How to Create a Customer (Customers)

Last updated October 29, 2026 · Admins and office staff

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 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.

Steps

  1. Go to Customers and click Add Customer. You land on the “Add Customer” form, with the breadcrumb Home / Customers / Add Customer.
  2. Fill in the customer details. Last Name or Company Name and Classification are required (both have a red asterisk). Everything else is optional and can be added later from the customer summary.
  3. For the address, start typing the street into Address. After three characters, a list of up to five matching US addresses drops down. Pick one (click, tap, or use the arrow keys and Enter) and Address, City, State and Zip fill in for you. You can still edit any of them, and you can ignore the list and type the whole address by hand.
  4. Choose a Classification: Residential, Commercial, Government or Other. Commercial and Government hide First Name, because a business or agency puts its whole name in Last Name or Company Name.
  5. Leave Active Customer on for a normal new customer. Turn Tax Exempt on only for tax-exempt accounts.
  6. Click Create Customer to save. (Cancel or Back returns to the customer list without saving.)

Field reference

Field Required Notes
First Name No The customer’s given name, for people. Used for greetings such as “Hi Jim”. Hidden when the classification is Commercial or Government. Up to 100 characters.
Last Name or Company Name Yes The customer’s family name, or the whole business name for a company. Spaces before or after are removed when you save. Up to 225 characters.
Email No Must be a valid email address if entered. Used for the Customer Portal and for emails like invoices and estimates.
Phone No Must be a valid phone number if entered, up to 20 characters.
Address No Street address (line 1). Typing here shows address suggestions.
Address 2 No Apartment, suite, unit, etc.
City No City.
State No State. A picked suggestion fills the two-letter abbreviation.
Zip No 5 digits or ZIP+4 (12345 or 12345-6789) if entered.
Classification Yes Residential, Commercial, Government or Other.
Active Customer No Toggle, on by default.
Tax Exempt No Toggle, off by default.

What happens next

After you click Create Customer, you go straight to that customer’s Customer Summary page with a green “Customer created successfully!” banner. From there, Add work sets up the first job (and the property, if you have not added one), or you can add job sites, contacts and notes. See Customer Summary.

If something is wrong, you stay on the form with your entries kept and a red message under the field that needs fixing.

Tips & best practices

  • Add the email even though it is optional. The customer uses it to log in to the Customer Portal, and invoices and estimates are emailed to it.
  • Fill in First Name for people. Work-completed emails, review requests, invoice emails, renewal proposals and the Customer Portal welcome greet the customer by first name, and mail merge letters can use the «CustomerFirstName» field. Everywhere the name is listed (the customer list, invoices, search) it still shows the full name, for example “Jim Kraft”, or just the business name.
  • Use the address suggestions. Picking a suggested address avoids typos and wrong zips that later stop the route map from finding the property.
  • Go to Add work next. It creates the job and the property in one pass. See Add Job Site if you would rather set the property up yourself.
  • Use Classifications consistently. They make filtering and reporting on your customer base more useful.

Troubleshooting

  • “Last name or company name is required.” Fill in Last Name or Company Name.
  • “Please select a classification.” Pick Residential, Commercial, Government or Other from Classification.
  • “Please enter a valid email address.” / “Please enter a valid phone number.” Fix the format, or clear the field if you do not have it.
  • “Phone number cannot exceed 20 characters.” / “… cannot exceed 225 characters.” Shorten the value.
  • Zip is rejected. Use 5 digits (12345) or ZIP+4 (12345-6789).
  • No address suggestions appear. Type at least three characters of the street. If the lookup is unavailable, the form still works; type the address in full.
  • “Failed to create customer. Please try again.” The save did not complete. Your values are kept; try again, and contact support if it persists.

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