Costar has the ability to setup White List/Black Lists Rules for customers that wish to have restrictions set on the products, services and special items available to them. This is commonly used in the setup for fleet customers where the products available to that fleet customer have been previously negotiated and agreed upon. Using the White List/Black List Rules in Costar will ensure that only the correct products, services and special items are able to be placed on a sales document.

Along with White List/Black Lists, Authorisation can be set up at the customer level if required. Having Authorisation setup for a customer means that at the time of a sale the system will check if authorisation is required, if it has been entered and if not, will prompt for it. This ensures that nothing requiring authorisation is sold without it.

This help file will discuss the setup of White List/Black Lists Rules and Authorisations and the changes that this will make to your Order Entry sales experience. Even if you don't set up the White List/Black List Rules yourself (they may be maintained by a head office for national fleet customers) it can be handy to know how they are set up to help with your understanding of the changes you'll see in Order Entry when selling a document .

Setting up White List/Black List Rules

These are maintained in Inventory, White List Black List Rules. Contact the Support Team if you would like this feature turned on.

Rules are set up as either White List (these are allowed on invoices) or Black List (these are never allowed on invoices). Anything not specified in the Rules is automatically considered to be Gray and the rules for how it is treated is maintained on the individual customers account in Customer Maintenance.

In the below example of a White List/Black List (WLBL) Rule. The customer is allowed Goodyear and Dunlop as they are White Listed but not allowed Bridgestone as they are Black Listed.

On the customer's account there is a setting to determine how to handle Gray list items, i.e. anything not specified on the WLBL Rules, and when authorisation is required.

In the example for CarsRUs above, an authorisation number is mandatory when selling an item that requires authorisation. Then the settings for Gray items are defined. The options for Products, Services, Packages and Other (specials) not specified on the WLBL Rules are:

• Yes (treat as white)
  
• No (treat as black)
  
• Yes (treat as gray)
  
• Yes, if authorised (treat as gray)
  

In the CarsRUs example any Gray Products and Services (those not defined on the WLBL Rules) are allowed but require authorisation. Packages are not allowed as they are to be treated as black listed. Other (Special Items) are allowed without authorisation as they are to be treated as white listed.

Order Entry Sales Document Processing

When WLBL Rules and authorisation are in place for a customer there are a few changes to the behaviour of a sales document in Order Entry.

In case you are wondering where all your stock has gone, once an account has been selected the product search screen from inside an invoice will take into account any WLBL Rules and only display white listed products as a default.

To display any gray items, if there are any, tick Include Gray List Items and search again.

Selecting a Gray Item may cause a warning to be displayed. This is to bring to your attention that you have placed a Gray Item on the invoice and that you may need to ring for authorisation.

If authorisation is required a new button will appear next to the Sell button on the top toolbar. If Sell is pressed before the document is authorised you will receive a warning.

 To authorise the document, click on Authorization and you will be presented with the authorisation screen.

To Authorise:

1. Tick the lines to be authorised
   
2. Contact the company for authorisation
   
3. Record the mandatory fields (noted with an *)
   
4. Click Authorize selections
   

On the document, each line that has been authorised will show an Authorisation Stamp.

The document can now be sold.

Note: the authorisation number is completely separate to the PO number. If the authorisation number is also the PO number, manually type it in the PO# field.