How to add and manage customers
A customer record is the starting point for everything commercial in Sync. Projects are created against a customer, quotes and orders are raised to them, and invoices carry their payment terms. This guide covers adding one, and what each tab on the record is for once it exists.
- Who uses it
- Commercial, finance and anyone setting up a new job.
- Where it lives
- Customers, in the main sidebar.
- What it feeds
- Projects, customer quotes and orders, and every invoice you raise.
- What you own
- Company details, payment terms, contacts and the customer status.
Before you start
Adding a customer takes a couple of minutes if you have the details in front of you. Check that:
- You have permission to create and edit customers.
- You have the company details to hand: registration number, VAT number and year established.
- You know the payment terms that have been agreed.
- You have a name, email and phone number for your main contact there.
Open Customers
Select Customers in the sidebar. The list shows every customer you hold, with their status, abbreviation, annual spend, revenue to date, payment terms and the date the record was created. Each row has an Edit link on the right.
Start a new customer
Choose Create customer, top right. The form is laid out in three panels, and all three have to be completed before it will save.
Who they are on paper: type, name, abbreviation, business type, registration and VAT numbers, year established, UTR and payment terms.
The registered or trading address. Address 1, town, county and postcode are required; Address 2 is optional.
Email, telephone and full name for your main contact, plus optional mobile and website. This becomes the first entry in the Contacts tab.
Choose the customer type
The first field is Customer type: either Company or Individual. Company is selected by default.
Fill in the company details
The rest of the first panel is the customer on paper.
The full registered name. Required, and what appears on invoices.
The short code used in project references, for example NBC. Required, so keep it short and recognisable.
A searchable list: limited liability partnership (LLP), limited partnership (LP), partnership, private company limited (LTD), public limited company (PLC), sole trader and so on. Required.
Companies House number. Required.
Picked from a calendar, not typed. Required.
Four digits. Required.
Required.
The only optional field in this panel.
Type of business is a searchable list rather than a plain dropdown: start typing and it filters, which is quicker than scrolling for "Private company limited (LTD)".
Set the payment terms
Payment Terms is also a searchable list, with the usual options: cash in advance, immediate payment, 14 days (Net 14), and 30, 60 or 90 days end of month. It is required.
Set it from what was agreed commercially rather than from habit, because this is what follows the customer onto every job and every invoice. If the term you need is not in the list, it is managed centrally under Config Settings and adding it there makes it available everywhere.
Add the address
The middle panel is the address: Address 1, Town/City, County and Postcode are all required, and Address 2 is there if you need it. Use the address you want appearing on invoices.
Add the first contact
The third panel asks for an Email address, Telephone Number and Contact full name, with mobile and website optional.
Save the customer
Choose Save Customer, top right. Sync confirms that the customer has been created and opens the new record on its Summary tab, with the status set to Active.
If nothing happens when you save, a required field further up is empty. Approved date is the usual culprit, because it has to be chosen from the calendar rather than typed.
Read the Summary tab
The record opens on Summary: contact details and address at the top, then company details, which repeats the abbreviation, customer type, type of business, registration number, year established, VAT number, payment terms, approved date and the customer status badge.
Seven tabs run across the top of the record.
Contact details, address and company details on one page, with the customer status badge.
Everyone you deal with there. Add, edit and record a job role against each.
A read-only roll-up of invoices, quotes and POs across all their projects.
Every project running for this customer.
Internal notes on the account. Files attached to a comment also show in Documents.
Documents held against the customer rather than a single project.
Who changed what, and when.
Wakefield
West Yorkshire, WF1 2DP
Manage contacts
The Contacts tab lists everyone at that customer, with their name, job role, phone number and email. The contact created with the customer is already there.
Use Add contact for the others, a QS and a site contact as well as the person who signs things off. Each row has an Edit link, so correcting a typo in the original contact takes a few seconds.
Check the Financials tab
Financials pulls together the commercial picture across all of that customer's projects. Invoices appear with their status, project, reference, customer PO reference, date, total and PDF, with the total invoiced underneath. Quotes and POs are listed below with their status, project, reference, date, who raised them, department, quote and PO amounts, and the files.
An overview of the customer's invoices, quotes and POs are displayed here. To edit and view charges please click through to the project.
Projects, comments and documents
Projects lists every job running for this customer, which is the quickest route into a live project when someone rings up about one.
Comments is for internal notes on the account. Documents holds anything that belongs to the customer rather than to a single project, such as a framework agreement or a signed terms sheet. Add them with Add document, and note that a file attached to a comment also appears here.
Edit a customer
Edit customer, top right of the record, reopens the same three-panel form. Everything can be corrected except the customer type.
Changing payment terms here changes them for future work. Anything already invoiced keeps the terms it was raised under.
Make a customer inactive
Use Update status to switch a customer between Active and Inactive. A comment is required, so there is always a reason attached to the change.
Inactive is the right move for a customer you have stopped working with: the history, projects and invoices all stay intact.
Filter and export the list
Back on the Customers list, filter by status, customer name, abbreviation or created date. Export & Download takes the filtered list out of Sync, which is the quickest way to hand finance a list of accounts and their payment terms.
Read the activity log
Every customer record carries an Activity log: who created it, who changed what, and when. Filter by event type (created, updated, deleted, other), by date or by person, and export it if you need the trail for an audit.
This is what answers "who changed the payment terms", which is a more common question than it sounds.
What you can and cannot do
- Create a customer as either a company or an individual.
- Record registration, VAT, UTR and year established against the account.
- Set the payment terms that apply to every job for this customer.
- Keep as many contacts as you need, each with a job role.
- See invoices, quotes and POs across all their projects in one place.
- Make a customer inactive, with a comment explaining why.
- Export the customer list, and export the activity log.
- Change the customer type after the record is created. The form warns you, and it is the one field you cannot correct later.
- Raise a quote or a customer PO from the customer record. Those are created inside a project, and the Financials tab only reflects them.
- Edit figures on the Financials tab. To change anything there, open the project it belongs to.
- Change the status without leaving a comment. The comment is required.
- Recover a deleted customer. Deleting removes all of their data except the name and the entries already written to the activity log.
Common issues
It cannot be changed after creation. Create the customer again with the right type, move any projects across, and make the original inactive rather than deleting it if it already has history.
Nothing has been raised yet. Quotes, customer POs and invoices all start inside a project, so create the project first and the roll-up fills in from there.
The list is managed centrally, under Config Settings. Add the term there and it becomes available to every customer.
A required field is empty further up the form. Every field marked with an asterisk must be filled, including approved date, which has to be picked from the calendar rather than typed.
The contact created with the customer is a normal contact record. Open the Contacts tab and edit it there.
New customer checklist
Before you move on, check that you have:
- Customer type is right, because it cannot be changed later.
- Name and abbreviation match how you want them to read on projects and invoices.
- Registration number, VAT number and year established are filled in.
- Payment terms match what was agreed commercially.
- Address is the one you want on invoices.
- First contact has a working email address and phone number.
- Status is Active.
Summary
To add and manage a customer in Sync:
- 1Open Customers and choose Create customer.
- 2Pick the customer type. This is the one field you cannot change afterwards.
- 3Fill in the company details, the address and the first contact.
- 4Set the payment terms that apply to every job for this customer.
- 5Save, then use the tabs on the record for contacts, financials, projects and documents.
- 6Make a customer inactive rather than deleting them once they have history.
The customer record is small, but everything commercial hangs off it. Get the type, the terms and the contacts right at the start and projects, quotes and invoices all inherit the right detail without anyone re-keying it.