Customer Management
Manage customer relationships, credit limits, statements, and portal access.
The customer record is the hub of the AR sub-ledger. It stores contact details, financial defaults, and a complete history of every transaction. The customer page gives you the full AR position — outstanding, overdue, unapplied cash and credit headroom — without opening a single report.
Creating a Customer
Navigate to: Sales → Customers → New Customer
Full Fields Reference
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Customer Name | Required. Full legal or trading name of the customer. |
| Display Name | Optional. A shorter name used in lists and documents if different from the full name. |
| Customer Type | Business or Individual. |
| Customer Category | Customer segment or classification for filtering and reporting. |
| Business Units / Locations | Assign the customer to one or more centers for center-based filtering. Shown when the business has centers. |
| Custom Label | What you call this kind of party — Client, Student, Partner. |
| Website | Customer's website URL (optional reference). |
| General Email | Fallback email used for sending invoices when no contact person is set. |
| General Phone | Main contact number. |
| Address | Street Address, City, State / Province, Country. |
| Payment Terms | 30 days (default), Due on receipt, 15, 45, 60 or 90 days. Applied automatically to new invoices. |
| Credit Limit | Maximum outstanding AR balance. Advisory — shown on the customer page as Credit available or Over credit limit by. |
| Tax ID / VAT Number | VAT number, EIN, or local tax registration number. Printed on invoices where required. |
| Contact Information | One or more contact people, each with Title, First, Middle and Last Name, Email and Phone Number; one is Primary. |
| Notes | Internal notes about the customer. Not visible to the customer. |
Customer List
Sales → Customers shows every customer with Category, Location, Email, Phone, and four backend-computed figures: Sales, Collections, Credits, and Balance (or Balance as at a chosen date). Switch between All, Owing and In credit; filter by category, location or any figure range; export the list or the customers' ledgers as an Excel workbook; import customers from CSV or Excel.
Customer Page
The customer page shows the complete picture of the relationship at a glance.
| Element | Details |
|---|---|
| Header | The customer name, and a More menu: Edit details, Provision portal access, New invoice, New receipt, New credit note. |
| Account team | The employees assigned to this customer and their roles. |
| Tabs | Overview · Activities · Ledger · Reconcile · Rewards. |
| Customer details | Email, phone, address, tax ID, payment terms, credit limit, currency, location, last activity, website. |
| Outstanding | Total AR balance as at today or as at the date you pick. |
| Overdue | The overdue part of that balance, with the document count and what is not yet due. |
| Unapplied payments | Cash received and not yet applied to an invoice — being applied automatically. |
| Credit available | Headroom against the credit limit, or Over credit limit by when exceeded. |
| Collections & credits · Sales to date · Tax to date | Lifetime figures. A cash sale counts as both a sale and its own collection. |
| Movement to date | One row per document type with its count and signed total. |
Page Tabs
Activities Tab
Every document for this customer, grouped by stage — Orders, Deliveries, Invoicing, Collections, Returns & credits, Cash sales, Communication — each stage a table with Number, Date, Due, Age, Status, Total and Outstanding. Filter Invoicing by Overdue, Unpaid, Partly paid or Paid; Collections by Unmatched, Partly matched or Matched.
Ledger Tab
The customer sub-ledger — every journal line that touched this customer's AR account, with post date, account, debit and credit, a period picker and search. This is the authoritative view of what happened and in what order.
Statement
Overview → View statement opens a formatted customer statement for any period — opening balance, every charge and payment, running balance, closing balance — with Export CSV, Export Excel and PDF. See Customer Statements.
The credit limit is not checked when an invoice is created. It is read on the customer page: Credit available shows the headroom, Over credit limit by turns red when the balance exceeds the limit, and an alert states the exposure against the limit. Businesses that want a hard stop on large invoices use an approval workflow with a minimum amount — see Invoice Approval Workflow.
Customer Portal
A customer created with an email address already has a portal identity. Provisioning sends them the invitation.
Customer page → More → Provision portal access. Trabalance sends a set-your-password email to the customer's email address. If the customer has no email on record, add one first.
The email carries a single-use link valid for 30 minutes. The customer sets a password and signs in on the normal login page.
A portal user sees their own customer page with the Overview and Activities tabs only — outstanding balance, documents and the messages exchanged on them. No other customer, and no part of your Trabalance account, is visible.
Related
- Creating one: Creating a customer.
- Reading one customer's whole position: Customer detail and aging.
- Statements: Customer statements.
- Credit limits and portal access: Credit limits and portal.