Commercial customer's biz was bought out, not moving locations. Should we change customer record?

[awaldron]

We have a commercial customer who sold their business/was bought out. The old business will not legally exist any more, but the business isn't changing locations either, they've simply been absorbed by another corporation. We want to keep all previous work history easily accessible, so we're thinking we just need to change the name of the customer and attach a note to the customer profile page stating why/when we made the name change. Is that the best practice? Or should we create a new customer and move the location page over to the new customer(bringing history along with it)? We don't think that's a good option since that would change the billing name (and service location name) on those previous jobs. Would love some opinions/insight!

[Steveng]

Agree with these two responses completely.  Another factor to consider is the accounting side.  Are they exporting to QB?  If a new account is created the unique ID will be different when it exports.  I'd even take it a step further and merge the locations once moved over.  One thing I had been worried about in the past is if the sale of a property or business leads to the new owner requesting previous invoices from the old owner and finding out about repair history that may have been left out or deliberately misrepresented were to happen we could have a drama situation to resolve.  But end of the day we create a new account and location and do not move the location unless we are moving a significant amount of equipment.  

[LeonWright]

I have to agree that creating a new customer and moving the previous location over to that new customer is the way to go.  Should make everything pretty smooth going forward.

[dwhite45 · Accepted solution]

It will not change the billing name on the previous jobs. It will still show who they were billed to on the invoice that was already exported. I personally think it is best to create a new account and move the location over to them. That way the credit history stays with the account that made it. Some don't have the best payment history so we hate to have that carry over to a new account to make it look like they have a bad credit history too.

[awaldron]

Thanks everyone!

[JessicaSmith]

This is the way!