A customer is anyone you sell to. The customer record holds their name, contact details, and tax number, and it is the party you pick on every sales document, from a Quotation through to an Invoice and a Customer Receipt. The bookkeeper or accountant creates customers once, and everyone selects from the list when they raise a sale.

A customer record does more than store contact details. It carries the defaults that prefill each sale (a receivable account, payment method, payment term, sales rep, discount, and price level), a credit limit you can read against their balance, and a sign-in for the customer portal. Setting these once on the customer means every document for that customer starts correct, so you type less and post fewer mistakes.

Find customers under Sales → Customers.

Before you start

A new business starts with no customers. Add them as you take on each one, or import them in bulk.

Several fields on the customer point at other master files. You do not have to set them up first, but you can only pick them once they exist:

Access to customers is set in a permission profile under Administration → Permissions, in the Customers row of List Items Access Control:

PermissionLets the user
ListOpen the Customers list and the Customer Centre.
CreateAdd customers. Import CSV needs both Create and Edit.
EditChange an existing customer, and use Batch Edit.
DeleteRemove a customer.
ApproveTick Approved on a customer.

See Users, seats & permissions for how profiles are assigned.

Where the defaults come from

Two layers of defaults save you picking the same values on every sale:

  • Your own defaults. When you open a new customer, ZyncLedger prefills its Default Payment Method, Default Payment Term, Default Sales Rep, and Default AR Account from your own defaults under Settings → Defaults. These are personal settings for your user, not for the whole business, so two people can start new customers with different values.
  • The customer's defaults. Once saved, the customer's own defaults prefill each document you raise for them. When you pick the customer on a document, their default sales rep, payment term, and receivable account replace your own.

You can change any prefilled value on the customer, and again on an individual document.

Create a customer

  1. Open the Customers list

    Go to Sales → Customers.

  2. Start a new customer

    Select Add Customer. The Create New Customer panel opens from the right.

  3. Enter the code and name

    The Customer Code identifies the customer. If your workspace generates customer codes automatically, this field reads Auto-generated and fills itself on save. If it is set to manual, type a unique code (required). You set this mode under Document numbering.

    Type the customer's Name (required).

  4. Classify the customer (optional)

    Use Customer Type to group the customer, for example as Wholesale or Corporate. Only types that are Active and Approved appear in the list. Leave it blank if you do not classify customers. See Customer Types.

  5. Set the contact details and sign-in

    Enter the customer's contact details. The email and password are also the customer's sign-in to the customer portal (see How a customer signs in below).

    FieldWhat it does
    EmailRequired. The customer's sign-in, so it must be unique across all users in your workspace. You cannot reuse an email that already belongs to a staff user, a sales rep, or another customer.
    Phone NumberOptional. Up to 15 characters.
    PasswordRequired for a new customer, at least 6 characters. ZyncLedger generates a strong password when the panel opens and shows it, so you can copy it for the customer. Select the refresh icon for a new one, type your own, or use the eye icon to hide or show it.

  6. Add addresses (optional)

    Enter a Billing Address and a Shipping Address, each up to 500 characters. Both are optional and print on the customer's documents.

  7. Set the credit limit and parent (optional)

    • Credit Limit is the outstanding balance you are willing to carry for this customer. It is for reference only (see the note below). Leave it blank if you do not set a limit for this customer; the Customer Centre then shows the limit as None set.
    • Parent Customer (Optional) nests this customer under another, for example a branch under its head office. Search for the parent and select it, or leave it blank for a top-level customer. Only active, approved customers are offered. A customer cannot be its own parent, and a customer can be nested at most five levels below a top-level customer.

  8. Set the sales defaults (optional)

    These four fields decide what a new sale for this customer starts with. Each one is optional and can be changed on the document.

    FieldWhat it does
    Default Payment MethodPrefills the payment method on the customer's receipts.
    Default Payment TermPrefills the credit term, which sets the due date on invoices.
    Default Sales RepPrefills the Sales Rep credited with the sale. It also decides which customers a rep sees in the Sales Portal.
    Default Discount %Prefills a line discount, from 0 to 100, on the customer's quotations, sales orders, invoices, and invoice credits. A product's own default discount overrides this on that line.

  9. Set the accounting and tax details

    • Default AR Account is the receivable account this customer's invoices post to. The search lists only receivable accounts from your Chart of Accounts.
    • Tax Number is the customer's tax registration number, printed on their documents. Optional.

  10. Set the pricing and status flags

    Three checkboxes finish the record:

    FieldWhat it does
    Apply Wholesale PriceOff by default. When on, sales lines for this customer default to each product's wholesale price instead of its normal price, where the product has one set.
    ActiveOn by default. An inactive customer stays for history but is not offered when you pick a customer on a document, and cannot sign in.
    ApprovedOff by default. Ticking it needs the Approve permission. Once a customer is saved as approved, the box is locked and cannot be cleared.

    A customer is offered in the Customer field on documents only when it is both Active and Approved.

  11. Save

    Select Create Customer. The customer and their sign-in are created, and once approved the customer appears in the Customer field on sales screens.

You can also add a customer without leaving a document: open the Customer dropdown and select Add Customer. The same panel opens, and the new customer is selected on the document straight away if you saved it as both Active and Approved.

The credit limit is a reference, not a block

ZyncLedger shows the customer's Credit Limit on the Customers list, in the Customer Centre, which warns when the balance is over the limit, and under the Customer field on a Delivery Order. The Customer Balance Summary report can add Credit Limit and Available Credit columns. ZyncLedger does not stop you saving a sale that takes a customer over their limit, so treat it as a prompt to check, not an automatic control.

Approval gates availability

A new customer is created as Pending until someone with the Approve permission approves it. Until then it does not appear when you pick a customer on a document, and the customer cannot sign in. If a customer is not showing up on a document, check that it is both Active and Approved on this screen.

Opening balances

The customer form does not capture what a customer already owes you when you start using ZyncLedger, so a new customer starts with a zero balance. To bring in what they owe, write a journal dated at your start date:

  • Debit the customer's receivable account, with the customer as the line's Name.
  • Credit the Opening Balance account, an equity account ZyncLedger creates for every business.

The journal raises the customer's balance and their receivable in the ledger together. For a customer who owes you nothing, there is nothing to enter.

How a customer signs in

The email and password on the customer are their sign-in. When a customer signs in to your workspace, ZyncLedger opens the customer portal, not the main app. In the portal they see only their own record:

  • Profile: their account details, addresses, credit limit, and sales rep.
  • Invoices: their invoices, with what is left to pay on each and their total outstanding.

A customer must be both Active and Approved to sign in. A signed-in customer does not use one of your plan's user seats.

Find your way around the list

By default the list shows each customer's Customer, Code, Email, Balance, Credit Limit, Status (Active or Inactive, and Approved or Pending), and Created By, with child customers nested under their parent.

  • Search by code, name, or email.
  • Filter by Customer Type, Status (Active or Inactive), and Approval (Approved or Unapproved). You can pick more than one value in each filter.
  • Switch views between card, list, and table with the buttons at the top right. In the table view, the settings button adds Customer Type, Phone, Parent, Payment Method, Payment Term, and Apply Wholesale Price, or hides columns you do not need. ZyncLedger remembers your view and columns on this device.
  • View Customer Balance Detail (the chart icon on a row) opens the Customer Balance Detail report for that customer in a new tab.

Review a customer in the Customer Centre

For a full picture of one customer, go to Sales → Customer Centre and pick the customer from the list on the left. It has four tabs: Overview, Open items, Documents, and Profile & terms. The Documents tab lists the customer's quotations, sales orders, delivery orders, invoices, invoice credits, and customer receipts, each shown only if you have the list permission for that document. The Customer Centre needs the List permission for customers.

Import customers

To bring in many customers at once, select Import CSV on the Customers list and upload a CSV file. Download Sample CSV gives you a file with the expected columns.

Map each column in your file to a field. Customer Name and Email Address are required on every row. You can also map Customer Code, Phone Number, Billing Address, Shipping Address, Credit Limit, Default Discount (%), Apply Wholesale Price, Tax Number, Customer Type, Payment Method, Payment Terms, Sales Representative, AR Account, Parent Customer Code, and Active Status. Check the preview, then choose how to treat a row whose email already belongs to a customer: Skip existing customers or Update existing customers. Select Start Import.

The import runs in the background and shows its progress. You can close the dialog while it runs; the import carries on and the list refreshes.

How the file is matched:

  • Customer Type, Payment Method, and Payment Terms are matched by their exact name. A name that does not match is left blank.
  • A Sales Representative that does not exist yet is created (see Sales Reps), and an AR Account name that does not match creates a receivable account with that name.
  • Parent Customer Code must be the code of a customer that already exists before the import starts.
  • Leave Customer Code empty to have a code generated.

The import file does not carry passwords. Before an imported customer signs in, edit them and set a Password.

Edit several customers at once

Select Batch Edit to open Batch Edit Customers, a full-screen grid of the customers on the page of the list you are viewing. Narrow the list with search and filters first if you only want to work on some of them.

In the grid you can change each customer's name, code, email, phone, customer type, addresses, credit limit, discount, payment method, payment term, sales rep, parent, AR account, tax number, wholesale pricing, and Active flag. Changed rows are marked as modified. Select Save Changes to save them all; the grid stays open so you can carry on. If you close it with unsaved changes, ZyncLedger asks you to confirm.

Edit, deactivate, or delete

Select the edit icon on any row to change a customer's details, defaults, or flags, then select Update Customer. Leave Password blank to keep the customer's current password, or type a new one. The email is the customer's sign-in, so changing it changes how they sign in.

To stop a customer being used without losing their history, clear the Active flag rather than deleting the record.

Heads up

Deleting a customer also deletes their sign-in, and cannot be undone. ZyncLedger blocks deleting a customer in these cases:

  • It has child customers beneath it. Move or remove the children first.
  • It is used on any sales document, including quotations, sales orders, and delivery orders, which post nothing, as well as invoices, invoice credits, customer receipts, refunds, and AR/AP settlements.
  • It is used on a POS invoice.
  • It is the Name on a journal, bank payment, bank receipt, bill, bill credit, issue note, issue return, or production plan.
  • It is used on a budget in the Planning & Budgeting app. This still applies if the app has since been uninstalled, because uninstalling keeps the budgets.
  • It is the COD receivable customer of a POS delivery method, or the Receivable customer of a marketplace store, under Administration → Outlet POS Config.

Because documents and budgets point back to their customer, deleting one would break that history. Deactivate the customer instead. To delete a customer that is only set on a delivery method or store, choose another customer there first.

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