Branding

Branding within Khaos Control controls which core stationery documents (e.g. Picking Tickets, Sales Invoice) are to be used when despatching goods. Branding can be added manually in a Sales Order and automatically as a result of the sales order Sales Source or customer's Company Class. There is a branding hierarchy, see below, to determine which brand is used. To setup brands see How To: Setup Branding.

Types of Branding

Branding functionality may be used where a business:

Requires traditional "trading as" branding; or
Supplies product direct to end-users who have purchased goods from a reseller; or
Acts as a fulfilment service, taking and fulfilling orders on behalf of others.
Uses VAT Relief qualified products or customers.

As brands can be set and used in multiple areas within Khaos Control, it is important to understand which brand is used when there are conflicts.

Traditional branding

Traditional branding is where a business trades under more than one business name. A common example is where a company uses two or more websites, each targeted at a different market segment.

In this case, we suggest linking the brand to the Sales Source and requiring brand to be set before a Sales Order can be saved. In all other respects, treat traditional branding as you would a normal Sales Order.

This allows Sales Orders taken by dedicated sales teams (where users are linked to sales sources) and websites (where the the website's XML feed identifies the sales source) to be associated with individual customers and also immediately linked to the correctly branded stationery. It therefore allows you to keep track of total sales to a customer, regardless of which brand(s) are being used.

Shipping on behalf of resellers

Manufacturers, specialist businesses and trade catalogue suppliers often provide a shipping service for their resellers. For example, another firm has taken an order for goods they buy from you, and asks you to despatch the goods directly to their end-customer.

In this case, we suggest each reseller should have their own brand, which is linked to the reseller's Company Class. Sales Orders for the reseller's end-customers should always be created against the reseller, using the end-customer's details as the delivery address.

This allows sales orders to be recorded against the reseller who has taken the order, with the branding ensuring the reseller's stationery is used when despatching the goods.

Note: Many people find it more convenient and much quicker to create a new delivery address for each order, rather than browse previously used delivery addresses against the resellers. We therefore suggest using the deactivate address dialog to hide delivery addresses, once you have closed the period to which the order relates (or possibly more frequently, depending upon volume of orders).

Fulfilment service

Here, you are receiving and processing sales orders (including taking payment) on behalf of others.

WARNING: VAT, EC Sales List, etc. cannot be separated by brand. An additional instance of Khaos Control is required for each VAT registration you need to report on separately.

In this case, we suggest linking the brand to the Sales Source and requiring brand to be set before a Sales Order can be saved (similar to traditional branding). In all other respects, treat fulfilment service as you would a normal Sales Order.

If dealing with a large volume of orders, you may find it convenient to create additional usernames so that each user has one username per sales source (i.e. brand).

For example, suppose you are acting as a fulfilment house for Miracle Max, who has placed advertisements for his miracle pill with you as the contact point. Each of your users who may enter "Miracle Max" sales orders onto Khaos Control should have an additional username set to use the "Miracle Max" sales source (e.g. user Inigo Montoya's username might be "IM-Miracle-Max").

Using characters from The Princess Bride

Branding Hierarchy

The branding hierarchy applies to order being imported into Khaos Control.

Branding set on the Sales Order overrides;
Branding set against a Sales Source, which overrides;
Branding set against a Company Class.
If no brand is set when an order is imported and there is none set against Sales Source or Company Class then no brand will be applied to the order.

Where found

Brands are setup and used in the following areas:

Brand Setup

[ System Data | Branding ] where the list of brands can be configured, see How To: Setup Branding.
Note: unique Email Server credentials can be defined per brand for automatically triggered emails in the Brand specific email settings dialog.
Core stationery documents, such as Picking Tickets, Delivery Notes and Sales Invoices, where the report builder/designer may be used to create different layouts for each brand.
Note: Should you use Standard Reports, design changes will require development, which may be chargeable.

Areas Branding can be Linked to

[ System Data | Company Class ] a default brand can be assigned to a company class.
[ System Data | Sales Source ] a default brand can be assigned to a sales source.
[ Email Manager | Message Template ] allows the user to send from a brand email address, for example How To: Setup Branded 'Thank you for your order' Emails.
[ System Data | Courier Banding ] only sales orders with the brand and that meet the other variables set, will use this courier.
[ System Data | Delivery Rates ] only sales orders with the brand and that meet the other variables set, will use this delivery rate.
[ Promotion | Special Offers ] branded special offers can be added to sales orders however they are not added to Sales Orders automatically, they apply if the items are present or added to the current sales order and relevant Special Offer conditions are met.
[ Promotion | Telesale Rule ] where brands can be used to trigger a prompt or action, see How To: Apply a Keycode offer based on a Brand.
[ Stock | Channel Setup ] screen for sales orders imported from a channel for example eBay and Amazon. With Amazon you can setup brands for orders from multiple channels through a single input, i.e. the parent Amazon channel which contains the credentials. The child channels belonging to the parent are setup in the Channel Setup Overrides dialog which is available on the [ Stock | Channel Setup ] screen, for example @marketplace.amazon.co.uk is from the UK Amazon channel whereas the @marketplace.amazon.com is from the USA.
Note: all channels setup in the system MUST have a brand linked to them.
IOSS, if IOSS is enabled in [ System Values | General | Your Company ] tab, there will be an IOSS column in the Branding screen so you can link your brands to different IOSS numbers.

Using Branding

[ Sales Orders | Additional ] tab, where the order can be assigned a brand.
[ Purchase Order | Main ] tab allows branding to be linked to items being purchased.