One customer, whole story

A freshly created vault is silent — the customer knows nothing until you send their signup link from here. And you never have to: a staff-managed customer can stay portal-less for good, with access switched on here whenever they’re ready.

Bulk-upload their parts before they ever log in. Publish them so they’re visible from the first login.

Preview this customer’s catalogue exactly as it appears to them — worth a look before sending the invite.

Terms set on an invite take effect when the customer activates; staff-managed customers get their account immediately. Limits and balances are managed under Credit.

Staff can raise orders for this customer at any time — even before they’ve activated their account.

Manage members and roles. The owner seat is protected — it transfers to the customer when they accept the invite.

The Contacts card lists everyone at the customer in one place — the people who sign in to the portal and the ones who never will. Add a contact for the site foreman who phones orders in or the accounts clerk who pays the invoices: name, role, email, phone and a note (“best reached before 7am; approves all purchase orders”). Tick one as the primary contact.

Removing a contact takes them off the customer. The notes and activity logged against them are kept.

Below the contacts sits the customer’s timeline. Log a note, a call, an email, a site visit or a follow-up. The same timeline appears on each of their requests, quotes and orders, so a call about a quote is logged from the quote and still shows on the customer. Entries the system writes itself — a quote sent, accepted, declined or voided, an order or request changing status, a reminder or statement emailed — sit in the same list, and a switch hides them when you only want what people wrote.

A follow-up carries a due date and an owner. It stays open until someone marks it done, and it can be reopened.

• Filter the timeline by kind with the chips at the top.
• An overdue follow-up says how many days it has slipped.
• Nothing on the timeline is visible to the customer.

When automatic reminders are switched on in Settings, every customer gets them unless you exclude them here. The Reminders on / Reminders off pill at the top of the page covers all of them for this customer — the quote-expiry nudge, overdue-invoice reminders and monthly statements. Use it for the customer who has asked not to be chased, or whose account is under discussion.

Nothing is sent to anyone until the switches under Settings → Automatic reminders are turned on. They ship off.

The customer’s own Documents page produces a statement for any period; the same control is here, so an accounts query is answered from their page — invoices, payments and credit notes in date order with a running balance, plus what is outstanding today, aged.