QuickBooks Online® Basics: Customer Center-Part 1 (Series 2, Lesson 2)

The Customer Center

Now that we've dialed in our Sales Settings (last week’s article), let’s look at managing our Customer list. Last week as we began this new series, we looked at Customers.

Select Sales (or Income, depending on your QBO version) from the left sidebar, then on the Customers tab at the top (or you can also choose it from the fly-out menu).

The Customers screen opens.

The bar at the top of the screen is called a Money Bar. Click on the colored boxes to filter the Customer List to see those with open Estimates, Unbilled Activity, Overdue Invoices, Open Invoices, and Sales in the last 30 days.

This Money Bar is one of the reasons it’s important to make Invoices and Sales Receipts for customer sales transactions, and not just pull in income through the Banking Feed. Revenue entered in QBO by Deposits instead of Forms will not show when filtered with the Money Bar!

To see all the transactions again, click the blue Clear Filter / View All link.

To Search for Customers, use the box above the grid. You can search by name, company name, and phone number.

You can also choose which fields show in the customer grid. Click on the Baby Gear at the top right of the grid (as opposed to the big main Gear with QBO’s tools) to select the fields you would like to see.

This is also where you go to view Customers you previously deleted. The other two buttons allow you to Print the Customer List and Export it to PDF or Excel.

Adding Customers

We will look at two ways of adding customers, the first is via the Customer Center, the second is 'on the fly'.

In the Customer Center...

Select New Customer.

The Customer Information box opens. Fill in the Customer information.

If your business performs services for several departments within a company, make each one a Sub-Customer of the larger organization. You can either bill each one independently, or send a cumulative bill to the larger organization (Bill with Parent).

While that option is great for subcontractors who work on multiple Jobs under one Contractor, you may also consider using the Projects Center instead. Once you turn on Projects in Account and Settings, you’ll have a one-stop shop to track job costing and project profitability. QuickBooks Desktop doesn’t have anything like it!

Use the Tax Info tab to set defaults if the Customer will be charged Sales Tax.

Select the Payment and billing tab. The Payment Settings window opens.

Enter the Payment Information. Store credit card or ACH info for future use, allowing you or your employees to run automatic payments using the QB Payments Merchant Services account.

If your Customer speaks a language other than English, there’s a new Language tab (not shown) that translates the Forms into Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, and Portuguese.

If you’ve turned on Price Rules, look for an Additional Info tab to set the default Customer Type for pricing calculations.

On the Fly...

If a new Customer needs to be added while already creating a new transaction, QBO offers the opportunity to add a new one on the fly.

To include their contact information, click on the Details button to open up the New Customer window. Otherwise, just click Save.

QuickBooks Online then goes back to the business transaction.

PEBCAK! Be sure to click Save in the pop-up window!

Using the Notepad

The Notes tab allows a business to store information about their Customers.

Click on Notes.

The Notes area is an excellent place to track phone calls and other correspondence. The box shows on the Customer’s main screen. Consider entering the date in the note to help determine if it is still relevant or if it is outdated.

Select Save to close the window.

When complete, the Notes also appear on the Customer Card (as shown on the right side of the illustration above).

Lesson Wrap-up

Using the Customer Center properly gives you the ability to track your history with each Customer through time.

For more exciting & helpful advice on the subject, check out my video training, ‘QuickBooks Online Fundamentals’.

If you prefer live training then I have a 6-hour webinar on February 11 demonstrating all the techniques in this QBO Basics series. This course is only offered every few months, so take advantage of this opportunity to register for this interactive webinar in which I encourage my participants to ask questions.

Make sure to also check out my Mentorship Membership Subscription for Bookkeepers and Accountants and my on-demand QBO tutorial library. 

In next weeks article we will continue our look at the QuickBooks Online Customer Center with some giving pointers on working with generic customer names for high-volume companies, in addition to merging and deleting customers.