Customer vs Company

[Derek Atkins]

Retracile <retracile at earthlink.net> writes:

> 1) s/customer/customer company/ and s/vendor/vendor company/ in the menus and 
> dialogs.  This makes it clear that customers and vendors are all companies.  
> It is _not_ clear now unless you have already made that assumption, and many 
> people won't.  I recognize that this is more cumbersome, but it is less 
> confusing.  And that is more important.

The problem is that some of the labels are shared between customers
and vendors (and, employees, which makes it really weird!) so I was
trying to find a single term that would apply to all three.  Obviously
this needs a bit more work.

However, I did try using "Customer Company" and "Vendor Company" but
the labels just get to be way too long (IMHO).

Something Generic would be a Good Thing....

> 2) Add an explanation that all vendors and customers are companies to the 
> documentation.  (I need to look again, but I don't remember a 'small business 
> intro' section.)

First we NEED some small-business documentation.  Care to write it? ;)

> 3) IFF companyname == contact name, suppress one of them when printing the 
> address.  (Are there occasions when double-printing the name is correct, and 
> single printing the name isn't?)

I think I can do this relatively easily.  Can you file an RFE so I don't
forget?

> 4) Add a help message if the user tries to leave either the company or name 
> blank when creating a customer company that explains that all customers are 
> companies, and to enter an individual, just enter the name in both fields and 
> gnucash will Do The Right Thing(tm).

I think I can do this, too, relatively easily.  Can you file another
RFE?

> And a couple of things that are partly related:
> 5) Add a 'list customer companies' report.  I use regex's on a daily basis, 
> but I really don't want to have to explain them to my wife before she can 
> find a customer.  She's bright, but I'd like to make the transition as easy 
> as possible, and it's just one more thing.  A complete list can also be 
> helpful in getting an overview, or making sure you entered all the customers.

I'm not sure what this means.  What is a "list customer companies"
report, and what information would be reported?  How is it any
different than performing a search?  Or the A/R aging report (to see
what customers have been invoiced and how much).

> 6) Is there a reason to have the user give the customer ID?  I'm assuming it 
> is supposed to be a (unique) database key.  If so, why not use a 
> monotonically increasing number and hide it from the user completely?  (When 
> I first used it, I entered the individual's name into that field, and things 
> went downhill from there.)

The original concept was that it would be a global ID, but then I
realized that different organizations are going to use that field
differently.  Also, I was convinced to just use internal GUIDs for the
unique ID.  Basically, it's a leftover from a long time ago that never
left, but it does allow you to have a short-cut to find a particular
item.

Basically, you are allowed to enter the invoice id yourself if you
wish, but if you leave it blank then then system will automatically
generate one for you -- a monotonically-increasing number.  Hover your
mouse over the ID entry and read the pop-up message.

Again, if there was documentation then we could mention this, but as
of now there isn't any documentation of the business features.

> I probably ran afoul of a premise somewhere, but comments welcome.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Eli

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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