Managing clients
Find, create and edit clients, give them logins, view the client area as a customer, reset their two-factor sign-in and mark internal accounts.
A client is the customer record that owns services, invoices, quotes, payments and tickets. Each client can have one or more logins for the client portal. This article covers the staff side, under Clients in the admin menu.
Where clients come from#
Clients appear in three ways:
- A visitor signs up. This is allowed while Settings → General → Allow self-registration is on. Turn it off if you want to create every account yourself.
- A visitor orders from the store and creates an account on the way.
- You add one by hand with New client, or through the REST API.
The client list#
Clients lists everyone with their email, country, number of live services (active or suspended), status and the date they joined. The tabs are All, Active, Inactive, Internal and Closed, each with a count. Click a heading to sort. Use the search box to find a client by name, company or email.
Add a client#
- Select New client.
- Fill in Contact (name, billing email, optional company and phone) and Address.
- Under Billing, choose the Currency, an optional Tax / VAT ID and the Status. The billing email is where invoices and receipts go.
- Tick Create a client-area login if the client should be able to sign in. Give an Initial password of at least 8 characters. Tick Send welcome email if you want them told; leave it off to skip the email.
- Select Create client.
Without a login, the client exists for billing but cannot sign in. You can add a login later from the Contacts tab.
The client's currency decides which prices they see. Customers can change their own currency only until their first invoice is issued.
The client page#
Open a client to see a summary of status, lifetime paid (net of refunds), open balance and live services. The tabs hold the rest:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Overview | Contact details, address and extra panels from plugins. Administrators also see the delete button here. |
| Services, Invoices, Quotes, Payments | Everything for this client, with links to each item. You can add a service, invoice or quote from here. |
| Payment methods | Cards and mandates the client saved. You can remove one; the customer then has to add it again. |
| Contacts | Every login, with last sign-in, active state and two-factor state. Add a login and reset two-factor from here. |
| Notes | Internal notes, visible to staff only. Edit them with Edit. |
Logins#
Open Contacts and use Add a login to give another person access to the same client. Enter a name, an email address and a password of at least 8 characters. The email must not already belong to another login. The new person sees the same services, invoices and tickets as everyone else on that client.
Customers change their own name, email and password from Account details in the portal. See Using the client portal.
View as client#
To see exactly what a customer sees, open the client, select More actions, then View as client. This is available when the client has at least one active login. You are signed in to the client portal as that login, and a Stop viewing as client button appears in the top bar. Select it to go back to the admin.
While you are viewing as a client:
- You act with that customer's access. Anything you do, such as paying, ordering or cancelling, is done as them, so be deliberate.
- You never need their two-factor code.
- You cannot change their security settings. Setting up, confirming, turning off or changing recovery codes and trusted devices all refuse with "Security settings cannot be changed while viewing as a client."
- Starting and stopping are written to the activity log.
Only active customer logins can be viewed this way. Staff logins cannot.
Reset a client's two-factor sign-in#
If a customer loses their phone and recovery codes, open Contacts. A login with two-factor on shows On, an optional Revoke API tokens box and a Reset button. Reset removes the second factor and any remembered devices; the customer can then sign in with the password and set it up again.
Tick Revoke API tokens if the account might be compromised. A reset only removes the second factor. It does not sign out other sessions, and it keeps API tokens unless you tick the box. Resets go in the activity log. More in Two-factor sign-in.
Internal accounts#
On the Edit page, Internal account is for your own team, test customers and anyone on the house. Their services cost nothing and they are left out of revenue and report figures. They show an Internal badge in the list and have their own tab. See Internal accounts.
Status#
Each client has a Status of Active, Inactive or Closed. The list and its tabs filter by it.
Delete a client#
Only administrators can delete a client. The button is in the Danger zone on the Overview tab. It is refused while the client has active, suspended or pending services, or open invoices. Close those first. Deleting removes the client and its history from the admin lists, and it cannot be undone from the screen.