Customers and contacts

A customer in Flux is the account the vehicles and invoices hang off. It is either a Personal account (one person) or a Business account (a company with one or more contacts). Fleets, dealers, and shops you do work for are Business accounts with a contact for each person who brings cars in.

Finding a customer #

On New Work Order, the Customer card has four search boxes: First name, Last name, Business Name, and Phone Number. Fill in whichever you know and click Search.

• First and last name match exactly. To match the start of a name, add an asterisk: Jon* finds Jonathan and Jones.
• Business Name matches anywhere in the name.
• Phone Number matches on digits, so the last four are often enough.
• Boxes you fill in are combined, so a last name plus a phone narrows the list.

Each contact is its own row, with the business name, the person's name, and their phone and email. Click the select button on the row to put that customer and contact on the ticket. The customer's vehicles, Account Notes, and Deferred Work load underneath.

Customer List (left menu) has the same search without the asterisk wildcard, and its phone search needs the whole number. Click a name to open the customer page.

Adding a customer #

New customers are added from New Work Order. Search first so you do not create a duplicate, then click Add New in the Customer card. The form opens pre-filled with the name and phone you searched for.

• User Type: Personal or Business. Business shows a Business Name box.
• Tax Exempt and Tax Exempt Number: see Tax rates.
• First Name, Last Name, Phone Type and Phone 1, and Email are required. If the customer will not give an email, tick Decline Email Contact Info instead.
• Address reveals the address fields. An address is required before the ticket can be invoiced, so collect it now.
• Additional Contacts reveals Phone 2 and Phone 3, extra numbers for the same person.
• Internal Customer marks accounts such as your own shop vehicles; their invoices are left out of sales figures on the Company Dashboard.
• Primary Contact marks the main person on a business account.

Click Save. The new customer appears in the results; click its select button to put it on the ticket.

The customer page #

Open Customer List and click a name to see everything about the account:

• Customer Details with an Edit link for the account-level fields: type, tax status, business name, and address.
• Account Notes, notes that follow the customer to every visit (see below).
• Deferred Work the customer has turned down or has coming due; see Deferred work.
• Contacts: every person on the account, with Add Contact and Edit. Only one contact can be Primary; contacts cannot be deleted.
• Vehicle: the customer's vehicles with History, Edit, and Add Vehicle. See Vehicles.

Account notes #

Account Notes are for things you want to see every time the customer comes in: "approve anything under $200 by phone", "fleet account, PO required", "prefers text". They show on the work order screens whenever the customer is selected and never print.

Click Edit on the Account Notes card, type, and Save.

Do not confuse them with Customer Notes on the ticket, which are about this visit and do print.

Email preferences #

A contact with Decline Email Contact Info ticked receives no service reminder emails. The unsubscribe link in reminder emails ticks it automatically. Edit the contact to change it.