This financial news is brought to you by the Alfred Johnson blog.

Overview:  Relationships has been added to Shelby Financials (in Release 9.0).  This utility allows users to group family members together along with additional responsible people.  It is most useful when creating invoices for daycare or school students, as customers, but sending AR statements to the person who is responsible for paying the bill, the Bill To.  Adding this utility is accompanied by a new Relationship item located under Control Information, which allows users to establish their own Relationship Types.

Getting Started:  If you are an Arena customer, then you should use the steps below to setup your Relationship Types.  Arena customers’ Family structure is carried over into Financials.  If you do not have Arena, you should start by adding a few Relationship Types.  Next select a record, either a customer or bill to and start grouping existing family member records together.  If there are other responsible parties outside of the core family structure, then add those as well.

Adding Relationship Types:

  1. Navigate to Accounts Receivable
  2. Hover over Modify and choose Control Table Information
  3. Near the top left of the screen click on the down arrow and choose Relationship
  4. Click the Add New Type icon
  5. Enter your relationship in the Description field.  (NOTE: careful consideration should be given to your entry.  We will start by adding Grandparents)
    1. Enter Grandparent and click Apply
    2. Enter Grandchild in the Description field
    3. Use the down arrow in the Inverse Relationship field and choose Grandparent and click Apply
    4. NOTE:  You could have entered Grandmother and Grandson, but that approach would require 4 Relationship Type pairs while the above illustration is only 1 pair.  So, keep it simple
  6. Enter additional Types as needed
  7. Additional notes about use
    1. You can have a single type in both the Relationship field and the Description field, i.e. Sibling
    2. You can leave the Description field empty, i.e. no inverse relationship.  This is helpful if you have a responsible party paying a part of the tuition for several customers, but want to keep the inverse tag anonymous

Adding Primary Family Members

  1. Navigate to Accounts Receivable
  2. Hover over Modify and choose Customer Information 
  3. Enter a part of a customer’s full name in the Name field
  4. Click the Select button
  5. Locate and double-click on the desired name
  6. Click the Relationships button
  7. Click the Add New Family Member link
  8. Click the (Not Set) link
  9. Enter the last name on the record you need
  10. Adjust Role Type as needed using the pull-down arrow
  11. Click the Save button
  12. Repeat until all family members are on the list

Adding Other Relationships

  1. Navigate to Accounts Receivable
  2. Hover over Modify and choose Customer Information 
  3. Enter a part of  a customer’s full name in the Name field
  4. Click the Select button
  5. Locate and double-click on the desired name
  6. Click the Relationships button
  7. Click the Add New Relationship link
  8. Click the (Not Set) link
  9. Enter the last name on the record you need
  10. Using the pull-down arrow, select the Relationship Type as needed
  11. Click the Save button
  12. Repeat until all Other Relationships needed are on the list

Source: alfredjohnson.net