How to Create a Customer (Customers)

Creating a customer adds a new account to your CRM so you can attach job sites, jobs, estimates, contacts, notes, and invoices to it. This is the starting point for almost everything else in the product — you’ll create a customer before scheduling work or billing anyone. To find existing customers instead, see List Customers.

Before you start

An operator account with access to the Customers menu.
Nothing else needs to exist first — a customer is the top-level record. (Job sites, jobs, and estimates are added after the customer is created, from the customer’s summary page.)
Optional: if you want to categorize the customer on creation (e.g. Residential vs. Commercial), have your Classifications set up first. The Classification dropdown always offers a “Select…” placeholder, followed by whatever classifications exist; if none are set up, you’ll see only the “Select…” option.

Steps

Go to Customers and click Add Customer. (From the list page header you’ll land on the “Add Customer” form, with the breadcrumb Home / Customers / Add Customer.)
Fill in the customer details. Only Name is required — everything else is optional and can be added or edited later from the customer summary.
- Name is the only field with a red asterisk and the only one the form will block on if left blank.
- Email must be a valid email format if you enter one (it’s a standard email field).
- Phone must be a valid phone number if you enter one, and is limited to 20 characters.
- Zip accepts a 5-digit ZIP (12345) or ZIP+4 (12345-6789); other formats are rejected by the field.
- Active Customer is a toggle that is on by default — leave it on for normal new customers.
- Tax Exempt is a toggle that is off by default — turn it on only for tax-exempt accounts.
Click Create Customer to save. (Use Cancel or the Back button to return to the customer list without saving.)

Field reference

Field	Required	Notes
Name	Yes	The customer or business name. The only required field; the form won’t submit without it.
Email	No	Validated as an email address if provided. Used for the customer portal and communications.
Phone	No	Validated as a phone number if provided, and limited to 20 characters.
Address	No	Street address (line 1).
Address 2	No	Apartment, suite, unit, etc. (line 2).
City	No	City.
State	No	State.
Zip	No	Must be 5 digits or ZIP+4 (`12345` or `12345-6789`) if entered.
Classification	No	Optional category from your Classifications list (e.g. Residential, Commercial). Defaults to “Select…” (none).
Active Customer	No	Toggle, on by default. Marks the customer as active.
Tax Exempt	No	Toggle, off by default. Flags the account as exempt from tax.

What happens next

After you click Create Customer, the system saves the record and takes you straight to that customer’s Customer Summary (profile) page, with a green “Success! Customer created successfully!” confirmation banner. From there you can add job sites, contacts, notes, and create jobs or estimates for the customer. If the save fails, you stay on the form with an error message and your entered values preserved so you can retry.

Tips & best practices

Add the email even though it’s optional — it’s what the customer uses to log in to the Customer Portal and what communications are sent to.
Add a job site next. A customer needs at least one job site before you can convert an estimate to a job for them — so adding the job site right after creating the customer saves a round trip. See Add Job Site.
Use Classifications consistently (e.g. Residential / Commercial). They make filtering and reporting on your customer base far more useful down the line.
Leave Active Customer on for normal accounts; switch it off (later, from the summary) for accounts you’ve stopped servicing but want to keep on file.

Troubleshooting

“Name is required” / the form won’t submit — Name is the only required field. Make sure it’s filled in.
Email won’t accept your entry — the Email field requires a valid email format (e.g. name@example.com). Leave it blank if you don’t have one.
Phone won’t accept your entry — the Phone field requires a valid phone number and is capped at 20 characters. Leave it blank if you don’t have one.
Zip is rejected — the Zip field only accepts 5 digits (12345) or ZIP+4 (12345-6789). Remove any other characters.
Classification dropdown only shows “Select…” — you have no classifications set up yet. That’s fine; classification is optional. You can leave it unset and add one later.
“Failed to create customer” / “An error occurred while creating the customer” — the save didn’t complete. Your values are kept on the form; check your entries and try again, and contact support if it persists.

List Customers — find, search, and open existing customers
Customer Summary (Profile Page) — the page you land on after creating a customer; hub for everything attached to it
Update Customer — edit a customer’s details after creation
Add Job Site — add a service location (required before converting an estimate to a job)
Add Contact — add a named contact person to the customer
Manage Contacts — edit or delete an existing contact
Add Note — record an internal note on the customer
Manage Notes — edit or delete an existing note
Manage Job Sites — edit or delete a service location
Convert Estimate to Job (Quick Create Job) — turn an accepted estimate into a job for this customer
Mail Merge (Customers) — generate documents for selected customers