Customer Branches
A customer branch represents one specific location or division of a customer that has several — a regional office, a store, a warehouse. You register each branch under its customer and, optionally, restrict which items are visible to it, so that when a contact of that branch signs in to the Customer Portal, they can only pick a branch they belong to and only see the items assigned to it.
What is it and what is it for?
Every customer in AdmCloud is a single master record, but a real-world customer with several locations sometimes needs each one handled a little differently in the Customer Portal: a chain with several stores, a corporate group with regional offices, a distributor with several warehouses. Customer Branches let you break a customer down into those locations without creating a separate customer record for each one.
Branches are only meaningful once you start linking your customer's contacts to them: if a customer is set up to use branches, every one of its contacts must select one of its branches the first time they enter the Customer Portal, and from then on that contact only sees information relevant to that branch — including, if you configure it, a restricted catalog of items.
Screens in this area
| Screen | What it does |
|---|---|
| List | Shows every branch you have created, with its name and the customer it belongs to. Each row links to the branch's details and, if you have the customer's edit permission, to its owning customer. |
| Create / Edit | The branch form: its name, the customer it belongs to, and an optional table of items restricted to it. It can also be reached directly from a customer's file to create a branch for that customer. |
| Details | The branch in read-only mode, with its assigned items and buttons to edit, duplicate or delete it. |
How to use it, step by step
- Open the list and click Create. You need the "add" level of the Customer Branches permission; if you don't see the button, ask your administrator for access.
- Select the customer this branch belongs to. This is required, and once the branch is saved, the customer cannot be changed — if you picked the wrong customer, delete the branch and create it again under the right one.
- Enter a name for the branch (up to 200 characters) — for example "Downtown Store" or "North Regional Office". It must be required, and it cannot repeat an existing branch name already used by the same customer (two different customers can reuse the same branch name without conflict).
- Optionally, add the items visible to this branch. If your customer's portal restricts the catalog by branch, only the items listed here will be visible to contacts of this branch when they sign in to the Customer Portal. Search each item by SKU using the autocomplete, and add or remove rows as needed. Leave the list empty if you don't want to restrict the catalog for this branch.
- Save. On success you land on the branch's Details page.
- Link the customer's contacts to this branch from the Contacts screen, so they can select it the next time they log in to the Customer Portal.
Key fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Customer | The customer this branch belongs to. Required on create, and fixed for the life of the branch — it cannot be changed once saved. |
| Name | How the branch is identified in the list, in the Customer Portal's branch picker, and on any document that references it. Required, up to 200 characters, and unique per customer. |
| Items | The optional, per-branch catalog restriction: only these items are visible to a Customer Portal user signed in under this branch. Each item must be an active item or service, not void. |
Validations when saving
- Name is required and cannot be left blank.
- Customer is required, and it must not be a void or inactive customer.
- No duplicate branch name for the same customer — you can reuse a name across different customers, but not twice within the same one.
- The customer of an existing branch cannot be changed when editing; only the name and items can be updated.
- Every item added must be an active item or service, not voided.
Deleting a branch
- A branch cannot be deleted while it is referenced by any transaction (for example, a sales document created for that branch). The system lists which documents are blocking the deletion.
- A branch cannot be deleted while it is assigned to any contact. The system lists which contacts are blocking the deletion — unlink them from the branch first.
- Deleting a branch also removes its item restrictions; this cannot be undone.
Availability
- Customer Branches requires the Advanced Sales module to be enabled for your company.
- On the Enterprise plan, this module can be turned on or off independently for your company.
- Access is controlled with the "Customer Branches" permission of your user group, with separate levels to browse, add, edit and delete.
Tips and common mistakes
Only create branches if you need the Customer Portal to separate a customer's contacts by location. If a customer has a single office or you don't use the Customer Portal for it, there is no need to set up branches for it.
Double-check the customer before saving. Once a branch is created, its customer cannot be changed — creating it under the wrong customer means deleting it and starting over (as long as no transaction or contact references it yet).
An empty item list is not a restriction. If you leave the items table empty, contacts of that branch are not limited to a restricted catalog by this configuration.
Can't delete a branch? Check the error message for the list of blocking documents or contacts — remove or reassign those first, then try deleting the branch again.