commission rate you will collect.  (The commission is equal to the partner's 
discount rate on their orders from you.) 
*  Click: [Create] to store the data and open the new agreement.

This opens the "Payment Terms" box, and the "Commission Rate Schedule" box where you enter terms used in calculating invoices.

*  Select a payment term from the "Term type" drop down box and enter the numeric value of the term.  
For example, if payment is always due on the 15th of the month, enter 15 in the value box.
*  Click: [Create Agreement Term] to save.

*  In "Commission Rate Schedule box, Select a Term type from the drop down box.
*  Enter a "Term Value".  For example, if you provide your Partner a 35% commission on your Partner's 
sales then enter 35 in the value box.  Refer to the following section for an explanation of the Term types.
*  Enter or look up (using the lookup widget) the "Category" of product you defined in the CATALOG 
application for this term.  Refer to Setting Up Your Products.
*  Enter a description of this term.
*  Enter the "Min" (minimum) quantity of product to which this term applies.
*  Enter the "Max" (maximum) quantity of product to which this term applies. 
*  Click: Create Agreement Term
*  Enter as many commission terms for the products or categories that are required.

Commission Rates and Term Value Entries

For a discussion of the commission rates and term value entries you can use refer to View Partner Agreement Screen in the section labeled "Commission Rate Schedule".

The Orders Tab < Tabs Pages > Sales Teams and Account Teams