Get a basic understanding of what CPNet is and how it works.
In a nutshell, CPNet allows affiliates to match their customers to other partner affiliates, so certain information can be shared from the sub-contractor affiliate to the owner affiliate, on a customer by customer basis.
Customer matches are made on a one-to-one level. This means if you are the account owner of a particular customer, and your sub-contractor has multiple locations to service for that customer, they likely have multiple instances of that customer that they have created in order to keep their manifest system operating efficiently. Every instance of that customer needs to be matched up with a corresponding customer on your end. There is one exception. An account owner may have more than one sub-contractor servicing a customer. So, a one-to-one connection can be established across multiple partners.
Breaking that down, an account owner can match the same customer to more than one sub-contractor, but each sub-contractor can only have one connection to the account owner's customer.
When a matched customer wants to log in to the compliance portal, they will only be allowed to log in using the login credentials established by the account owner.
The Setup
1. You can find potential new partners using the Affiliate Partner Finder functionality on this page. Your current and pending partners are found under Partners on the CPNet page.
2. Make sure your affiliate address is available so partners can more easily connect with you. Navigate to Affiliate -> Options -> Contact Information to enter your affiliate address.
3. Make sure that any partner that will work as your sub-contractor is on the same page with you when it comes to container types being picked up and items being delivered, especially when using the billing system. As the owner, when using the billing system, you have a few options to bill using your sub-contractor's data. You can simply create rules based on the sub-contractor's items/containers, or you can match your sub-contractor's items/containers to your own item/containers, which will then allow the established rules of your item/container to be shared.
4. Establish your CPNet system email addresses under Email Addresses so your partners can more easily reach out.
The Steps
1. Either the account owner or sub-contractor can initialize a customer match request under Customer Match Requests -> Customer Match Request. Follow the steps to select your customer to match, the corresponding partner, and the account owner.
2. After a request has been sent, it is the partner's turn to reply to the request with their matching customer, or have the system auto create a matching customer. The request will show under the partner's Match Request Received module.
3. After the receiving partner replies, one of two things will happen. If the system auto created a matching customer, then the cpnet connection has been established, addresses and contact info have been shared, and no further action is needed. If the receiving partner matched the request to a customer that they already had in the system, then the request heads back to the original sending partner, under Match Final Confirmation, for approval. After approval, the customer match has been established. Make sure to review the customer details every step of the way.
4. When a match is finally established, the sub-contracting affiliate needs to add the new customer to the appropriate billing group in order to bill the owner affiliate instead of the end customer. The CPNet connection will allow the account owner access to ALL past and future pickups, deliveries, and dropoffs that the sub-contractor creates with the matched customer. The customer match can be stopped at any time, but past pickups, deliveries, and dropoffs can't be unshared. Any customer settings, info, or contacts changed by one affiliate will NOT be transferred to the other affiliate's matching customer.
What is Shared?
Manifest Reports
1. Reporting for Pickups, Deliveries, and the Spreadsheet Exporter all have the capability to factor in sub-contractor actions.
2. Today's Report will have sub-contractors factored in, including a section for Sub-Contractor Routes in the graph area.
Routing & Scheduling
1. Schedules of sub-contractors can be viewed under Pickup Scheduling in a new Sub-Contractor Schedules section.
2. Recent pickups of sub-contractors can also be viewed under Pickup Scheduling in a new Sub-Contractor Recent Pickups section.
3. The Scheduling Report has the capability to factor in sub-contractor actions.
4. When a generator holiday is created, modified, or deleted by a sub-contractor, an email can be sent to the account owner with the details.
Billing
1. All pickups or deliveries performed by a sub-contractor can be billed by the account owner and/or the sub-contractor. The intention is for the account owner to bill the customer directly and the sub-contractor to bill the partnering account owner. The sub-contractor can bill the account owner by setting up the account owner as a Billing Group, and adding the applicable customers to that billing group. Every time a new customer match is created, the affiliate needs to make sure to add that customer to the appropriate billing group. If one partner or the other will not be billing the shared customer, the customer can be set to Do Not Bill by either partner under Billing Setup -> Generators -> Generator Billing Settings.
If a sub-contracting affiliate is billing an account owner affliate via a billing group, certain firewalls are in place to prevent the individual customers from seeing the invoice and its details. Typically when invoicing a billing group, the indvidual customers of the billing group can log in to the compliance portal to view or pay an invoice. But if the individual customers are part of a sub-contractor connection, they will be unable to view the invoices generated for the account owner affiliate billing group. If for some reason a cpnet connection is severed for a customer, it is important to also remove the customer from the account owner billing group.
MyDocs (in the customer portal)
1. MyDocs will display all manifest related documents generated by a sub-contractor's actions.
2. Reporting will factor in all manifest related actions of a sub-contractor.
3. The Upcoming Pickups calendar will factor in sub-contractor schedules.