company name in place of first/last name for Business customer group?

Question

How can i make the customer group Business request a Company Name instead of First Name or Last Name. this way when signing up a company i can put in the company info since there wont be any first/last name. i then need the company name to be shown anywhere first/last name is usually shown (invoices, account area, ETC.)

Answer 1

What is your Magento version?

The idea how to achieve your goal is: Make the last name field optional and hide it, and change the first name label to company. So the first name value of the customer is company name that customer entered, and company name will display on everywhere first name field should be.

So first thing first, make last name field optional:

1. How to make last name optional in Magento 1.8 , Magento 1.7 eva attributes table name is eva_attribute, you can find the attribute_code = 'lastname'

2. Hide last name field in everywhere(disallowed customer enter last name), there are 4 files should update(maybe more files):

   • app/design/frontend/default/yourtheme/template/customer/form/register.phtml

   Has the HTML form for initial registration Note: this file will also be used for a one-shot database extension

   • app/design/frontend/default/yourtheme/template/customer/form/edit.phtml

   Has the HTML form for edit by customers

   • app/code/core/Mage/Customer/Model/Entity/Setup.php

   Has an array full of customer attributes to use for registration

   • app/code/core/Mage/Customer/etc/config.xml

   Has a description of fields to be used in the forms

   • app/code/core/Mage/Customer/controllers/AccountController.php

   For checkbox option

   Reference: Custom Account/Registration Fields

3. After you update the files, you should register and test the changes is working or not. Test the email content, place order and invoice etc, make sure everywhere only display the company name.

Ohh! one more thing, GOOD LUCK!