Setting Up House Accounts

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House accounts allow customers to run a monthly balance at your store, so they may charge products and services and receive statements. You can use the Mercury Administration to set defaults for house accounts to reduce employee input time and maintain a consistent billing pattern.

If you do not have the Accounts Receivable module, you can set up a house account for a customer but you cannot charge orders to the account or print statements

To establish a house account:

1. For a new customer, On the FTD Mercury Main Menu, click New Customer. Once you enter information into the General tab, click the House Account tab.
   For an established customer, on the FTD Mercury Main Menu, in the Search area, click Customer and perform a search to open the Customer Detail Information window already set up for this customer. Then, click the House Account tab.
2. In the Account ID field, type any series of numbers or letters to identify the account. A suggested format is the first five letters of the last name followed by the first two letters of the first name (for example, for Lisa Johnson, type JOHNSLI). Or, click Auto if you wish FTD Mercury to create a numerical account ID for you automatically.
3. In the Accounting Type field, click the arrow and select an appropriate type for this account. Customers with Balance Forward accounts receive statements that show running unpaid balances. As payments are made, the payment amount is applied to the oldest invoice. Open Item accounts are used by companies that pay by invoices (or other customers that prefer to do so). As each payment is made, it is applied to an individual ticket.
4. In the Credit Limit field, enter the maximum dollar amount of credit allowed for the customer’s purchases. While entering an order in Order Entry, FTD Mercury warns you if this customer is exceeding the credit limit you have set.
5. In the Billing Cycle field, click the arrow and select the frequency at which you wish this customer to be billed.
6. Click the arrow and select a default method of payment in the Default Payment field. Typically, this is Credit.
7. In the Annual Finance field, type the annual finance charge percentage you want the customer to be charged if the account is past due. Finance charges are applied per billing cycle. The finance charge percentage that appears on the statement is divided by 12.
8. In the Minimum Finance Charge field, enter the minimum dollar amount you want added to overdue accounts. The system selects either the finance charge percentage in the Finance Charge field or the amount you enter here, whichever is greater.
   

   Finance charges are only applied when you check the Generate Finance Charges check box in the Generate Statements window.

9. In the Finance Grace Period field, click the arrow and select the number of days to allow before finance charges are applied.
10. Indicate whether the customer want to receive statements by mail, email, or fax (or any combination of these methods).
    • Print Statements to print statements to mail to the customer.
    • Print Invoices to print invoices for the customer when you generate statements.
    • Fax Statements to automatically send a fax statement to the customer when statements are generated.
    • Email Statements to automatically send an email statement to the customer when statements are generated.
11. Click Print Dunning Messages so that a check mark appears if you want to print a dunning message at the bottom of each customer statement. Dunning messages are reminders of when payment is due, and are maintained in the Mercury Administration program.
12. In the Terms on Account field, type any text that you want to appear on the statement for this particular customer.
13. Click Save.
14. If required, enter your employee name, password, and optionally any notes in the Audit Trail window and click OK.

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