Customer

For: People creating and maintaining the customers you sell to

Purpose: Understand what the Customer master does and how it stores the details used across quotations, sales orders, and invoices

What This Module Does

A customer is a business or person you sell to. The customer record holds everything the rest of the system needs — name, contact details, GST information, currency, address, payment terms, and more. Customers are shared with ABSS Books, so the same record is used when you raise a quotation, sales order, or invoice. Getting this master right means less re-typing and fewer mistakes downstream.

The Customer master lets you:

• Create customers with contact, GST, currency, and address details.
• Import many customers at once (bulk upload).
• Attach a company logo and supporting documents.
• Search, filter, and list your customers.
• Activate or deactivate a customer.
• Export the customer list to Excel.

Main Features (What You Can Do)

1. Create a Customer

When you create a customer you typically enter:

• Company name and display name: both required. The display name is how the customer appears throughout the system.
• Business partner type: Business or Individual.
• Primary contact: first name is required; last name is optional.
• GST treatment and tax preference (Taxable or Tax Exempt): required for correct tax handling.
• Currency: required. If you don't choose one, your company's default currency is used.
• Email, phone (digits only), address, and an optional code.
• Category: whether the customer deals in goods, services, or both.
• Reference: how you got the customer — Walk-in, Reference, or Campaign — with an optional campaign link.
• Company logo and documents: optional files stored securely.
• Payment terms and price list: used to pre-fill pricing and due dates on sales documents.

What the system does when you save

• It generates a unique customer number automatically (e.g. Cust-001).
• It checks the display name is unique for your company (case is ignored) — a duplicate name is not allowed.
• It records who added the customer and marks the record as a customer (not a vendor).

2. Import Customers in Bulk

You can upload many customers at once. Each row uses the same key fields as a single customer (company name, display name, primary contact, business partner type, category, and a valid currency code).

During a bulk import the system:

• Accepts only rows marked as a customer role.
• Checks for customers that already exist and stops with a message listing them.
• Checks each currency code is valid for your company.
• Generates a unique customer number for each new customer.

3. View and Search Customers

You can list and search your customers, and filter to see only active ones. Each row shows the key details — display name, contact, GST number, currency, branch, and payment terms. The list is paginated.

4. Edit a Customer

You can update a customer's details, logo, and documents at any time. If you change the currency, the system checks it is valid for your company. The system records who updated the customer and when.

5. Activate or Deactivate a Customer

You can mark a customer active or inactive. You cannot deactivate a customer who is used in active documents — the system checks for open quotations, sales orders, delivery challans, invoices, recurring invoices, recurring expenses, and credit notes. If any exist, deactivation is blocked so live transactions are not left pointing at an inactive customer.

6. Delete a Customer

You can delete a customer record from the master. As a safer alternative when a customer has history, use deactivate (above) so past documents keep their reference intact.

7. Export Customers to Excel

You can export the current list of customers (after applying your filters) to an Excel file. To keep exports fast, a single export is limited to 1,000 customers — if your result is larger, apply more filters to narrow it down.

Summary of Rules (Quick Reference)