The customer record
“Customers” in BusinessCloud shows every customer of your company with their record: notes on conversations, follow-ups, the documents from Invoice, projects, expenses, linked files, folders and events, and the history. It is the same customer list as in Invoice — a customer you add or change here appears there in exactly the same way; issued documents keep their address.
If a customer with the same name already exists, the record doesn’t quietly create a second one, and it never merges anything. It shows you the matches: “Open this customer” takes the existing one, “Create anyway” deliberately adds another.
A new customer also appears in the address book — in a company, in the owner’s. When you change the name, address or contact details in the record, the contact follows. Not the other way round: changes you make in the address book are not taken into the record automatically.
Under “Notes” you record conversations: write in “New note” and click “Save note”. Each note shows who wrote it and when, and “History” shows what has happened to the record.
- Open “Customers” in BusinessCloud and click “Add customer”.
- Enter the name under “Name of the customer or company” — it is the only required field.
- Click “Add customer”.
Follow-ups: picking it up again on the day
A follow-up reminds you to get back to a customer on a particular day — to chase up a quote, for example. It appears as an all-day event in the assignee’s calendar and disappears from there once it is done. If several people work in the company, you choose under “Assignee” who takes care of it.
At the top of the page, “Due for you” counts your follow-ups that are due today or earlier. In the record, each one shows whether it is overdue, due today, open or done, and whether its event is in the calendar. “Done” ticks it off, “Reopen” brings it back. You change the date, title and note in the record and the calendar event follows; changes you make to the event in the calendar are not taken into the follow-up.
- Open the customer record and click “Create follow-up”.
- Describe the matter under “What’s it about?”, for example “Chase up the Christmas party quote”, and pick the day under “Due date”.
- Click “Create follow-up”.
Project records
A project keeps together everything that belongs to a job — the catering for a wedding, for example. The project record has a customer, a status (“Planned”, “In progress”, “Paused” or “Completed”), a start and a target date, and the people in your company who work on it.
You link a Deck board with the tasks, files, folders, events, the customer’s documents from Invoice and expenses — always as a reference, never as a copy. The original stays where it is, and “Remove link” only removes the reference. If an original has been deleted or is no longer shared with you, the link says “No longer exists” or “Not available to you”. Documents are linked with “Link document”; for that the project needs a customer.
When a project is over, “Archive” takes it off the list — nothing is deleted. “Show archive” shows the archived projects, and “Restore” brings one back. Only administration can use “Delete project”: it deletes the record with its links and history, but no file, event, board or document; expenses only lose their assignment to the project.
- Open “Projects” in BusinessCloud and click “Create project”.
- Enter a name under “Project name”, choose the customer and the status, and click “Create project”.
- In the project record, use “Connect Deck board”, “Link file”, “Link folder” or “Link event” to connect what belongs to it.
Expenses with their receipts
Under “Expenses” you record supplier invoices and receipts together with their file: supplier or description, receipt date, receipt number, amount, currency and a category you name freely — with a customer and project if you like. This isn’t accounting: no input tax, no bank reconciliation.
You upload the receipt (“Upload a file”: PDF, common image formats or XML, up to 20 MB) or take it from BusinessCloud with “Choose from your files”. An uploaded receipt lands in your company’s shared folder under “Receipts” and the year — without a company, in your own files. A receipt from your files stays where it is; the expense only points to it.
You type the amount the way it is written where you are; the expense knows how many decimal places each currency has — none for the yen, three for the Kuwaiti dinar. Totals are kept per currency and never added up across different currencies.
“Unlink” only separates the receipt from the expense, and “Delete expense” only deletes the expense — in both cases the receipt file stays in the cloud.
- Open “Expenses” in BusinessCloud and click “Add expense”.
- Enter the supplier, the receipt date and the amount, and choose the currency.
- Under “Receipt”, choose “Upload a file” or “Choose from your files”.
- Click “Add expense”.
Several people, the same records
Everyone in your company works on the same customers, projects and expenses. Every person may add and change customers, write notes, create follow-ups and projects, add links, archive projects and add expenses. Only administration can edit or delete other people’s notes and expenses, delete other people’s follow-ups, delete projects and use “Download everything”; buttons you aren’t allowed to use don’t appear at all.
If two people save the same record shortly after each other, nobody silently overwrites the other. Whoever saves second reads “Someone has changed this in the meantime. Reload and check the change.”, sees the fields that differ and chooses “Use the saved version” — or “Keep my entries” and saves again.
“Download everything” downloads notes, follow-ups, expenses, projects, links and the history as spreadsheets in a ZIP archive. The receipt files stay in the cloud; you take customers and documents with you through Download everything in Invoice.