Patronage Group Master

A patronage group links multiple separate customer and vendor accounts into one logical entity. This is invaluable any time you need to see the combined picture across related accounts:

Multi-Business Owners

A single owner may operate 8 different businesses, each with its own customer account in Quasar. By assigning all 8 accounts to one patronage group, you can run Aged Receivables and see the owner's total outstanding balance across all their businesses in a single view — rather than hunting through 8 separate customer records. This gives you a true picture of credit exposure and helps make informed decisions about extending further credit to any of the owner's entities.

Franchise Networks

A franchise head office and its individual franchise locations can be grouped together. This lets you view combined purchasing volume, total receivables, or total payables across the entire network, while still maintaining separate transaction histories for each location.

Related Vendor Accounts

A large supplier may invoice through different divisions (e.g., one for produce, one for dry goods, one for frozen). Grouping these vendor accounts together shows your total payables exposure to that supplier across all divisions.

Family or Household Accounts

Retail operations where family members have separate accounts can group them for combined loyalty tracking, total purchase volume, or consolidated statements.

Cooperative Dividend Processing

The original use case: co-op members (both customer-members and vendor-members) are grouped for annual patronage dividend calculations via the Patronage Worksheet. The group's Equity Member and Credit Member fields specify the special customer accounts used for posting dividend allocations.

Scenario: John Smith owns 8 retail locations, each set up as a separate customer in Quasar. His total credit line is $100,000 across all businesses.

• Without a patronage group: You would need to manually find and add up all 8 customer balances to know John's total receivable. If any single business looks fine individually but the combined total exceeds the credit limit, you would miss the risk.
• With a patronage group: Create a group called "John Smith Enterprises", add all 8 customer accounts, and run Aged Receivables filtered by that group. You instantly see the consolidated outstanding balance — current, 30-day, 60-day, 90-day — across all 8 entities. Credit decisions are now based on the true total exposure.

Name

The group name (up to 20 characters). Use a name that clearly identifies the grouping. Examples: Smith Enterprises, ABC Franchise Network, GreenCo Co-op Members.

Number

Unique group number (up to 12 characters) for sorting and reference.

Customer Members

Editable table of customer accounts that belong to this group. Add as many customers as needed — each row links a customer to this group. A new blank row appears automatically as you add entries.

Customer

Customer lookup. Select the customer account to add to this group.

Vendor Members

Editable table of vendor accounts that belong to this group. Same structure as the customer table. Useful when the same entity is both a customer and a vendor, or for grouping related supplier divisions.

Vendor

Vendor lookup. Select the vendor account to add to this group.

Equity Member

A customer account used for posting patronage equity allocations. In a cooperative context, this is the member's equity account where retained earnings are allocated. For non-cooperative use, this field can be left blank.

Credit Member

A customer account used for posting patronage credits payable. In a cooperative context, this is where the cash portion of a dividend is posted. For non-cooperative use, this field can be left blank.

Inactive

When checked, this patronage group is marked inactive and will be excluded from default lists and new transactions.

• One customer, multiple groups: A customer can belong to more than one patronage group, allowing overlapping groupings (e.g., by owner and by region).
• Mixed membership: A single group can contain both customers and vendors, useful for entities that buy from you and sell to you.
• Non-cooperative use: If you are not a cooperative, simply leave the Equity Member and Credit Member fields blank. The group still functions as a powerful consolidation tool for reporting.
• Credit decisions: Before extending credit to any member of a group, review the group's combined aged receivables to understand the full exposure.

Save

Saves the patronage group.

Undo

Reverts changes since the last save.

New

Opens a blank group.

Delete

Deletes the group.

Copy

Creates a duplicate group.

Groups

Assign the group to security/data groups.

OK

Saves and closes the screen.

Cancel

Closes without saving changes.

Save

Saves the patronage group.

Undo

Reverts changes since the last save.

New

Opens a blank group.

Delete

Deletes the group.

Copy

Creates a duplicate group.

Groups

Assign the group to security/data groups.

OK

Saves and closes the screen.

Cancel

Closes without saving changes.