A Customer in Manager is an entity (person, business, or other organization) with whom you have or plan to have an Accounts receivable relationship. Customers in Manager are actually subaccounts of Accounts receivable. You must first create a Customer before you can:

• Issue a sales invoice
• Generate delivery notes
• Sell on credit for future payment
• Create a customer statement showing balances due or summarizing past transactions
• Issue a credit note for return of goods
• Generate a sales quote for future business
• Receive a deposit or advance against future work or delivery of goods
• Record billable time or expenses for later invoicing
• Track your complete sales and receipts history with the entity

Not everyone to whom you sell must necessarily be defined as a Customer. You can make a cash sale involving immediate payment without creating a Customer simply by entering the Contact type as Other when receiving money into a bank or cash account. But such transactions will not be recorded in a history for that contact, even if the contact is already defined as a Customer.

Enable the Customers tab

To enable the Customers tab, click Customize below the navigation pane, check the box for Customers, and click Update below the list:

Create a Customer

Select the Customers tab, then click the New Customer button:

Complete the entry. This information will appear on sales invoices and similar documents:

• Name is the legal or billing name of the customer
• Code is a short alphabetic or numeric designation of your customer. If used, the code will appear after the customer’s name on transactions.
• Credit limit is informational. If used, the Customers tab listing will show available credit.
• Currency in which the customer operates can be selected if a foreign currency has been defined for the business. Transactions for the customer will be denominated in the designated currency.
• Billing address should be the mailing address of the customer.
• Delivery address is optional. This field appears only when the Delivery Notes tab is enabled and will be used on delivery notes.
• Email is where documents will be emailed to the customer from within the program.
• Division allows you to assign a customer to a specific division of the business. An unassigned customer will belong to the entire business. The field appears only if divisions are created in the Settings tab.
• Control account allows you to assign the customer to any custom control account made up of customers. Accounts receivable is the default. This field appears only if at least one custom control account for customers is defined.
• Starting balance Available credit can be set only if a start date has been set in the Settings tab. See another Guide for details about starting balances.
• The Default due date checkbox brings up a Net days field when checked. The number of days indicated will be automatically added to the issue date of any sales invoice created for this customer.

Your Customer will now appear in the Customers tab. Customers are listed in alphabetical order according to their names. Use scrolling, paging, and search functions to find them. The listing shows the number of sales invoices issued to a Customer, value of any uninvoiced items (billable time and expenses), and the Customer’s Accounts receivable balance. Other columns may appear, depending on which tabs are enabled and the setup of any custom fields. Click on blue numbers for more details of any column.