Your First Customer

A customer is who pays you. A property is where the work happens. One customer can have several properties, which is how an HOA or a property manager works, and every estimate, job and invoice you create points at one of each. Get these two right and the portal, statements and reminders all follow on their own.

If you have a spreadsheet of customers already, import them instead of typing.

Adding a customer

Customers → New customer

Click Customers in the sidebar, then New customer at the top right.

Pick the customer type

Individual is a homeowner with one property. Property Manager is a company or HOA looking after several. The choice changes which fields show, and property managers need a Company Name.

Contact information

First Name and Last Name. Email and phone are both marked optional, but add the email: it’s what sending an estimate, a payment link or a portal invitation needs. A customer without one can only receive printed documents.

Preferred Language decides whether this customer’s documents and reminder emails go out in English or Spanish. Additional Emails are copied on everything sent to them.

Billing address

Where invoices and letters go. For a homeowner it’s usually the property too, and the property form can copy it.

Create Customer

Adding the property

The customer page has a Properties section. New property opens a form for the address; tick Same as billing address when it’s the same place. Give it a Property Name if the customer has more than one (“Main Residence”, “Office Building”), and put gate codes, dogs and access notes in the notes field. Crews see those notes on the job.

Properties also have their own page: Properties in the sidebar, under Customers. That’s the map view, and where properties are imported in bulk.

Leads

Not every contact is a customer yet. Leads (under Customers in the sidebar) is a board with five columns: New lead, Prospect, Quoted, Customer, Lost. New lead opens the same customer form with the stage already set. Drag the card as the conversation moves. The lead pipeline is on Growth and up (leadPipeline).

Tips

One customer, many properties. Don’t make a second customer for a second address; add a property. Billing, history and the portal stay in one place.
Phone first for crews, email first for billing. Both fields exist because both jobs exist.
Tags are for how you work, not for data you already have a field for: “Gate code”, “Weekly”, “Snow contract”.

Troubleshooting

I can’t send the estimate: it says no email. Open the customer, add an Email, save. The send drawer also lets you type one on the spot and saves it to the customer.

The customer’s documents are in the wrong language. Edit the customer and change Preferred Language. Documents already sent don’t change.

Customers for tags, custom fields and the detail page
Your first estimate
Import your data