Require your customers to provide a Purchase Order number before progressing their order? This feature helps to improve accuracy and ensuring the correct customer reference is captured.
What is "Customer Reference Is Mandatory"?
Within OnRent you can record a customer's purchase order number against their order using the Customer Reference, which may also be shown as Their Reference in some areas of the system.
For many organisations, a customer purchase order number is required before an order can be confirmed, invoiced or progressed any further.
OnRent allows you to make this reference mandatory, helping to make sure the correct information is captured before the transaction progresses.
You can set a company-wide default and, where needed, override this setting for individual customers.
You can also specify the format that the customer's reference needs to follow using a Customer Reference Mask.
This guide shows you how it's done.
Requiring Customer Purchase Order Numbers:
How to set whether a Customer Reference is required:
The Customer Reference requirement can be controlled at two levels:
A company-wide default.
An individual customer setting.
This allows you to require a purchase order number for most of your customers while still allowing exceptions where needed.
Setting the company default:
To set the default requirement for your customers:
Open System Settings.
Open Company Details.
Edit Customer Reference Is Mandatory.
Save the company.
When this is enabled, customers whose individual setting is set to Default will be required to provide a Customer Reference before an applicable transaction can progress beyond Quote or Provisional.
If the company setting is switched off, customers set to Default will not be required to provide one.
Setting the requirement for an individual customer:
You can override the company setting for individual customers.
To do this:
Open the customer account and click Edit.
Find Customer Reference Mandatory.
Choose the required setting:
Default — Uses the setting from your Company Details.
On — Always requires a Customer Reference for this customer.
Off — Does not require a Customer Reference for this customer, even if the company-wide setting is enabled.
Optionally enter a Customer Reference Mask.
Save the customer.
The individual customer setting takes priority over the company setting.
For example, you could make Customer References mandatory for all customers by default, then switch the setting to Off for any customers where a purchase order number isn't required.
Alternatively, you could leave the company setting off and switch individual customers to On where a purchase order number is always required.
Setting the Customer Reference format:
What is a "Customer Reference Mask"?
As well as requiring a Customer Reference, you can optionally specify the format that the reference needs to follow.
This can be useful where a customer always provides purchase order numbers in a particular format.
For example, if you enter:
PO-####
OnRent will accept:
PO-1234
But it won't accept references such as:
1234
PO-123
PO-ABCD
The Customer Reference Mask uses OnRent's existing input-mask format rather than regular expressions.
Any fixed text contained within the mask must be entered exactly as shown.
Customer Reference Mask characters:
# — One required digit.
For example:
####
Requires exactly four digits.
9 — One optional digit.
For example:
###9
Accepts either three or four digits.
? — One required letter.
For example:
??-####
Requires two letters followed by a hyphen and four digits.
A — One required letter or number.
For example:
AA-####
Allows an alphanumeric prefix followed by four digits.
a — One optional letter or number.
For example:
AAAa
Requires three alphanumeric characters with an optional fourth character.
& — One required printable character.
This can be used where a position can contain a controlled free-form character.
C — One optional printable character.
This allows an optional free-form character within the reference.
> — Forces the following letters to uppercase.
For example:
>??-####
Requires two uppercase letters followed by a hyphen and four digits.
< — Forces the following letters to lowercase.
For example:
<??-####
Requires two lowercase letters followed by a hyphen and four digits.
\ — Treats the following mask character as normal text.
For example:
#-####
Requires the reference to start with a literal #, followed by a hyphen and four digits.
Some common Customer Reference Mask examples:
PO-####
Requires PO- followed by exactly four digits.
Example: PO-1234
>??-#####
Requires two uppercase letters, followed by a hyphen and five digits.
Example: AB-12345
AAA-#####9
Requires three letters or numbers, followed by a hyphen, five required digits and an optional sixth digit.
For example:
ABC-12345
or:
ABC-123456
What happens if the Customer Reference isn't mandatory?
A Customer Reference Mask can still be used even where entering a Customer Reference is optional.
In this situation, the user can leave the Customer Reference blank.
However, if they do enter a reference, it must match the Customer Reference Mask configured against the customer.
Where is the Customer Reference checked?
The Customer Reference requirement is applied across the relevant customer-facing areas of OnRent.
This includes:
Rental orders when progressing beyond Quote or Provisional.
Customer-facing Works Orders when progressing to Order.
Converting a quote into an order.
My Basket and other order creation processes.
Manually created customer invoices.
Finalising chargeable unavailable items where equipment has been marked In Repair or Lost and is linked to a customer order.
When converting a quote to an order, if a Customer Reference is required but hasn't yet been entered, OnRent will prompt you to enter it before the conversion can continue.
Quotes and Provisional orders can therefore still be created without knowing the customer's purchase order number beforehand.
When doesn't the rule apply?
The Customer Reference requirement is intended for transactions relating to your customers.
It therefore doesn't apply to:
Supplier Purchase Orders.
Internal work that isn't linked to a customer account.
Breakdown Works Orders.
How is the rule checked?
In supported processes, OnRent checks the Customer Reference immediately so that the user can see if a reference is missing or doesn't match the required format.
The same validation is also applied through the OnRent API.
This means the requirement remains consistent regardless of whether the transaction is being progressed manually within OnRent or through an integration, helping prevent the Customer Reference requirement from being bypassed through a different workflow.