The NEW EasyVend Web is your natural progression in simplifying, streamlining, growing your business and reducing overheads. We are here to take you through that next step. It doesn’t matter if you are planning to move over next week or next year, by preparing to clean up your data base now you will benefit. Heres what you need to work on.
Customer Related
Customers
Note: Customers that are flagged as ‘inactive’ in EasyVend Desktop, will NOT be imported into the new EasyVend Web system.
- Hide your Inactive Customers
- Click into the ‘Setup’ menu across the top > into ‘Options’, > into the ‘Customers’ tab > untick the box labelled “Hide Inactive Customers” > press OK > close and re-open your EasyVend program.
- Click into the ‘Q’ (Query) button along the top of EasyVend > Set the Customer Type to ‘I’ (Inactive) and UNTICK the Customer Type checkbox > Click the Run Query button
- Update your customer list
- Use the Browse button in the Customer screen to view your whole customer list.
- For every customer you no longer deliver to, and won’t be delivering to again in the future > Double-click to open those customers > click the Change button > Tick the ‘Inactive” checkbox on the main customer screen > click the Save button.
- If the customer has an outstanding balance, it will pop up and say “Cannot make inactive as there are still unpaid invoices for this customer”. You will need to create a receipt to finish paying off the outstanding debt on this customers account, before marking them as inactive.
- Note when creating a receipt, you can use a payment method of X (Written Off) instead of Cash/Cheque/Efptos etc. When writing off a customers outstanding debt.
Invoices
You must check to see that all ‘active’ customers have been invoiced up-to-date, and have correct balance owings on their accounts.
- Run a debtors report, excluding your Inactive Customers
- Reports menu > Debtors Report > Run Debtors as at [Todays Date] > Preview
- Look over each customer listed on the report & the ‘Balance Due’ column in the middle, to see if you agree with the owing balances listed for each customer (e.g. a negative ‘Balance Due’ figure indicates that the customer is in credit for some reason, and may be worth double checking if it is correct or a mistake)
- For any customers you are concerned with the owing balance due, open that customers invoice screen, check which invoices in particular have Balance Due’s, to see if they are correct. See if the Balance Due on each individual invoice, tallies up to the same Total Balance Due listed in the top right corner of the Invoice screen (or on the Debtors report)
- Reports menu > Debtors Report > Run Debtors as at [Todays Date] > Preview
Receipts
For each Active Customer, you must check to see that all receipts have been allocated to invoices
- Run an unallocated Receipts Report (Reports menu > Unallocated Receipts Report > Preview)
- The report should be EMPTY or read “No Records to Print” when you try to preview it.
- If any receipts are listed on the report, they require your attention, as every receipt should be allocated to an invoice (unless a customer has recently overpaid and is legitimately supposed to be in credit with you at this very moment)
- To allocate an unallocated receipt, open that customers Receipts screen, find the receipt in the list (The receipt number you are looking for is noted on the report)
- Click on the offending receipt > Click the “Manual Allocate” button across the top of the screen > A list of CURRENTLY outstanding invoices will appear (if there are any) for you to allocate this customers payment against
- If there are no invoices to allocate this unallocated money toward, a decision must be made as to whether this customers account should be left in credit until the next time they are invoiced, or whether the money should be refunded to the customer, or whether the receipt should be modified or deleted in EasyVend so that there is no unallocated money on that customers account.
Product Related
Products
Products that are no longer used need to be flagged for deletion by the Jeal Support Team. If you wish to clean up your product list, place any unused products with a code above 99,000 (eg. 99001, 99002, 99003, etc.) for the Jeal Support Team to ensure that those products don’t come across to your new system.
- Use the Browse button in the Product screen to view your whole product list
- Double click to open any product that is no longer being delivered > Click the change button > Change the ‘Code’ to a code above 99000 > Click the Save button
- Ensure only products that no longer get delivered / will not be delivered in the future, have codes above 99,000
Price Codes/Price Levels
The EasyVend web systems supports a maximum of 25 different selling prices for your products. The current desktop based EasyVend supported a maximum of 48. Because of this change in maximum limits, you are best to check how many price levels your EasyVend is currently utilizing across your customer list, so that you can change it to be using a maximum of 25, before your conversion to the new software.
- Open your Customer screen
- Click the Browse button to view the whole customer list
- Find the column titled “Price Code
- Click the column header “Price Code” followed by the Black Box at the bottom, to sort the list in order of which price code has been assigned to the customers.
- Scroll down the entire customer list, and count how many different price codes have been assigned to your customers.
- If there are more than 25 different price codes assigned to your customers, you will need to make changes to some of your customers so that a maximum of 25 price levels are assigned across your entire customer list first.
- You can change this from this browse screen by clicking the Price Code value, which will give you a drop down menu to select a different Price Code for that customer to be assigned to.
- For any customers who you’ve had to change their assigned price code, consider that this will affect what price they get charged for products you sell them. In order for the customer to continue being charged the same pricing, you MUST
- Open that customers Standard Order screen
- Set a customized amount of discount, per product, to ensure the final price that customer will be charged for each product, remains the same as what they were being charged in the past (before their price level had to be changed)
Standard Orders
Products that a customer no longer orders should be removed from that customers Standard Order
- Click the ‘Standard Orders’ button across the top of EasyVend > Click the ‘Remove Old Orders’ button across the top > Select a number of months > Set the Customer code range to span the entire list > Set the Product code range to span the entire list > Click the ‘Remove (orders)’ button
- (Products not delivered in this period of time, will be removed from all customers standard orders)
If you require any assistance with or have any questions regarding any of the above steps, please feel free to contact Jeal Support on (02) 9623 6403 or support@jeal.com.au
Why Cleaning Your Business Database Is Important
A clean business database means every customer record, invoice, and product listing reflects what is actually happening in your business right now, not what happened two years ago. When your database carries outdated entries, your reports lie to you. You chase debts that were already written off, you quote prices to customers on the wrong price level, and your delivery runs include stops for accounts that closed months back.
This matters more before a system migration than almost any other time. Whatever does not get cleaned up in your current system either drags into the new one as clutter or, in the case of inactive customers, does not come across at all. Either way, you inherit the mess. A distributor running ice, dairy, or bread routes cannot afford a driver showing up at a shut-down deli because nobody flagged the account as inactive.
Common Database Issues That Affect Business Performance
The most common database problems are duplicate customer records, inactive accounts left active, unallocated receipts, and price codes that have multiplied past what anyone can track. Each one quietly drains time and money from your operation, and most businesses only notice once the numbers stop adding up.
- Duplicate customer records happen when a customer calls in under a slightly different business name, or when a new team member creates a fresh entry instead of searching for the existing one first. Now you have two accounts, two order histories, and a debtors report that shows two smaller balances instead of one accurate one.
- Inactive customers left active clog your Standard Orders, your customer browse screens, and your reporting. If you run a debtors report and twenty of your two hundred customers have not ordered in eighteen months, you are wasting time scanning past names that no longer matter to your business.
- Unallocated receipts are payments sitting in your system with nowhere assigned to go. A customer overpays, or a payment gets logged against the wrong invoice, and that money floats in limbo. Left alone, it skews your debtors report and makes your actual cash position harder to read at a glance.
- Price code sprawl creeps in over years, one custom discount at a time, until a business meant to run on ten price levels is running on thirty. That kind of drift is exactly what a price-level cap in a new system is built to catch, because untangling thirty custom prices after the fact costs far more time than reviewing them now.
Benefits of Maintaining a Clean Database
A clean database gives you accurate reporting, faster order processing, and fewer billing disputes. When your customer database management is tight, your debtors report reflects real debt, your driver skips the dead accounts, and your team stops second-guessing whether a balance is correct or a leftover error.
Regular data cleanup also protects your team’s time. According to Gartner research on data quality , poor data quality costs organizations an average of $12.9 million a year through wasted labor and bad decisions. Most small and mid-sized distributors will not hit that figure, but the underlying pattern holds true at any scale: dirty data costs you in small, repeated ways that add up.
Beyond the numbers, a clean database builds trust with your own team. Your office staff stop double-checking every invoice because they no longer trust the balance shown on screen. Your drivers stop calling in from the road asking why an address does not exist anymore. Clean customer and product records also mean your order workflows run without the small manual corrections that pile up when data goes stale.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should I clean my database before migrating?
Inactive customers flagged in your current system will not transfer into a new system at all. If you clean up duplicates, old products, and unallocated receipts beforehand, you migrate a database that matches your real business, not one carrying years of leftover clutter.
How often should a business database be cleaned?
Most distribution businesses benefit from a database review every three to six months. Set a recurring reminder, even a simple calendar note, to run through inactive customers, unallocated receipts, and product lists before they build up into a bigger job.
What happens if inactive customers aren’t removed?
They stay visible in your customer browse screens, standard orders, and reports, making every list longer and every report noisier than it needs to be. In many systems, they also will not import into a newer platform, so cleaning them up now saves a headache at migration time.
Should I back up my database before making changes?
Before you mark customers inactive, adjust price codes, or delete products, back up your database so you can restore it if something goes wrong during cleanup.
How do I identify duplicate customer records?
Sort your customer list by name or address using the Browse screen and scan for near-matches, such as slightly different spellings or the same business listed under two contact names. Duplicate records usually show up as two accounts with similar order histories but different balances.