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Manage customer communication details, Additional people, labels, and credit settings

A Customer is the person (or business) the shop serves, and the customer record owns the phone numbers and email addresses the shop texts, emails, and calls. An Additional person is another human on the account - a spouse, driver, or billing contact - and exists only when a second human is genuinely involved. The customer record also holds a Customer Label for grouping and a small set of billing settings: tax exemption, online payments, and payment terms.

Everything on this page starts from the customer detail page: open Customers in the sidebar and select a customer, or find one through Search. Creating customers in the first place is covered in Create and manage personal and business customers. Day-to-day messaging lives in the Customer Communication and Portal section; Customer Credit balances live in Payments, Invoicing, and Accounting.

The customer owns their numbers​

Each phone number or email address is a Customer Contact Point, and that is what messages actually go to. The customer's own numbers and addresses belong directly to the customer record - there is no separate "primary contact" person holding them. A customer can hold several of each: merges and inbound texts from a second number both add points, and a household can keep two numbers on one account.

One point per channel is the primary: the number texted and called and the address emailed whenever a send doesn't explicitly pick another recipient. The primary is the first row of its type in the Customer Info card's Contact section.

An Additional person can also hold several phone numbers and email addresses. Those points belong to that person and are only used when a send explicitly targets them.

Manage phone numbers and email addresses​

The Contact section of the Customer Info card is display-only and lists the customer's phone numbers and email addresses. The first of each type is the Primary value used by default sends.

All editing goes through the Edit button. In the Edit customer dialog, select Add phone or Add email to add another value. Use the star to make a value Primary or the trash button to remove it. There is no separate "Other contact details" area and no phone labels to maintain.

The dialog's Text messages section has one pair of switches for the customer: Service texts and Marketing texts. They apply to every phone the customer owns. A newly added phone inherits the current settings, and a STOP from any of those phones suppresses texting to all of them. See Resolve message-delivery and consent problems.

A customer can't hold the same number or address twice. Adding a duplicate is rejected, even on an Additional person. If two customer records share a number, that's a duplicate-customer problem; see Find and resolve duplicate customers or vehicles.

Editing numbers and addresses needs Communications permissions; Additional people themselves need Customers permissions. See Assign Shop Roles, shop access, and User Permissions.

Add an Additional person​

Most customers have no Additional people at all: the customer is the person. Add one when a second human is genuinely involved - a spouse who approves work, a driver who drops off, a fleet manager, someone in accounting.

  1. On the Additional people card, select Add person.
  2. Enter the name (required) and a relationship - free text, with suggestions like Spouse, Driver, or Billing.
  3. Add any phone numbers and email addresses the shop should use. Mark the default value Primary when there is more than one.
  4. Save person.

The Additional people card on the Details tab is always visible; it shows an empty state until the account has another person, then lists each person's name, relationship, primary phone, and primary email.

Edit or delete an Additional person​

From the row menu on the Additional people card:

  • Edit changes the name, relationship, phone numbers, and email addresses. Once the person has a phone, the dialog also shows that person's shared Text messages switches.
  • Call rings the person's primary phone through the shop's phone line. It is disabled when the person has no phone or the shop line isn't set up.
  • Delete removes the person and their contact points. This cannot be undone, and any conversation identity tied to those numbers goes with it, so deleting the only person with a working phone number is the kind of thing you want to be sure about.

The preferred channel - SMS, Call, or Email - is a customer setting, edited in the Edit customer dialog. It preselects the channel when you send an estimate or invoice but doesn't block staff from using another channel. Additional people carry no channel preference of their own.

SMS consent is tracked per person, per shop, in two lanes: Service texts (repair updates, approvals, coordination) and Marketing texts (promotional). Service texting is implied by the customer relationship; marketing needs its own explicit opt-in, recorded from the checkbox on the new-customer form or the Text messages switches in that person's editor. The settings cover all phones owned by that person without affecting another person on the account. STOP from any owned phone blocks every phone for that person; the exact number remains in consent history. See Resolve message-delivery and consent problems.

Customer Labels​

A Customer Label is a short free-form tag for grouping customers: fleet, wholesale, VIP, internal, warranty. Enter it in the field named Tags on the new-customer form or the Edit customer dialog. Despite the plural name, a customer holds exactly one label of up to 64 characters.

The label shows as a badge on the customer list and the Customer Info card, matches in global Search alongside names, and works as a text condition in Automations. Because it's free text with no managed list, spelling matters: "Fleet" and "fleet acct" are different labels, so agree on the words your shop uses.

Labels are not the customer type. Type is only Personal or Business; a fleet account is a business customer with a fleet label.

Tax exemption​

Tax-exempt customers are set up in the Edit customer dialog: check Tax exempt / non-taxable, then pick a reason (Resale, Non Profit 501c3, Government, Fleet Card, or Other) and enter the certificate ID. Estimates and repair orders inherit the exemption from the customer by default; the per-document override lives in the taxes popover on the estimate tab. See Labor rates, part markup, fees, discounts, and taxes.

Online payments, on-account, and payment terms​

Allow this customer to pay online is in the Edit customer dialog, on by default. Portal payments are currently unavailable, so the preference has no effect and the shop-level setting remains locked off. See Payment methods and customer-document settings.

The customer record also carries two receivable settings that exist in the data model but have no screen yet:

  • On account marks a customer who may carry a balance. It lets a Counter Sale be finalized on account instead of paid, shows an "On account" badge on repair order documents, and is an Automation condition. There is no checkbox for it anywhere in the app; every customer is created with it off, and turning it on currently requires the API.
  • Payment due days is a per-customer invoice term. When set, a finalized Invoice's due date and terms label ("Net 30" instead of "Due on receipt") use it rather than the shop default. Same situation: real field, no editing screen.

There is no credit limit, no statement schedule, no late fees, and no way to let one customer's drivers charge to another customer's account.

A Customer Credit (an actual positive balance from an overpayment, gift card, or goodwill) is not a setting here at all. Credits are issued and applied through the payment workflow; see Handle chargebacks, Customer Credits, and overpayments in the Payments, Invoicing, and Accounting section.