Enter the sort name for this customer, up to 15 characters. The sort name initially defaults as the first 15 characters of the customer name, but may be changed for an accurate alphabetic sort. Sort names entered in lower or mixed case will be converted to upper case.

The sort name is used throughout the software whenever alphabetic sorting is used, such as on reports and lookups (F4). Forms where entry of a customer number is required, will in most cases, allow entry of the sort name and will return the customer number associated with the first match.

In many forms prompting for customer number, you can enter the sort name and it will return the customer number associated with the first match. Therefore, if you have multiple customers with the same or similar name, you may override their sort name to identify them by including a location or number within the 15 characters. When setting up a new customer (in AR Customers), the sort name will default the first 15 characters of the customer’s name. The default can be overridden, but it is normally suggested that you accept the system-provided sort name unless it would be alphabetically incorrect. For example, if the customer name is J. Smith Construction, you would enter the sort name as Smith, J.

Sort names can be entered upper, lower, or mixed case, but the program will convert and save as upper case so that there is consistency with all customers. You may choose to override the sort name on customers with similar names to provide a unique sort name for each. If the same sort name is used for multiple customers and you enter the sort name during data entry, the system will bring back the first match found. Having unique sort names and entering the full fifteen characters when names are similar will provide the greatest accuracy.

A customer’s sort name can be changed, even after transactions have been posted for that customer. If you change a sort name for any given customer, the system will automatically cycle through all existing transactions for that customer and adjust those records to show the new sort name so that all transactions for that customer remain grouped together.