This guide covers the foundational setup for account statements to customers. These settings determine who receives statements, what they look like, and how the system calculates account fees and balances.

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Account Categories

Account Categories allow you to manage the printing and sending of statements based on customer groups that you specify. It's perfectly fine to have just one category if you don't intend to do statements for separate groups of customers.

Creating and Assigning Categories

This covers how to create the categories and then assign it to the customer accounts.

1. From the main screen of Retailer, click in the top menu to go to Setup → Customer → Account Categories tab.

2. Click Add, enter a Code (usually uses the next available number) and a Description, then click Save. The Description is just a name to identify this group of customers, such as 'Email Accounts'.

3. To Assign: Go to the Customer Screen and click the Other tab. In the A/C Category dropdown, select the category and click Save.

Global Sorting and Exclusions

These options control the order in which customer statements are generated when done in bulk, and whether to exclude certain accounts permanently from statements.

1. From the main screen of Retailer, click in the top menu to go to Setup → General → Statements tab.

2. Print Order: Choose to sort and group physical, printed statements by Customer Name, Customer Number, Run, or Street.

3. Exclusions: Tick any categories in the Account Categories to Exclude list that should never generate a statement. Customers are excluded based on the Account Category they have so make sure to create appropriate Account Categories with the steps above.
   

4. Overdue accounts: When customer accounts are overdue, the statements will display an overdue message. To disable that message, untick the box Print Overdue account rendered messages. You may also customise the messages shown for Overdue and Current (balance) Due by typing into their boxes.
   

5. Click Save when done.

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Statement Type Settings

Statement Types act as templates. You can have multiple types for different customers (e.g. one that charges a fee for printed statements and one that doesn't for emailed ones).

There are no printer settings for statements. Colour and double sided printing of the page are controlled by the printer driver.

Creating or Editing Statement Types

From the main screen of Retailer, click the top menu to go to Setup → Customer → Statement Types. There's usually one called "Default Account Type" already in the system that can be changed and used with customers. The Description/name can be changed.

Use the Add button for new types or the Arrow Buttons (⬅️➡️) to bring up other existing ones.

Click Save after making any changes.

Itemisation & Detail Settings:

• Combined vs. Detailed Order Charges: Choose to combine order charges and delivery fees together into one figure, or display them separately and itemised.

• Fully Itemised (Stock & Payments): Toggling these changes whether statements display every individual stock item and every detailed payment transaction.

• Show Full Stock Description: Shows the complete stock description instead of just short descriptions.

• Notes & Details: Toggle Show Customer Notes (from the Customer Screen), Show Sale Notes (notes added on sales and balance adjustments), Show Delivery Details (address/contact information for that sale) or Show Order Number (Displays order number added during the Delivery Details screen).

Financial Columns & Aging:

• Payments Made Within __ Days: Affects the "Please Pay By" date in the footer. This is a static calculation and is not affected by individual transaction due dates. Set to 0 to hide this date.

• Show Not Due Field: Shows an extra box in aged balances for amounts that are not current since the last statement and not yet overdue.

• Hide Due Date Column: Removes individual transaction due dates to avoid customer confusion.

• Print Zero/Credit Balances: Allows statements to generate for $0 or negative balances. For $0 accounts, this only works if there has been account activity since the last statement.

Thresholds & Forced Printing:

• Minimum Amount Owed: Sets the minimum balance required to produce a statement (e.g. $5.00). Can reduce printing costs by not giving statements to accounts below the threshold. You can use a negative value to include credit balances.

• Force Print After __ Days: Prints a statement regardless of the balance if the customer hasn't received one in X days.
  

Assigning Statement Types

Statement templates should be assigned to customer accounts after setup. This can be done with these steps:

1. From the main screen of Retailer, click on the Customers icon.
2. Use the Magnifying Glass 🔎︎ button to open the Find Customer Screen. Select the particular customer.
3. In the Customer Screen, click on the Other tab.
4. Next to Statement, use the drop-down box to select the desired statement type.
5. Click Save.
   

Note: it's not possible to change Customer Statement Types in bulk.

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Accounting Fees & Forward Charging

These settings are found within the Statement Types screen and can be setup differently for each Statement Type. From the main screen of Retailer, click the top menu to go to Setup → Customer → Statement Types. Click the arrows to bring up different statement types.

For Forward Charging, it's recommended to create a new Statement Type to differentiate it from other regular statements.

• Accounting Fee (inc. GST): Enter the amount to charge (e.g. $2.50) to recoup postage/printing costs.

  • Note: Charging fees may be prohibited in some states; check your local regulations before enabling.

• Forward Charging (Newsagencies Only):
  Forward charging is something that only works for newsagencies due to how the orders work there. See Forward Charging Customer Statements for more details.

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BPAY Integration

Retailer can print your BPAY Biller Code and a unique Customer Reference Number (CRN) on every statement.

1. System Setup: From the main screen of Retailer, go to Setup → System → Accounting tab. Under Bill Payment Selection, click BPAY. Enter your Biller Code and select the correct Modulus for Check Digit rule. Click Save then close.
2. Statement Setup: From the main screen of Retailer, go to Setup → Customer → Statement Types. Tick Print Bill Payment Information on Statement. (If greyed out, check your System Setup above). This needs to be repeated for each Statement Type that you wish to use BPAY on.
   

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Setup for Email statements to customers

To email statements, some setup needs to be done first:

1. Enable Account Customers to Receive E-mail Statements
2. Setup Customer Statement Email Subject & Message
3. (Optional) Attaching Files / Messages with E-mail Statements
   

Before trying to email statements, you must have all your email account settings set up correctly as well. For more information, click HERE.

Enable Account Customers to Receive E-mail Statements

Customer accounts must be enabled to get email statements first:

1. On the top menu bar of Retailer, click on Customers → Customer Screen.
2. In the Contacts tab, enter the customer's e-mail address in the E-Mail field.
   
   

   You can enter multiple emails by separating them with a semicolon.
3. Tick the Send Customer Account via E-mail tickbox.
4. Click into the Other tab at the bottom and tick the Account Customer tickbox.
5. Click the Save button.
   

Set up Customer Statement Email Subject & Message

You can change the default subject and body message of the customer statement email sent to customers who have opted to receive email statements instead of printed statements. This may include changes to the formatting of the text.

1. From the main screen of Retailer, click on Customers → Customer Statements.
2. Click Setup in the top right.
3. Under Email Settings, add Subject and Message Text. The Statement is attached to an email with this Subject and Message.
   

This text will be saved on this particular terminal/computer. If, for any reason the temporary files on this computer are cleared, then the message will need to be re-entered. It's advisable to check this text just before sending out bulk email statements.

Marketing and promotional emails can be initiated with Marketing Tools - click HERE for more details.

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Store Names

Use this to display different business names or bank details for specific customers if needed. They are not actual different locations in the system, only different business details to be shown on statements.

1. Create new store: From the main screen of Retailer, click in the top menu to go to Setup → Store Names → Add. Enter the details and Restart Retailer.

2. Assign store to customer: In the Customer Screen, go to the Postal tab, select the Store Name from the dropdown.
   

3. Edit store details: From the main screen of Retailer, click in the top menu to go to Setup → Store Names. Click the arrows to switch between different stores and update their details. Click Save when done. Store details that are greyed out mean they are the original details of the main store in the system and cannot be changed here.
   

Store Names may not work if you use custom templates for receipts and invoices. Contact Tower Support for further help.

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Merging Statement Types

If you want to move all customers from one Statement Type to another (e.g. moving everyone to a new "Email Only" statement type), a utility can be used to merge statement types.

This allows you to change statement types in bulk, as they cannot be changed in bulk from the Customer Screen:

1. Use the Merge Customer Statement Types utility (from the main screen of Retailer, click into the top menu to go to Utilities → Merge Customer Statement Types).

2. Pick the Statement Type you wish to merge from in the Old Statement Type drop down menu.
   

3. Pick the Statement Type you wish to merge into with the Merge Into drop down menu
   

4. Selecting the Check for customers with invalid statement types box will also move everyone with a corrupt or missing Statement Type into the one in the Merge Into field. This allows cleaning up accounts with missing statement types.
   

5. Click OK to merge the statement types. The Old Statement Type will be removed from the system, and the customers will be placed onto the selected new Statement Type (in Merge Into).