Counterparties Overview
A 'Counterparty' is a term cieTrade uses to represent a company that you do business with. Any commercial account that you do business with will need to be created within cieTrade as a 'Counterparty' before it can be used elsewhere. Situations may arise where your Customer may also be your Supplier or an Expense Vendor and vice versa. Instead of maintaining separate entries for Custom/Supplier/Vendor, the Counterparty form is used to summarize the complete relationship between your organization, and the other. In creating a Counterparty, you can assign relationship roles, shipping locations, invoice addresses, and other information that can reduce double entry on Orders & Worksheets.
WARNING: The most important thing you select when setting up a new counterparty is the currency. Once a counterparty is created and referenced elsewhere in the system, the currency cannot be changed. Please ensure you make the correct selection upon the creation of your counterparties.
How to Find Your Counterparties
You can find your counterparties by clicking the "Counterparties" tab on the left hand menu.
Tips & Best Practices
Understanding Counterparty Types (or Roles)
Counterparty Types are used to distinguish the type of relationship you have with a company, which in turn will affect where the company appears within the system as an option. For example, companies marked as "Customer" will appear within customer-related fields. Companies marked as "Supplier" will appear in supplier and expense related fields, etc. The six categories of roles are:
| ROLE | DESCRIPTION |
| Customer | An organization you sell goods and/or services to. |
| Supplier | An organization you purchase goods and/or services from. |
| Service | An organization you contract for the servicing or movement of goods. |
| Freight | An organization you contract for the movement of goods (i.e freight). |
| Commission Agent | An individual or organization that assists with the buying and/or selling of goods, and receives a commission based on it. |
| Intercompany | TBD |
How to Name Your Counterparties
Counterparties can have two names, which we refer to as a company short and long name.
- Company (Short) Name: this is the informal name of the company that's used to refer to it internally.
- Company (Long) Name: this is the official name of the company and will be used for your documentation. If you have plans on connecting to an accounting system, this name should match the name used in your accounting system.
How to Handle Multi-Currency Counterparties
For instances where you do business with a company using multiple currencies, a new and seperate Counterparty should be setup for them for each alternate currency. For example, I may do business with 27 Recycling but the currency varies sometimes between USD & GBP. In this case, I would setup two Counterparties for 27 Recycling with one being in USD, and the other in GBP. Then, at the order or worksheet level, you will select the counterparty that has the correct currency for the transaction you're creating.
For best practices, we recommend denoting the type of currency within the company name. An example of what this may look like can be found below.
- 27 Recycling - USD
- 27 Recycling - GBP
How to Create a Counterparty
Most of the information/fields that are available on the counterparty form are optional. However, having a filled out counterparty can be beneficial in reducing the amount of times you need to enter a piece of information. A great example is Payment Terms. If you routinely use the same payment terms with a counterparty, you can add it to them so anytime you reference them, it will automatically pull in. The baseline information required is the Company Name, Counterparty Type, and Currency. Besides the Currency, you can update the counterparty at any time. To create a counterparty:
- Navigate to Counterparties.
- Click Tasks > New Counterparty.
- Enter a Company (Short) Name and check off the applicable Counterparty Type(s).
- Use the Primary Contact (First & Last Name), Email, Phone Number(s), and Website fields to store the primary contact information of the company.
- Within the Other Details tab, select the Currency the company transacts in. Please see the section above on how to handle companies that transact in multiple currencies. In the event the counterparty is anything except a "Customer", a Default Expense Account will need to be selected.
- Within the Address tab, enter a Location Name, Company (Long) Name, and Address.
- Any other information you have can be added at this time.
- Once you're finished, click Save.
You're done! Once you click save, the counterparty will be created and you can begin using it.
For a complete breakdown of the data points available, please see our helpfile here.
Additional Information
How to Update a Counterparty
Counterparties can be updated by navigating to the Counterparties module, drilling down into the counterparty you need to change, then changing whatever it is you need to.
How to Enable/Disable a Counterparty
In the event you no longer are doing business with a company, you can set them to inactive so they no longer appear on drop-down lists as an option. You can update the status of a counterparty by navigating to the Counterparties module, drilling down into the counterparty, then updating the Status. 
How to Delete a Counterparty
Counterparties can be removed from the system by clicking More Actions > Delete on the overview page.
Please Note: if the counterparty has activity (i.e orders and worksheets tied to it), we recommend setting it to inactive as opposed to deleting it in order to keep the historical data.
Import Tool
The counterparty import tool can be used to create multiple counterparties at one time. For more information on the import tool, please see our helpfile here. 
User Defined Fields
User Defined Fields (UDFs) are essentially extra fields that can be setup to capture information when there doesn't appear to be a spot anywhere else for the information. For more information on setting up User Defined Fields, please see our helpfile here.
If you have additional questions, please contact the Support Team via email to support@cietrade.net