How can I change my customers' information and settings?

In the Customers section of My Organization settings, you can change the information and settings stored on a particular customer or organization. Note that any changes you make to a customer's or organization's name and contact information will affect how the customer appears in your records — your changes won't be visible in the advertiser's Column account.

Click the Edit button in the customer detail panel to edit an individual customer. Here's the contact and account information you can control on a given customer:

• Name

• Address

• Organization Name

• Internal ID (this is the ID correlating a customer in Column to a customer in your ad booking system if you have an integration with Column) 

And here are the settings you can control on a customer — these affect billing, affidavits, and more. Click "More Options" while viewing a customer to change these settings:

• Rates: You can edit the rates associated with a particular customer by selecting a rate from the dropdown menu or clicking "Add New Rate," redirecting you to the rates table. This setting will determine the rate for customer notices when you create their invoices.

• Affidavit access: Clicking the toggle to enable affidavits before payments allows the advertiser to receive affidavits as soon as they become available.

• Upfront payment: The require upfront payment button allows you to always require upfront payment from a customer or never require upfront payment from a customer (or default to whatever settings exist on your newspaper).

• Holds: Put a hold on a customer by clicking the toggle labeled "Put account on hold." This will prevent the customer from placing a notice in your newspaper until you remove the hold — use this for customers with a record of unpaid invoices.

Why can't I change my customer's email address?

Only account holders can change the e-mail address associated with their account. If a user needs to change the e-mail address on their account, share this Help Center article with them: How can I change my account email and password?

If you mistyped a customer's email address when placing a notice on their behalf, we recommend canceling the notice and resubmitting it under the correct email address. Then, delete the customer record with the incorrect email address from your customer list. This will not delete the account but prevent your team from selecting the wrong email address.

To edit a customer organization, click the Edit button in the organization detail panel. Here's the contact and account information you can control on a customer organization:

• Name

• Address

• Organization Name

• Internal ID (this is the ID correlating a customer in Column to a customer in your ad booking system if you have an integration with Column)

Currently, only a few settings are available on the customer organization level:

• Upfront payment: As with individual customers, you can always require upfront payment from an organization, never need it, or default to the setting on your newspaper. 

• Affidavit access: Clicking the toggle to enable affidavits before payments allow all members of this organization to receive affidavits as soon as they become available.

As indicated above, specific settings can be configured for individuals and organizations. Depending on the setting, you may need to set preferences on different levels to achieve the desired effect.

• Upfront payment: Individual settings override organization settings. If you want to require upfront payment from all members of an organization, set "Always require" on the organization. If one member of an organization doesn't require upfront payment, set "Never require" on that customer.

• Internal IDs: The order of operations for internal IDs (or "account numbers") varies by newspaper because each paper's integration is slightly different. Check with your account representative to determine whether you should set IDs on individuals or organizations. We recommend setting IDs on both individuals and organizations to ensure notices sync to the correct accounts.

• Affidavit access before payment: We recommend setting affidavit access on the organization level instead of the individual so all members can download affidavits regardless of their individual settings. The account holder may not be the one managing affidavits, and typically, if one member of an organization needs affidavit access before payment, all members do as well.

Need to keep track of information about specific customers or organizations? You can use the Notes feature to jot down details such as a customer's credit status, preferred point of contact, or whatever else you need to remember when working with that customer. Like all customer information in Column, notes are visible to only publishers and Column staff — not customers themselves.

Want to learn more about customizing settings for your customers and their organizations? Check out this webinar where we take a deep dive: