#4 Setting Up Your Client the Right Way

#4 Setting Up Your Client the Right Way

Creating invoices without properly setting up the customer can quickly lead to several inconsistencies, such as duplicate records, missing billing details, and poor customer management.


This becomes even more important for businesses that use a connected ecosystem in which different tools that handle sales, finance, and marketing are set up to communicate with each other. If the customer records are created separately in each of these applications, duplication can easily occur, causing a complete mess and increasing the risk of wrong decision-making.

"It really keeps me on top of my clients, and I love it. Thank you for making it free for all the small businesses who are trying to make it out there", says Storm Loots, Owner of What The Fit 4

Zoho Invoice lets you set up customers before invoicing in much simpler ways. Once added, Zoho Invoice can automatically pull customer information into invoices, making transaction creation faster, cleaner and more organized.

You can add customers in multiple ways:

Go to Customers -> +New Customer

Make sure to fill in:
  1. Customer/Business name 
  2. Contact person details
  3. Email address
  4. Billing & shipping address
  5. Tax information (if applicable)
  6. Payment terms

Similar to Items, you can move customers from another invoicing tool or spreadsheet.

Go to Customers -> More -> Import Customers

This is useful if you already maintain customer data elsewhere. The sample import file helps you include the necessary columns while importing data.

This is important because instead of entering customer details manually every time, Zoho Invoice can automatically:
  1. Fetch customer details on invoices.
  2. Track payment history easily.
  3. Send an invoice faster.
  4. Reduce manual errors.
  5. Keep customer records organized.

Go to Settings -> Integrations -> CRM Integration/Bigin

If you use Zoho CRM or Bigin, syncing customers is often the better long-term approach.

With the option to sync customers, businesses can

   ➤ Maintain a single source for customer data.
   ➤ Avoid duplicate customer creation across apps.
   ➤ Keep contact and billing information consistent.
   ➤ Stay aligned with their sales and finance teams.
   ➤ Reduce manual updates between systems.
   ➤ Make customer onboarding and invoicing much faster.

Good customer data makes invoicing smoother as your business grows. 
Notes

Important Action: 

Similar to organization address format, take a moment to configure your Customer's Billing & Shipping Address Format properly.

Go to Settings -> Customers -> Billing /Shipping Address Format

Insert placeholders to fill in the necessary address lines, tax information and your customer's contact details on the transactions.

Info

Things to Remember

A customer profile is more than just a name and email. It stores payment terms, billing and shipping addresses, so you never have to enter them again. Spending five minutes per client now can save you from embarrassing errors later.

Idea

Pro Tip: Add both approvers and payers as contact persons under a single customer profile. It prevents the 'I never received it' excuse.

Warning

Watch out: If a customer already has transactions, updating the address at the customer level will not automatically update the address in existing transactions. To update the address in a transaction, you must edit the transaction and use the Edit option below the customer name.

Alert

Important Links:

Customers: https://www.zoho.com/invoice/help/contacts/
Customer Preferences: https://www.zoho.com/invoice/help/contacts/contact-preferences.html
Adding Fields to Customers: https://www.zoho.com/invoice/help/contacts/contact-preferences.html#custom-fields
Import Customers: https://www.zoho.com/invoice/help/contacts/#importing-contacts
CRM Integration: https://www.zoho.com/invoice/help/integrations/crm-integration.html
Bigin Integration: https://www.zoho.com/invoice/help/integrations/bigin.html


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