Article #86 What are Customer Route Groups (CRG) and How to Use Them?

Answer: Customer Route Groups (CRGs) are numbers that can be assigned to customer records to group them for purposes such as sales, reporting, routing, and other grouping needs. By assigning a single Customer Route Group to a mobile unit record, for example, only customers belonging to that CRG will be visible on the route salesperson's handheld computer, which speeds up how quickly they can find the stop that they're at from within their customer list. Multiple CRGs can be assigned to a single mobile unit record, and a single CRG can be assigned to multiple mobile unit records, allowing for considerable flexibility in assigning customers to route salespeople. To learn how to create and assign new CRGs, read the instructions below for the Solid Route Accounting™ business system being used.

Customer Route Groups can also be used to report on all customers assigned to them by various reports throughout Solid Route Accounting™ business systems. They're also helpful in assigning groups of customers to Special Price Lists for seasonal sales, permanent discounts, or item exclusivity through an Approved Product List, available to Enterprise Edition users. For more information on using CRGs in this way, view the tutorials or read further details on these features for the Solid Route Accounting™ business system being used.

Enterprise Edition Users:

To create a new Customer Route Group:

1. In Solid Business Central™, navigate to [Datafile / Customer / Route Group], and use the [Insert] key to add a new record.
2. Enter a 'Code' for this CRG, as well as a 'Description'. If this is all the information needed, use [CTRL+END] to save this new record.
3. If using the Solid General Ledger™, an 'Account' for this CRG can be given, or it can be blocked from integration to the Solid General Ledger™ by setting the 'Integration Block' field to Y.
4. Optionally, the 'Print Information' field allows a message to be written for printing on special invoice types I1, I2, S1, and S2, which will appear above and to the right of the company name.

To assign existing customers to a CRG:

1. In Solid Business Central™, navigate to [Datafile / Customer / View] and view the desired customer record.
2. Use [F2 – Edit] to make changes to this record, and in the 'RT' field, enter the desired CRG number. Save the change with [CTRL+END].

To control what customers show on the handheld computers by assigning CRGs to mobile unit records:

1. In Solid Business Central™, navigate to [Datafile / Cost Center / Mobile] and view the mobile unit record that needs to be adjusted.
2. Use [F2 - Edit] to make changes to the record, and locate the 'Customer Groups to Load' field at the top of the mid-screen. Beneath this text is the field where CRGs can be specified.
   • To load all CRGs onto this mobile unit record, simply enter the word 'ALL' here.
   • To specify a single group, enter that CRG's number (e.g. '001').
   • To specify a range, separate the beginning and end numbers for the range with a dash (e.g. '001-004').
   • To specify multiple individual groups, separate them with commas (e.g. '001,003,004').
3. Once entered, use [CTRL+END] to save any changes, and sync the handheld computer to apply them to Solid Sales Pro™.

For QuickBooks Users:

Please see the details in the following Solid Know How™ articles on how to configure CRG in QuickBooks:
Article #250 Preparing Your QuickBooks Company File for Solid Route Accounting