Managing Customers

The Customers page is your contact book for everyone you sell to. Add customer details, assign price lists, track order history, and keep everything organized.

[Screenshot: Customers page showing a table of customers with name, email, phone, and order count]

How to Get There

Go to Sell > Customers in the sidebar.

Channels vs. Customers

Before adding customers, it helps to understand the difference between Channels and Customers:

• Channels are sales outlets that aren't traditional customers — like a farmers market stall, your retail storefront, or a pop-up shop. Use channels to track sales through these outlets without treating them as full customer accounts.
• Customers are the businesses or individuals you sell to directly. They can have contact info, billing details, and custom pricing.

Both channels and customers appear in the Customers list, but channels have a streamlined view since they don't need all the details a regular customer does.

When to Use Channels

Use a channel when you want to record sales from:

• Farmers markets or craft fairs
• Your retail storefront
• Point-of-sale (POS) systems that aren't integrated
• Pop-up shops or temporary locations
• Any sales outlet where you're capturing aggregate sales rather than individual customer orders

Creating a Channel

1. Click + New Customer.
2. Enter a name for the channel (like "Ballard Farmers Market" or "Retail Storefront").
3. Click Create.

To record sales through a channel:

1. Open the channel from your Customers list.
2. Create a new order.
3. Add the items you sold (for example, at the end of a market day, enter all the products you sold).
4. Mark the order as fulfilled.

Each order represents a batch of sales through that channel — like a Sunday at the farmers market or a week of storefront sales.

Note: If you use Shopify POS, those sales import automatically and you don't need to manually create channel orders.

Parent Customers and Sub-customers

If you sell to customers with multiple locations or divisions, you can organize them using parent customers and sub-customers. This lets you:

• Track orders for each location separately
• See all orders across all locations rolled up to the parent
• Maintain location-specific details while keeping the relationship visible

Example: Multi-Location Customers

Let's say you sell to Whole Foods, which has 30 locations. You can:

1. Create a parent customer called "Whole Foods"
2. Create sub-customers for each location like "Whole Foods Interbay", "Whole Foods Capitol Hill", etc.
3. Link each sub-customer to the parent

When you view the parent customer (Whole Foods), you'll see orders from all sub-customers. When you view a sub-customer (Whole Foods Interbay), you'll see only that location's orders.

Setting Up Parent and Sub-customer Relationships

Step 1: Create the Parent Customer

1. Click + New Customer.
2. Enter the parent name (e.g., "Whole Foods").
3. Fill in any shared details.
4. Click Create.

Step 2: Create Sub-customers

1. Click + New Customer again.
2. Enter the sub-customer name (e.g., "Whole Foods Interbay").
3. Fill in location-specific details like address and contact.
4. Go to the Relationship tab.
5. Under Parent Customer, select the parent you just created.
6. (Optional) Under Channel, you can also associate this sub-customer with a channel for additional grouping (useful for regional sales reps or distribution territories).
7. Click Create.

The sub-customer now appears in the list with the parent name shown underneath.

Viewing Orders Across Parent and Sub-customers

• On the parent customer page: You'll see all orders from the parent and all its sub-customers combined.
• On a sub-customer page: You'll see only that sub-customer's orders, with the parent customer name displayed in the details panel.

This makes it easy to track performance by location while still seeing the big picture for the entire account.

Adding a Customer

One at a Time

1. Click + New Customer.
2. Fill in the details:
   • Customer Name (required)
   • Email — For sending invoices
   • Phone — Contact number
   • Address — Shipping or billing address
   • Any custom fields you've set up
3. Click Create.

Check Create more to keep adding customers without closing the form.

In Bulk

1. Click the bulk add icon (table icon) in the toolbar.
2. A spreadsheet-style form opens where you can paste or type multiple customers at once.

Editing Customer Details

Click on any field in the customer table to edit it directly. Changes save automatically. You can update names, contact info, addresses, and custom fields anytime.

Price Lists

You can assign a price list to a customer, which gives them custom pricing on your catalog items. This is useful for wholesale customers, VIP accounts, or different pricing tiers.

Set the price list in the customer's detail view under the Catalog dropdown. See Price Lists: Setup and Custom Pricing for the full setup workflow.

QuickBooks Sync

If you've connected QuickBooks, you can sync your customers:

• Select customers and use the Sync to QuickBooks button
• Keep customer records consistent between both systems
• See Connecting QuickBooks for setup

Making a Customer Inactive

If a customer is no longer active:

1. Select the customer(s) using checkboxes.
2. Use the bulk action to deactivate them.

Inactive customers are hidden from dropdowns but their order history is preserved. You can reactivate them later.

Custom Fields

If you've set up custom fields (in Configure > Custom Fields), they'll appear as additional columns in the customer table. This lets you track business-specific info like account numbers, regions, or credit terms.

Good to Know

• Customer emails are used for sending invoices — make sure they're correct.
• Each customer can have a different price list for custom pricing.
• The customer table shows order counts so you can see your most active accounts at a glance.
• Channels have a simplified detail panel since they don't require full customer information like contact details or billing terms.
• When viewing a parent customer, all orders from sub-customers appear in the order list, making it easy to see total sales across all locations.
• Sub-customers can be linked to both a parent customer and a channel — useful for organizing by region, sales rep, or distribution territory.

Related

• Price Lists — Set up customer-specific pricing
• Creating Sales Orders — Sell to your customers
• Selling Overview — How the Sell section works
• Custom Fields — Add custom data to customers