Customers and their contacts

A customer is who you bill. A contact is a person there. The address, the accounts email and the customer number belong to the customer, and everyone at it shares them.

How it fits together

A customer is a firm, or a person billed in their own name. Each customer can have any number of contacts: the people you actually deal with. A contact belongs to exactly one customer; if the same person buys for two firms, they are a contact at each.

Every customer gets a number, C-1000 upwards, that is never reused. It shows beside the name on the Customers list, on invoice tables and on the invoice PDF as their customer ref, and you can search for it.

Where they come from

There is no “Add customer” button. Customers are created the first time you quote them, or by a request from your quote form. On Customers in the sidebar, search by name, contact, email, phone or C-number, and sort by Recent or A to Z.

The customer’s page

• Documents: every quote, job, invoice, purchase order and email for anyone at the customer, in tabs.
• Money: what they owe now and what you have won from them this year.
• Billing: their Address, their Type, and where Invoices to go.
• Contacts: the people there, with how many quotes each has had. Add contact is the one way to add a person without raising a quote.

Business or member of the public

You pick this on the New quote form under Who are they?, and can change it on the customer’s page. An invoice to a business has to show their address, so a business needs at least an address line 1 and a postcode before you can confirm an order. Quotes are fine without it, and you are asked for it before confirming. A member of the public never needs one.

The address

Edit it under Billing on the customer’s page with Edit address, or remove it with Remove address. Typing an address on a New quote or Duplicate form for an existing customer updates their record too; blank boxes never clear what is stored.

Where invoices go

By default invoices go to whoever asked for the work. If the firm has an accounts department, click Set accounts email under Billing. Invoices, reminders and credit notes for everyone at that customer then go there, copying the person who asked. Quotes still go to them alone.