Customer and Member

“We filled in the IC on the membership — why is Customer Maintenance blank?” The answer is that a member and a customer are two records. The membership card is what the loyalty side reads: points, class, labels. The customer is the account you bill, and it is what finance reads: credit terms, the statement, the tax identity that goes on an e-invoice. The two are linked when the card is made. After that, each keeps its own details, except for the two edits described below. This page is for whoever enrols members at the counter or keeps the member list, and for whoever is asked why the buyer’s IC is blank on an e-invoice.

Meet the example

GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd runs one loyalty programme across its 22 branches and its online store. A shopper can join at the till in GS-KV-01, on the GadgetSphere Online website, or through an import from the old loyalty system. Each of those routes attaches the new member to a customer differently, and that is where most of the surprises on this page start.

What each record holds, and which one a bill reads

One bill uses both records, for different jobs:

The member earns and spends the points. A bill awards points to the member named on it, and only when the bill is the document type and status your company set for points (an internal sales order at FINAL unless somebody changed it). The balance the till offers is a stored running total on the card, added to as each points line is written. It is not worked out from the customer.
The customer is billed. The customer is charged for the sale. When the bill is saved, the buyer’s name, ID type and number, phone and e-mail are copied onto it from the customer record. That copy stays on the bill, so correcting the customer next week does not change a bill already saved. The member’s own IC is not read for the e-invoice.
Picking a member at the till picks their customer. At the counter, choosing a member loads the customer linked to that card as the bill’s customer. On a till set up the default way, the lines already rung up, the settlement and the document links are cleared at the same moment. So pick the member before you scan the first item, unless your till’s settings keep the item list when the customer changes.

So a member’s points and a customer’s statement are two different figures, kept on two different records. A customer’s statement shows every bill charged to that customer, whichever card was on it. A card’s balance counts that card’s points only.

How each route attaches a member to a customer

Route	What it does about the customer
Membership Admin + (create), the Upload Membership CSV, the API’s plain create	Looks for an existing record and takes the first it finds: one linked to the member’s login, then one with the same phone, then one with the same e-mail. If none matches, it creates a new customer with the member’s name, IC, phone and e-mail
POS General’s member add	Shows Possible Duplicate Found with every record that has the same phone or e-mail. The cashier picks one to link, or chooses Proceed Create New, which always makes a new customer. The till then writes the address and e-invoice details from its form onto whichever customer the card got
The API’s with customer route (integrations, migrations)	Matches by customer code only, creates one when there is none, and writes the member’s name, IC, phone, e-mail and address over what the customer held
Storefront sign-up (CP Commerce Admin’s post-registration setting)	Create membership and customer links the shopper’s customer. Create membership without customer leaves the card with none
`ENTITY_LINKING_FOR_MEMBER_PROCESSOR`, if you schedule it	Gives every member with no customer a brand-new one. It does no matching, and names the new customer from the part of the e-mail before the `@`, without the member’s name or IC. It is not a default clock

Three details of the first row decide whether a match is the one you meant:

“First” is the lowest internal record number. It is not the oldest customer, and not the most recently used one. When three records share a phone number, which one you get is effectively chance.
The phone and e-mail are compared character for character. A customer keyed as 012-345 6789 does not match a member keyed as +60123456789, so you get a second customer for the same person.
Any record counts, not just customers. A supplier or a staff record with the same phone or e-mail can be the one picked up, and so can a customer marked inactive.

A customer found this way keeps its own details: the member’s IC is not written onto it. That is the question at the top of this page. The new member at GS-KV-01 gave her IC, but her phone number already belonged to a customer with no identity fields, and that customer is the one her bills go to.

To re-point a card later, open the member in Membership Admin and change Customer Name on the Details tab. Saving the card does not repeat the matching.

Where each figure and detail comes from

On the screen	Read from	When it is taken
Points balance on the card and at the till	The card’s stored running total	Updated as each points line is written
A customer’s statement, credit limit, outstanding	The customer	Live, across every bill charged to that customer
Buyer name, ID type and number, phone and e-mail on a bill	A copy of the customer	When the bill is saved, and only if the bill does not already have one
Customer Maintenance → Membership tab	Every card whose customer is this one	Live, each time the tab opens
The customer’s name and IC, when the customer was made for this member	The member, copied once	At the moment the card was created

The two edits that do cross over

Most edits stay on their own side. The Details tab’s IC, phone and e-mail change the card only. Two edits reach the other record, and both can reach further than you expect:

A change of name, date of birth or gender on the card is copied onto the matching customer records, up to five individual ones that share the member’s e-mail or phone. It is also copied onto every card linked to those customers. The intent appears to be keeping one person’s name in step across their login, their customer and their card. Where a family shares one mobile number and one customer, though, renaming one card renames the customer and the other cards as well, and nothing tells you it happened. Before you rename a member who shares a phone or e-mail with someone else, give the card its own phone and e-mail, save, and then change the name.
The E-Invoice tab on the member form appears only when the card has a customer. It reads that customer’s record and saves onto it: buyer name, phone, e-mail, ID type and number, and the tax fields. This is the quickest place to put a member’s IC where the e-invoice will find it. But if several cards share that customer, the change applies to all of them, because they are all billed to the same account.

Several cards on one customer, one card per person

Each card is one member, and the card has no “programme” field. What varies per member is the point currency: a card keeps a balance and a set of lots for each currency it has earned in.

The other direction is looser. Several cards can share one customer. A household on one mobile number does it naturally. A placeholder phone number, such as a branch’s own line keyed for shoppers who would not give theirs, can gather dozens of cards onto a single customer. Every bill for every one of those members is then charged to that account, and they all share its e-invoice identity.

When it goes wrong

What you see	Why	What to do
The till says The member card is not linked to any customer! and the member is not put on the bill	The card has no customer. Usually it is a storefront sign-up made without a customer	In Membership Admin, open the member and choose a Customer Name. Scheduling the back-fill job instead creates customers named from e-mail addresses (see the table above)
The IC is on the member, but the e-invoice has no buyer identity	The card matched an existing customer by phone or e-mail, and that customer kept its own blank fields	Fill the member form’s E-Invoice tab, or the customer in Customer Maintenance. A bill already saved keeps its copy, so correct the buyer on that e-invoice in My E-Invoice Admin
A customer’s statement shows bills from people you do not recognise	Several cards are attached to that customer through a shared or placeholder phone	Open the customer’s Membership tab to see every card on it, then re-point the cards that belong elsewhere
A household’s names all changed at once	A name was edited on one card that shares a phone or e-mail with the others	Correct each record. Next time, separate the contact details before renaming
A customer whose name is the start of an e-mail address	The back-fill job made it from the e-mail	Rename it, and add the IC before anyone bills it
The items you scanned disappeared when you picked the member	Picking a member changes the bill’s customer, and the till clears the lines	Pick the member first
A supplier or staff record has been billed for a shopper’s purchase	Its phone or e-mail matched the new member	Re-point the card to the right customer, and keep shared numbers off supplier and staff records

What the link will not do

It does not keep the two records in step. Apart from the two edits above, nothing passes between them after the card is made. A phone number changed on one side is still the old number on the other.
It does not merge. BigLedger has no button to merge two cards, or to move points between cards in one step. Merge two cards for one person gives the order to do it by hand.
It does not put a member on a till bill without a customer. The till refuses the card, so you link it first.
It does not check that the person is the same. Matching is by login, phone or e-mail and nothing else, not by name or IC.

The job that stays with you

These decisions are yours to make. The product does not make them for you:

Decide how strangers’ purchases are billed. You have three options: one customer per member (clean statements and e-invoices, more customer records); one shared walk-in customer (fewer records, one statement nobody can read); or no member for a shopper who will not give details. Write the choice down for the tills, because the phone number a cashier keys is the choice.
Keep phone formats the same everywhere. Agree one format for Customer Maintenance and the tills. Every difference produces a duplicate customer and nothing warns you.
Before you schedule the back-fill job, decide whether the members without a customer should get properly named customers instead. The job makes one for each of them, named from the e-mail, and somebody then has to rename every one before it is billed.
Once a month, check your largest customers’ Membership tab. A customer that has quietly collected dozens of cards is a statement and an e-invoice identity that belong to nobody.

How you know it is right

Run this in under a minute on a member who joined at the till this week:

Open the member in Membership Admin. Customer Name is filled, and it is the person, not a placeholder or a supplier.
Open that customer in Customer Maintenance. The Membership tab lists only the card or cards you expect.
If this member will want e-invoices, the ID type and number are filled on the customer. The member form’s E-Invoice tab shows the same values.

Where this sits

What must exist first: a customer record, or a route that makes one. Without a customer, the till will not bill the member. The company’s points setting decides which bills earn.
What becomes possible: points that follow the person while the bills follow the account. A company account can hold cards for six staff, and a child’s card can sit on a parent’s account.
Its sibling: a storefront login. The login is how a shopper signs in, and the card is their loyalty record. A shopper who registers online has a login and, depending on your storefront setting, a card. A shopper who joins at the till has a card and no login.
What breaks if the link is wrong: the statement of account, credit control and the e-invoice buyer identity, all on the finance side, while the points look perfectly fine.
What it is used alongside: Membership Admin and Customer Maintenance, opened side by side. And at the counter, POS General’s member add, where most links are made.