Working with Partners

Introduction to Working with Partners

Partners in opentaps are the independent organizations that help sell your products. The relationship with your Partner is managed using two different Agreements:

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

• The Partner Agreement 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 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.

You can manage your Partners in the CRMSFA application's Partners Screens, which provide 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 provide 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.

These second invoices are 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.

Items like the invoiced rates to the customer, and to the partner can be documented in your Partner Sales Agreements (in CRMSFA) and the Partner Agreements (in FINANCIALS).

In the opentaps CATALOG section prices can be set of each Partner or Customer situation, if you choose to offer specific pricing for them. Otherwise your regular pricing can be used.

Part I -- Working with Partners in CRMSFA

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

The shortcuts for this screen are:

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

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 the drop down box and selecting which ones 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

The Partner Sales Agreement is Created, Viewed, or Edited from the Partner Details screen. It documents terms that exist between your Partner (the reseller) and their Customer for your products that are being resold.

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.

Then the Partner Sales Agreement is created to capture 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, save them 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 included specific parameters used in system calculations in a later update to the release.

Part II -- Working with Partner Invoices in FINANCIALS

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

...to be continued...

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