About Customer Accounts

Customers are central to every dealership’s business, and managing those relationships is at the core of what we do. Behind every deal are people who are managing their own enterprises, so knowing as much about that account is key to successfully closing more deals. The Account record is the central hub of the Anvil CRM. It connects to all other spokes of the wheel, like Contact records, JDQuotes, POs, Requests, Equipment, and Invoices. With a 360-degree view of your customer, you can better manage customers and gain, retain, or grow their business.

Important: Accounts and Contacts are two separate (but related) database objects. Accounts can represent businesses or farms and have multiple Contacts associated with them. Or, Accounts can be individual customers or prospects. In the Anvil CRM, customers are added via the John Deere integration. Users can add Prospect accounts, but not customer accounts. 

To access customer accounts, navigate to the Accounts tab. 

Click an Account Name from the list view to open any record.  

Let’s take a look at the Accounts record page: 

Accounts Record Page 

The top portion of the page, called the Highlights panel, contains some quick action buttons and key customer information like Phone, Email, Billing Address and Account Owner.  

Here’s a quick walkthrough: 

1. The View Account Hierarchy opens a page showing the current account and any Parent or Child accounts it is related to. 
2. Quick action buttons enable you to follow any record activity in your Chatter feed, to edit the record, to create related records like a Service Request, to sync the record with the EQUIP system, and so on. (Available buttons will vary depending on your setup.) 
3. Account Record tabs. See next section for more details.
4. The Duplicate Account alert displays any potential duplicate accounts found within Anvil.  
5. The Request Summary area displays the total number of Request records for the Account and the number of Requests by Status. In this example, there are 10 total Requests, 6 are New and 4 are Completed. 
6. Account Merge enables you to quickly merge two accounts.  
7. Activity Timeline/Chatter contains a timeline of activities on the record, including call logs and tasks. The Chatter tab is where you can post a record update or start a conversation about the account with your team.  

Account Record Tabs 

Details Tab 

The Details tab contains key information about the account. It’s arranged in multiple page sections. You can scroll down the page to reveal more sections or, using the arrows, collapse or expand sections as needed. To edit the record in a pop-up window, click the Edit button.  

You can also click the pencil icon to the right of any field to enter edit mode. Once in edit mode, you can edit any of the other record fields that are available to change. (Some fields are read-only and can’t be edited.) 

Remember to click Save when you’re finished! 

People 

The People tab contains the Contacts on the Account. Each contact has its own Contact record. From the People tab you can view, access, or add a new Contact record to the Account. 

JDQuote 

The JDQuotes tab contains any JDQuote records and Purchase Order records that have been created for the Account. From here you can click on the Name links to open the records in a new window, or click the New button to create new JDQuotes or POs. 

 Equipment 

 The Equipment tab displays a list of Customer Equipment (CE) records. This is equipment the customer owns. CE records are added to the Account once a deal closes, but new records can also be added from this tab with the New button. Click the Customer Equipment Name to open the CE record, or click View All to open the list in a new window. 

Requests 

The Requests tab displays a list of Request records that are related to the Account. From here you click on the Request Name to open the Request in a new window or use the New button to create a new Request. Notice that in this tab, as with others, you can scroll right to reveal more information.

Files 

The Files tab displays the Account Notes and File attachments. Click Add Files to add files already saved to Anvil CRM. Click Upload Files to add files from your local computer.  

Click New to add a new note to the Account. Notice that when you add a note from within the Account record, it is automatically related to the Account. No need to manually connect it!  

Click Add to Records to relate the note to additional records. For instance, you may want to add it to a JDQuote, a Request, or a Purchase Order as well as to the Account you’re working on.  

Timeline 

The Timeline tab displays a visual timeline of activities and records tied to the Account, including JDQuotes, Purchase Orders, Requests, Events, Tasks, and Alerts. The Timeline slider enables you to move forward or back along the timeline to change the 120-day period in your view. As you move the slider, the number of items and the dates dynamically update.  

Hover over each item to reveal a summary, or click the item’s icon to open the record in a new window.

To focus on particular items, the Timeline filter enables you to deselect one or more items to change your view.  

Invoices 

The Invoices tab provides a list of invoices, starting with the most recent. You can search invoices for a particular time period using the date picker, and the View Invoice button enables you to download a PDF copy of the invoice.