Customers are the people and companies you sell to. Every quote, sales order, invoice, sales receipt, credit note, refund receipt and customer payment references a customer, and each customer's page shows their document history, statement and quick actions such as New Invoice and Record a payment. The summary numbers on the list and the profile are a working view of documents (drafts included); the posted receivable is on the statement and in the receivables reports — Customer credit and balances explains the difference.
Where to find it
AR (Sales) (left rail) → Customers group:
| Item | URL |
|---|---|
| All Customers | /customers |
| Add Customer | /customers/create |
Customer groups are under Settings → Pricing & Segmentation → Customer Groups (/customer-groups, plan-dependent). Old /clients links redirect to /customers.
The customer list
The list is headed Customer document pipeline (includes drafts) with the note "Invoice totals include drafts. Balance is invoice total less allocated posted payments and applied credits. Use Customer Balance Summary or the customer statement for posted receivables." and the number of matching customers. The header has Bulk Upload, Excel and New Customer (top right).
Filters (top bar), applied live:
| Filter | Options |
|---|---|
| Search | "Search customer..." — matches name, email, phone and tax number |
| Status | All statuses, Active, Archived |
| Customer type | All, Local, Export |
| Balance | All balances, Owes money, Settled, In credit |
| Activity | All activity, With transactions, No transactions |
| Customer Group | All groups / a group (when group pricing is on) |
| Sort by | Name, Highest balance, Most invoiced, Recently added |
Click Filter, or Clear to reset; active filters show as chips.
Columns: Customer (name, with Customer #id and the group underneath), Contact (phone, with the email underneath), Total invoiced, Total paid, Balance (green when owed to you, red when in credit), Status and the row menu. Total invoiced counts every invoice that is not void, including drafts; Total paid counts posted payments allocated to the customer's invoices; Balance is invoiced less paid less credit notes (drafts included, void excluded), so it can differ from the posted receivable.
Row menu (⋯)
View, PDF Statement, Edit, then Archive Customer / Restore Customer.
Bulk actions
Tick rows (or Select visible records) to export, archive, or assign the selected customers to a Customer Group.
The Excel export (all customers, the filtered list or just the ticked rows) has the columns Customer, Email, Phone, Tax Number (TRN), Customer Group and Status (Active / Archived), with headings and workbook details (Organization, Period, Currency, Generated) in the language you are using. It carries no balances; use the statement for those. Exporting needs Customers → View.
Create a customer
- Click New Customer on the list (or AR (Sales) → Add Customer).
- Fill in the form:
| Section | Field | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| — | Name * | Required. Must be unique: "This customer name already exists. Please choose another name." — the form warns as you type. |
| Company Name | Legal/trading name shown on the profile and documents. | |
| Phone, Email | Optional. Email must be valid. | |
| Business & Contact | Customer Type | Unknown, Local or Export. Drives VAT treatment defaults (export = zero-rated supplies). |
| Tax Number (TRN) | "Optional. Leave empty when the tax registration number is unknown." | |
| Status | Active / Archived. "Archived customers are hidden from the default list but keep all their history." | |
| Contact Person Name, Contact Person Title / Post | ||
| Address Line 1/2, City, Country | ||
| Pricing | Default Price List | System default or a list (plan-dependent). |
| Customer Group | No group or a group (plan-dependent). | |
| Bank Info | Bank Name, Branch, Account Name, Account Number | Optional |
| Cliq Info | Cliq Name, Cliq Type, Cliq Alias/Number | Optional |
| Custom fields | If defined for customers |
- Click Save Customer. You return to the list with a success notice.
If your organization requires approval for new customers, saving submits a proposal instead and the customer appears once approved — see Workflow approvals.
Create a customer from a document
On invoices, quotes and other sales forms there is a single Customer field — a searchable selector; type a few letters to filter. If the customer doesn't exist, use the selector's add option to create one with the essentials (the name you typed is already filled in) and it is selected straight away. Complete the full record later from All Customers. Documents print the name of the customer you chose; there is no second "customer name" field to keep in step.
Commercial defaults
Customers created through the Data Migration Center can carry a currency and payment terms (days) from your previous system; these are kept on the customer. Payment terms on new documents otherwise come from your organization's default terms.
Edit, archive, restore
- Edit Customer (profile actions or row menu) opens the same form; click Update Customer.
- Archive Customer asks: "Archive this customer? Archived contacts remain available in historical documents but cannot be used in new transactions."
- Restore Customer brings an archived customer back.
The customer profile page
Open a customer by clicking the name or View (/customers/{id}).
Top bar
- A from → to date range with Apply — filters the ledger and statement.
- Action buttons: New Invoice, Record a payment (active customers), Edit Customer, PDF (statement) and Print.
- More Actions menu: New Quote, Excel (statement export), Relationship Map, Use also as supplier (creates the matching supplier from the same contact), Review Stock party (SolaStock-connected orgs), Archive Customer / Restore Customer.
Body
| Card | Content |
|---|---|
| Customer Profile | Name, status, Customer #id |
| Customer Information | Status, created, updated |
| Contact | Company Name, email, phone, contact person, customer group, default price list |
| Business & Address | Type (Local/Export), Tax Number (TRN), address |
| Bank Info, Cliq Info | As entered |
| Document summary | The card heading reads "Document summary — includes draft invoices and credits; use the customer statement for posted receivables." It shows Total invoiced, Total Paid, Total Credits, Total Refunded and Document balance (includes drafts; not posted receivables). |
| Sales Documents | Quotes, sales orders, invoices with number, date, status and total — click to open |
| Payments & Credit Notes | Payments, credit notes, sales receipts, refund receipts |
| Email History | Emails sent with their delivery status |
| Recent Activity | |
| Journal Entries & Balance Changes | The customer's receivable ledger (see below) |
| Sidebar | Quick Stats (document counts), custom field values |
Payment actions from the profile
- Record a payment opens a new customer payment with this customer preselected; allocate it to open invoices. See Payments.
- New Invoice opens an invoice for this customer.
Actions use the shared confirmation dialogs. If the outcome of an action can't be confirmed you see "We could not confirm whether this action completed. Review the document before trying again." with Review document — check before retrying.
What the summary cards add up
| Card | How it is worked out |
|---|---|
| Total invoiced | Every invoice of this customer that is not void, drafts included |
| Total Paid | Posted payments allocated to the customer's invoices (an applied advance counts, because it is recorded as a payment) |
| Total Credits | Every credit note that is not void, drafts included |
| Total Refunded | Posted credit refunds: refund receipts and any older payments recorded as credit-note refunds, counted once each. Refunds of cash sales are separate and are not included. |
| Document balance | Total invoiced − Total Paid − Total Credits + Total Refunded |
Because a refund pays out a credit, it is added back: a credit note of AED 1,050 followed by a refund of AED 1,050 leaves the customer's document balance exactly where it was before the sale.
The ledger and statements
Journal Entries & Balance Changes is the customer's Accounts Receivable sub-ledger: only posted, non-voided entries on the receivable account, with Entry, Date, Description, Debit, Credit and running Balance. VAT, revenue or COGS legs never appear here.
Statements:
- PDF / Print on the profile (or PDF Statement in the list row menu) — the statement for the chosen date range.
- Excel — the same ledger as a spreadsheet.
- Reports → Receivables → Customer Statement — the statement report for any customer, with opening balance, charges, credits, payments, refunds and closing balance; see Customer statements and sales reports.
Bulk import customers
- On All Customers, click Bulk Upload (
/customers/bulk-upload). - Either type rows into the grid (Add Row), or click Template (Excel) / CSV to download a template and Upload File.
- Columns: Name, Contact (phone, email), Tax / Export (TRN, Export flag), Contact Person, Address, Bank, CliQ, Custom Fields.
- Each row is checked as you go. The summary shows Total, Valid and Invalid. Errors include "Name is required.", "Email is invalid.", "Duplicate phone within file (row N).", "Duplicate email within file (row N)."
- The import button shows the exact count of valid rows — Import 1 customer / Import 12 customers. "Invalid rows are skipped on import."
- Click it. You return to the list with "Imported 12 customer(s). Skipped 2 row(s)." Rows whose phone or email already belongs to a customer are skipped.
When customer creation needs approval, the import submits one proposal per row; bank/CliQ details and custom fields cannot be imported through approval and must be added after approval.
Customer groups
On plans with group pricing, Settings → Customer Groups lets you create groups (Name, Code, Status, Description, Notes) and choose a Pricing method: No automatic group pricing, Use a price list, Use pricing rules, or Use both. Add customers to the group from the group page or with the bulk action on the list. See Pricing & price lists.
Worked example
Al Noor Trading LLC adds Modern Furniture LLC — Customer Type Local, TRN 100234567800003, Company Name Modern Furniture L.L.C., Customer Group Wholesale. An invoice for AED 10,000 + 5% VAT is posted:
| Account | Debit (AED) | Credit (AED) |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts receivable — Modern Furniture LLC | 10,500.00 | |
| Sales revenue | 10,000.00 | |
| Output VAT | 500.00 |
The profile shows Total invoiced 10,500.00 and Document balance 10,500.00. After Record a payment of AED 6,000.00, Total Paid is 6,000.00, the Document balance is 4,500.00, and the ledger shows both lines with the running balance.
Rules and permissions
- customers.view to see the list and profiles; customers.manage to create, edit, archive, restore, bulk import and quick-create. The Sales role has both; the Purchasing role has neither. Buttons on the profile (for example Record a payment or Relationship Map) are shown only when your role may use the page they open.
- Customer names are unique within the organization (case-insensitive).
- A customer with documents can't be deleted — archive instead. Archived customers disappear from selectors on new documents but stay in reports.
- Records belong to one organization; switching organization switches the list.
A second example: credit, refund and what each screen shows
Gulf Star Trading owes you AED 5,250.00 on INV-1120 (AED 5,000.00 + VAT 250.00), unpaid. You issue and post a credit note CN-00051 of AED 1,050.00 (AED 1,000.00 + VAT 50.00) for a price correction. Instead of applying it to the invoice, you pay the whole credit back to the customer by bank transfer with a refund receipt (AED 1,050.00).
| Screen | Before | After credit | After refund |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profile Total invoiced | 5,250.00 | 5,250.00 | 5,250.00 |
| Total Credits | 0.00 | 1,050.00 | 1,050.00 |
| Total Refunded | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1,050.00 |
| Document balance | 5,250.00 | 4,200.00 | 5,250.00 |
| Invoice INV-1120 Balance Due | 5,250.00 | 5,250.00 | 5,250.00 |
The refund puts the customer back to owing the full invoice because the credit has been paid out instead of used. Had you applied the credit to INV-1120 instead, Balance Due would fall to 4,200.00 and there would be nothing to refund.
Common problems
- Customer missing from the invoice selector — archived. Restore it.
- Import button says "Import 0 customers" — all rows are invalid; fix the highlighted cells.
- Duplicates skipped on import — the phone or email already exists.
- Statement total looks wrong — only posted entries in the selected date range appear; drafts, void and cancelled documents, and cash-sale payments do not.
- Profile balance does not match the statement or the aging report — the profile includes drafts; see Customer credit and balances.