Welcome to the NZRT Wiki Podcast. Today we’re looking at Customers, Prospects and Contacts.

If you’ve ever wondered where NZRT keeps track of all the companies and people it works with, the answer is a central database called the third-party database. Think of it as the single source of truth for everyone your business has a relationship with, whether that’s a potential client you’re chasing, a company that’s already bought from you, or a supplier you purchase from. Every external party lives here, and understanding how they’re classified will save you a lot of confusion when you’re navigating the system.

So let’s start with the four types you’ll encounter.

First, you have Prospects. A prospect is someone or some company that hasn’t bought from you yet, but you’re working on it. They’re in the pipeline, you might be talking to them, you might have sent them a proposal, but no order has been placed. They sit in that early stage of the relationship.

Second, once a prospect does place an order, they become a Customer. It’s as simple as that. That status change is important because it unlocks a different set of records and history for that company, things like invoices, payment terms, and order history.

Third, you have Suppliers. These are the companies you buy from rather than sell to. They appear in the purchase side of the system, but they’re still stored in the same third-party database. So you’ve got one place to look up any external organisation, regardless of whether money flows in or out.

Fourth, there are Contacts. Contacts are individuals rather than companies. A contact is typically a person who is linked to a company record. So if you’re dealing with a business called Acme Limited, the people you actually email and call, like their accounts manager or their technical lead, those individuals live as contact records attached to the main company entry.

Now let’s talk about what information you’ll find on a third-party record. There are a number of key fields you’ll want to be familiar with. You’ve got the company name, their address, their country, and the language they operate in. This matters because if you’re generating documents or correspondence, the system can tailor things to the right locale. You’ll also find a VAT or tax number field, which is important for compliance, especially when you’re dealing with overseas clients or suppliers.

From a financial perspective, each record holds payment terms, so you know whether a customer pays on fourteen days or thirty days, and a credit limit, which gives you a ceiling on how much exposure you want to carry with any one client. There’s also an outstanding balance field so you can see at a glance what’s currently owed.

On the sales side, you’ll see an assigned sales rep, which tells you who in your team owns that relationship. And there are tags and categories you can apply to group and filter third parties in ways that make sense for your business. Finally, there’s a customer since date, which gives you a quick read on how long that relationship has been active.

Now, the third-party database doesn’t sit in isolation. It connects to several other parts of the system that you’ll want to be aware of. The first is Opportunities and Leads. When you’re actively working to convert a prospect into a customer, that sales activity is tracked in the opportunities module, and it links back to the prospect record here. So you can always trace a customer’s journey from first contact through to closed deal.

The second connection is Commercial Proposals. When you put together a quote or a proposal for a customer or prospect, that proposal is linked to their third-party record. You can pull up any company and see every proposal you’ve ever sent them.

The third area is Customer Invoices and Credit Notes. Once a customer is active and orders are flowing, all of their invoice history lives here too. You can navigate from a customer record straight into their billing history, see what’s paid and what’s outstanding, and get a complete picture of the financial relationship.

So to pull it all together: the Customers, Prospects and Contacts section is your starting point for any external relationship in the system. It classifies everyone you deal with into clear types, captures the key details you need to manage those relationships, and connects through to the sales and finance modules so nothing falls through the cracks. Whether you’re qualifying a new lead, checking a customer’s credit limit, or looking up a supplier’s contact details, this is where you start.

That’s it for this episode of the NZRT Wiki Podcast. Thanks for listening.