PURPOSE

The purpose of this functionality is to connect a customer's related contacts (subsidiaries, directors, shareholders, guarantors, and similar parties) with the people and companies who appear as applicants on a quote or application. Previously these two lists were maintained completely separately, so staff had to re-enter the same people twice and had no way to spot when the two lists drifted apart. This feature keeps them in sync, flags mismatches at every stage where the applicant list could still change, and lets you control which parties count toward a customer's combined credit exposure (its "legal group").

SETUP

On Leasing Setup: Link Applicants to Related Parties – controls how applicants and the customer's related parties are reconciled: Do not update Related Parties (feature off), Auto Update, or Update and Check for Data Conflicts. Sync Legal Group with Related Parties – when on, keeps the customer's legal group in step automatically whenever its related parties change.

On the Applicant Role list: Include in Legal Group – marks which roles (e.g. director, shareholder) should count toward a customer's legal group.

HOW TO USE

On the Contact Card for a business or sole trader customer, open the Related Parties section to see and maintain that customer's related contacts, each with their applicant role.

If Auto Update is selected: nothing needs to be done by hand. Once a contract is activated, the customer's related parties are automatically brought in line with the final applicant list on that contract — anyone on the applicant list who isn't yet a related party is added, and any existing related party who is no longer on the applicant list is removed. This only happens at activation, once the applicant list can no longer change, so the related-party list always ends up matching exactly what was actually financed. If "Sync Legal Group with Related Parties" is on, the legal group is refreshed in the background at the same time, with no separate confirmation needed.

If Update and Check for Data Conflicts is selected: whenever an application is submitted — for approval, and again for compliance — the system compares its applicants against the customer's current related parties. If they don't match (e.g. a new applicant hasn't been added as a related party yet, or a related party dropped off the applicant list), the application is automatically held back from auto-approval and referred for review instead. Staff then open the Customer Data Conflict / Applicant/Related Party Conflict action on the workflow card — it only appears when there's an actual mismatch to look at — to see the applicant list and the customer's related parties side by side. From there:

• Update to Customer Master adds the selected applicant(s) to the customer's related parties (asks for confirmation first).
• Remove From Customer Master removes the selected related part(y/ies) from the customer — useful when, for example, a director has resigned and been replaced by a new applicant (asks for confirmation first). Note this removes every role that contact holds for the customer, not just the one shown in the comparison.

Either action refreshes the comparison so it can be repeated until both lists agree; closing the page without acting leaves everything unchanged. As with Auto Update, resolving a conflict this way also keeps the legal group in sync in the background when that setup option is on.