National Accounts are a type of customer commonly found in large franchise organizations. A franchisor may choose to make a customer a national account customer for a number of reasons:

The functionality of National Accounts is different depending on if you are a franchisor or a franchisee. In short, the franchisor creates the national account customer, and their locations, then assigns those locations to different franchisees.

National Accounts is not available for everyone. Contact support@servicebridge.com if you would like this feature turned on.

As a Franchisor you can create National Accounts one by one or import many via the Customer Import functionality.

National Accounts are created the same as regular Customers. Press the universal add button (+):

This opens a "Create Customer" window where you can fill in the information of this new Customer and mark it as a National Account:

In the Primary Location section, the Company is set to the Franchisor's Company since the Master National Account Customer belongs to the Franchisor and can’t be changed. The Primary Location of National Account is usually the address of the headquarter office and the specific service Locations should be created later.

To upload many National Accounts, you need to press the settings icon at the top right corner and select Data Import/ Export:

Then press the ‘Data Sample’ button in the Customers section:

The .xls file will be downloaded and you need to arrange the document by the sample that you get. If these Customers are National Accounts, make sure that in the section “Is National Account” it is marked as “Yes” and a Third Party Bill Payer Name is the Franchisor Company name. Otherwise, it will be imported as a simple Customer:

Once the National Account Customer is created, you can create more locations and assign separate locations to separate Franchisee companies. A Franchisor creates the National Account Customers and has the ability to add Locations, Contacts, Assets, Asset Service Frequency and Asset Service Products and Services. This means that the Franchisor has full control of National Account Locations, Contacts and Assets service information before assigning the National Account Locations to the Franchisees.

To add a new Location, press the (+Add new) button in the Locations section.

To assign the Location to the Franchisee company, press the 'Assign' button on the particular Location:

This button opens a window "Assign National Account" where you can choose which Franchisee company should provide their service to this particular Location:

Terms and taxes for the specific Location can be assigned only when this Location is assigned to the Franchisee and this is optional.

Once the Location is assigned to the Franchisee Company, a button 'Transfer' appears:

This button transfers the National Account Location to another Franchisee Location. However, if there were some jobs done by the previous Franchisee, it stays in the previous Franchisee’s account as historical information. The new Franchisee gets a fresh copy of this National Account Location.

The 'Update All' button is used in the situations when the National Account’s general information changes and the Franchisor wants to update that information in all assigned Franchisees Locations. When you add or edit something in the General section and it needs to reflect on all the Locations, press this button and the changes will appear on all Locations and in the Franchisee account:

When you press the 'Update All' button, a pop-up window appears and you can select which National Account information you want to update for franchisees:

Once you assign the National Account Locations to the Franchisees, these Locations appear as separate Customers in your Customers list:

In the small print under the National Account name, you will see the Franchisee Company to which the National Account is assigned to.

You can filter the Customers list to see only the National Account locations by clicking the checkbox on National Accounts at the top right corner of the page:

When you assign a location to your Franchisee, it appears in their Customer list as a separate Customer. Franchisor Company is also created as a Customer because the Franchisor is a third party bill payer for all National Account Customer Locations:

The Franchisee can also filter their Customers list to see only National Accounts. To do so, they need to mark a checkbox on National Accounts at the top right side of the page:

However, when they open this National Account’s record, they cannot edit a lot of information. Display Name, Customer Company and Type are locked for the Franchisee, they cannot switch this Customer from a National Account to simple Customer and they cannot edit the Third Party Bill Payer information as by default, the bill payer is the Franchisor:

The Franchisee is also not allowed to edit address information for this Customer or add new Locations, manage Custom Fields. However, the Franchisee can add or edit the Contact information, manage Assets, create Jobs and do invoicing, apply payments, and reach the Audit History:

Assets are not locked for the Franchisee even if the Franchisor creates or imports the Assets initially. The Franchisee can edit existing Assets or add the new ones, also manage the Asset Service Frequency and Asset Service Products and Services.

National Accounts management and invoicing are described here.