Create and manage contacts
Add a customer (a person), find them again, and keep the list tidy: views, filters, columns, owners, tags and bulk actions.
Where it is
- CRM → Contacts — The contact list, + New Contact, import, merge and export.
- CRM → Contacts → Import CSV — Bring in a spreadsheet of customers.
Settings for this
- Settings → Custom fields — Add your own fields to every contact (e.g. Fleet number).
- Marketing → Audiences → Lifecycle stages — The Stage list (Lead, Customer…) used on contacts. Marketing add-on.
- Settings → Business details → Vehicle Catalogue — Which makes and models the vehicle pickers offer.
- Integrations → Inbox, SMS & phone — Auto-create a contact when an unknown person texts, chats or DMs you.
- Settings → Roles — View / Edit contacts & companies, Delete CRM records.
A contact is one person. Their quotes, jobs, invoices, vehicles, messages and portal login all hang off their record. A business account (trade, fleet, dealer) is a company, and the people who order for it are contacts linked to it. See Companies.
Create a contact
- Open CRM → Contacts and press + New Contact.
- Fill in:
- First Name and Last Name: both required.
- Email and Phone: optional, but you need an email to send documents and invite them to the portal, and a mobile to text them.
- State (required) and Postcode: the postcode is checked against your country's format.
- Where did you hear about us?: the lead source (Website, Referral, Google Ads, Social Media, Walk-in, Trade Show, Partner, Cold Outreach, Other).
- Press Create Contact. The new record opens, owned by you.
- Finish the rest on the contact's page. Under Details press Edit for: Account (company), Company Name and ABN (the business name that goes on their documents and to Xero), street address, Lifecycle Stage, Lead Source, Tags and Notes. Each field saves as you leave it; press Done when finished. Custom Fields, Ownership, Marketing (consent) and Customer Portal sit below it. Everything on that page is in Everything on a contact's page.
From a quote. Type the name in the quote's Customer box and pick + Add new customer. Fill in name, phone, email and lead source, then Save Customer. If a company is already on the quote, Add to (company) links them to it.
Contacts made for you. New Inbox conversations can create a contact (see Inbox settings), form submissions create or update one (Forms), and Shopify and dealer orders bring their customer in.
Duplicates
- The quick-create box on a quote shows Already a customer? when someone already has the same email, phone or full name. Press Use to pick the existing record instead.
- + New Contact on the list doesn't check, so search first.
- Already have two? Merge them: Merge duplicate contacts.
Consent
New contacts start opted out of marketing email, SMS and push. You can still send them their quotes, invoices, booking confirmations and job-ready texts, because those are transactional. To add them to marketing, record their consent in the Marketing section of their page, or with Bulk opt-in on the list. Full rules: SMS and email consent.
Find contacts
- Search looks through name, email, phone and tags.
- Scope chips: All contacts, My contacts, Unassigned (franchise networks also get My franchise or HQ contacts). The Stage chips filter by lifecycle stage.
- The Owner filter (and Organisation in a franchise network) narrow it further. The N total badge clears every filter; N unassigned shows the ones with no owner.
- + Save current filters keeps the filter as a named view. Views are saved in this browser and the URL can be shared.
- Edit columns picks the table columns: email, phone, company, stage, owner, lead source, tags, score, email and SMS opt-in, vehicles, open deals, open jobs, last service, state, postcode and more. Money columns (Outstanding, Total spent) need View invoices.
- Export CSV downloads the contacts you can see.
Bulk actions
Tick rows (or the header box for everything visible) and a dark bar appears: Bulk opt-in, Bulk opt-out, Add to list, Set stage, Suppress, Assign owner, Tag, Delete and Clear. Bulk opt-in asks for the channel and the legal basis for the consent. Bulk delete skips contacts that still have documents attached and tells you how many it left.
Who can do it
- View contacts & companies to see the list; Edit contacts & companies to change records.
- Delete CRM records to delete or merge. Without it, Merge duplicates and Delete contact don't show.
- Set these in Settings → Roles.
If something's not right
- Create Contact is greyed out: first name, last name and State are all needed, and the postcode must be valid.
- A franchise user can't see a contact: in Ownership, set the Contact owner or Owning org to them.
- Can't find the Stage you want: stages come from Marketing → Audiences → Lifecycle stages.
- Import, Merge, Export and Edit columns are missing on a phone: they only show on a wider screen.