Managing Customers

Customers are the core of SurelyCrm. This guide covers creating records, managing profiles, handling documents, tracking payments, and using custom fields to tailor the system to your business.

The Customer List

The customer list is your operational command centre. From here you can:

• Search across names, emails, phone numbers, and reference numbers
• Apply Custom Views to filter by status, owner, balance, dates, and more
• Switch between list and calendar views (if configured)
• Initiate calls, emails, or SMS directly from the list
• Bulk-select customers for mass actions

If a search returns exactly one match, SurelyCrm automatically navigates to that customer's profile to save you a click.

Creating a Customer

1. Click New Customer from the customer list.
2. Enter the customer's details. Required fields are marked with an asterisk.
3. Reference Number is auto-generated, but you can override it.
4. Select a Status to categorise the customer (e.g., New Lead, Active, Closed).
5. Assign an Owner so the team knows who is responsible.
6. Save the record. You will be taken to the customer's full profile.

Customer Profile Overview

Each customer has a comprehensive profile page organised into tabs:

Tab	Contents
Overview	Contact details, quick stats, referral source, and key information
Profile	Editable contact and address details, custom fields, status, client type, and owner
Plans	Active and expired service plans and outstanding balances. Subscriptions appear here when the PayPal Subscription feature is enabled
Transactions	Individual payment records with dates and amounts, including allocation to an invoice
Documents	Uploaded files with types, dates, and download links, including issued invoices and credit notes
Disputes	Any disputes raised and their resolution status
Support	Support tickets and conversations
Workflows	Active and completed workflow instances for this customer
Appointments	Booked appointments, with edit and delete actions (shown when Appointments are enabled)
Invoices	The customer's invoices with open and PDF download actions (shown when Invoicing is enabled)
Portal Access	Invite the customer to the portal and manage their access
Forms	Forms assigned to the customer and their completed submissions
Action Logs	History of emails and SMS sent to the customer
Audit Trail	Complete history of who changed what and when

The Appointments and Invoices tabs only appear when their feature toggles are enabled. The customer header also includes shortcuts to book an appointment and create an invoice.

Statuses

Statuses help you track where a customer sits in your pipeline. Administrators configure them in Settings > Statuses. That page separates Customer and Lead statuses into tabs; use the Customer tab for customer records. Lead statuses do not appear in customer forms or reports.

• New Lead
• Contacted
• Proposal Sent
• Active
• Payment Due
• Closed Won / Closed Lost

Statuses can trigger Workflows automatically when changed, enabling powerful automation. Customer status behaviour is unchanged by the separate Lead status list.

Custom Fields

Custom fields let you extend customer records with data unique to your business. Administrators create them in Settings > Custom Fields and set Applies To to Customer.

Supported field types include:

• Text — Single-line free text
• Number — Numeric values (integers or decimals)
• Date — Calendar dates
• DateTime — Date and time values
• Checkbox — Yes/No toggles
• Dropdown — Dropdown options
• TextArea — Multi-line free text

Customer fields retain their existing profile, workflow, and template behaviour. The Show in Customer Portal setting is available only for Customer fields. Supplier custom fields are staff-only and do not add search, saved views, filtering, reports, exports, APIs, CLI commands, workflows, templates, or bulk actions.

Documents

You can attach files to any customer record:

1. Open the customer's profile and go to the Documents tab.
2. Click Upload Document.
3. Select a Document Type (configured in Settings).
4. Choose the file and upload.

Documents are securely stored and encrypted. Administrators can configure document types such as Contract, ID Verification, Invoice, or Correspondence.

Disputes

Disputes record a complaint or disagreement against a customer and track its resolution. Open the Disputes tab on the customer profile, or use the Open a Dispute action in the customer header.

Each dispute has:

• Subject and Description — both required.
• Resolution — optional notes describing how it was resolved.
• Status — Open, Escalated, or Closed.

The Disputes tab lists the created date, who created it, subject, and status, with an edit action. Once a dispute is closed it is read-only and cannot be edited further.

Payments & Balances

SurelyCrm tracks customer financials through:

• Customer Plans — Subscription or service plans with billing cycles
• Balances — Outstanding amounts owed by the customer
• Payments — Recorded payments with dates, amounts, and methods

To record a payment, open the customer profile, go to the Transactions tab, and click Add Transaction. The customer's balance updates automatically.

When the Invoices feature is enabled, the transaction form includes an Allocate to invoice field. Choose an open invoice to record a full or partial payment against it; settling the invoice in full marks it Paid. See Invoicing for the full workflow.

Lead conversion uses the tenant's saved Lead Conversion Configuration. It links every Opportunity to the new Customer, and each ClosedWon Opportunity can create its own plan — named after the Opportunity, priced at its value, and billed at its Revenue Frequency (recurring unless the frequency is OneTime). A positive one-time plan also creates the initial balance. This behaviour is always active; the historical OpportunityToPlanConversion toggle is not a runtime gate. See Lead Conversion Configuration and Opportunities.

Tags

Tags provide a lightweight way to categorise customers beyond statuses. You can apply multiple tags to a single customer and filter by them in custom views.

Audit Trail

Every change to a customer record is logged automatically. The Audit tab shows:

• What field was changed
• The old and new values
• Who made the change
• When it happened

This gives you full accountability and makes it easy to investigate discrepancies.

Deleting Customers

Administrators can delete customer records. This action is permanent and will also remove associated documents, payments, and plans. For data protection compliance, ensure you have a legitimate reason for deletion.

Phone Number Search

SurelyCrm intelligently matches UK phone numbers regardless of format. It automatically handles:

• +447123456789
• 447123456789
• 07123456789
• 7123456789

This is especially useful for the telephony integration — when a call comes in, SurelyCrm finds the customer even if the number is stored in a different format.