Create a customer contact
Description

When you create customer records, you can choose to keep our defaults or enter your own information. You can edit the record at any time.

Use customer contact records to save details about the people or businesses that you regularly do business with. Send physical copies of invoices by email or post and track who owes you money.

Cause
Resolution

Import your customer details

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Import from CSV file

Consider importing customer records if you already have the details somewhere else. Just export them to a CSV file and import all the details in one go.

You can import more new contacts at any time.

Find out more about how to import customers.

Import from mobile phone

 Use our mobile app to import customer details from your mobile phone contacts.

Read import contacts with the mobile app for more information.


Create a customer

 For one-off customers, or customers you don't want to import, create new customer records from Contacts.

  1. From Contacts, choose Customers. Select New Customer.
  2. Enter the business name of the customer. This is the name you'll see on all lists when selecting this customer.
  3. Enter the remaining details. If you don't know all the details yet, just enter the business name and save. Enter all other details later of you wish. You'll need to enter an address before you can save an invoice for a customer.

Use the following sections to choose which defaults to change. Choose additional information to store about the customer.

▼ Main address details

If you're sending invoices to your customers, you must enter an address. This is the address that appears on sales documents. For example: sales invoices, quotes and estimates.

If you want to email your sales documents, make sure you add an email address as well.

Add the main address from the Account details tab.

If your customer is outside the UK or Ireland, make sure you change the region just above the address. Choose the correct Country.

TIP:

If you don't have an address for a customer, use No address on the first line.

▼ Delivery address

If the business has a different delivery address, add this to the Delivery Address tab. Clear the Same as invoice address checkbox first.

Add more delivery addresses once you save the customer record. When you create an invoice, choose which delivery address to use.

▼ VAT details

If your customer's VAT registered, enter their VAT Registration Number. This makes sure we use the correct VAT rate when entering invoices.

Enter the VAT Registration Number from the Account Details tab. We check the VAT number against the Country entered in the address. You can only save the VAT number if it has the correct format.

VAT reverse charge

Select VAT Reverse Charge when:

▼ Set a default ledger account

We use Ledger accounts to categorise or group your transactions.

This makes sure they report correctly on financial reports. For example: Profit and Loss or Balance sheet reports. It also helps you track your business performance and see where you’re making money.

Selecting the right ledger account is key to making sure you know:

  • Where your money comes from
  • What you're selling

On sales invoices, you must select a ledger account on each line to show what you have sold. You can use our default Ledger accounts or set up your own.

You can set a default on your customer records to select the right ledger account. This is useful if you usually sell the same type of goods to a single customer.

On the Account Details tab, choose the default ledger account to use, from the Account Default dropdown

TIP:

If you use the same ledger account for all your sales, set this in the Record and Transaction settings.

Find out how to record and transaction settings.

▼ Enter payment details

If you've agreed on the credit terms with your customer, you can record them here. You can also set the credit limit.

The credit terms determine how many days a company has to pay an invoice, once the invoice becomes outstanding. After we set up the invoice, we work out the due date based on the credit terms set here.

We've set the credit terms to 30 days as this is usual for most businesses.

Your credit terms can be different. Set them in the record and transaction settings so they apply to all new customer records. If this customer has unusual credit terms, enter them here. Find out more about record and transaction settings.

▼ Store bank details

If you have bank details for any of your customers, store them on the Payment Details tab. Bank details are only for your information.

▼ Set a default price

You can have products and services that use different prices. Such as a retail and a wholesale price. You can set the price used by this customer.

EXAMPLE:

If the customer is a wholesaler, you'll likely charge them the wholesale price. When you add a product or service to the invoice, the system uses the wholesale price automatically.

Select the price type for this customer from the Defaults tab.

Find out more about product and service prices.

▼ Set up foreign currency customers

Set the currency for a customer based overseas. You can send sales invoices in their currency.

  1. From the Account Details tab, select the Region. Select the Country when entering their address.
  2. From the Account Details tab, enter a VAT number if registered for tax. This will make sure that the correct VAT rate on invoices.
  3. From the Defaults tab, choose the currency.
▼ Add analysis groups

Use analysis groups to group your customers together for reporting purposes. 

For example:

Divide your customers by the region. You can compare sales across regions.

You can see the total based on the sales manager to calculate commission.

Once set up, you can

  • Filter the Aged Debtors report by analysis group
  • Filter the customer list by analysis group

Find out more about analysis groups.

Once you've set them up, choose the group that this customer belongs to from the Analysis tab.

▼ Notes

This is a space for you to add any other relevant notes about your customer. The notes are only for your information.

▼ About VAT contacts

If you indicated that your business is VAT registered on sign-up, there will already be two contacts on the list.

Use the HMRC Reclaimed customer contact when you reclaim VAT. Use the HMRC Payments supplier contact when you make VAT payments. You can change the reference for these contacts but you can't rename or delete them.

Find out more about VAT in accounting.

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