Creating and Editing a Customer
When nobody matches, you can create a customer at the counter, and you can correct an existing customer's details from their customer view. This page covers creating a customer, editing one, and what the till can and cannot change.
Creating a customer
If nobody matches your search, the screen offers to create a customer. A name is all that is strictly required, though you will usually add a phone number too.
When you create a customer, the app only captures the details. Nothing is verified, no code is sent, and nobody waits for a confirmation. Customer type and group sit behind a More details option, so the common path stays a name and a number. If you leave those alone, your store's defaults apply.
Two things to know:
- Only some of your store's customer groups are offered at the till. The screen says so, and the full list is in the back office.
- If the name you chose already existed, the record is saved under a slightly adjusted name, and the app says so rather than letting you find out later.
The app stops you creating a duplicate
If the phone number you type already belongs to a customer, the app attaches that person instead of creating a second record, and it tells you it did. This matters more than it sounds, because duplicate customers are how one person's history quietly splits in two, so that nobody who looks them up afterwards sees the whole picture. If it is genuinely not the same person, you can say so and check the number instead.
Editing a customer's details
You correct a customer from their customer view. You can change five details from the till. Anything beyond those, you change in the back office.
This is a real correction. It is written to the same customer record the whole business uses, not a note that stays on this phone.
Two tills cannot overwrite each other
If someone else changed that customer while your edit screen was open, your save is refused, and the screen re-reads the record and fills in the latest values. You do not lose what you were doing, and you never silently flatten someone else's correction.
A shared phone number warns, it does not block
If the number you entered already belongs to a different customer, you get a warning, and the other customer's number is shown partly hidden, so the store never becomes a place to read someone else's contact details off a screen. Then it is your call: save anyway, or go back and check the number. It warns rather than blocks because two people on one number is common, such as a couple, a family, or a small business.
Small behaviors worth knowing
- Saving with nothing changed does not contact the server at all. The screen says so and closes.
- A complaint about a phone number or an email address appears on that field, whether the app noticed it or the back office did.
- Losing permission to edit customers does not break anything else. You can still look customers up and attach them, and the edit option is replaced by a short explanation.
Credit limits and other back-office details
Some things about a customer are set in the back office, not at the till:
- Credit limits are set on a ladder: the customer, then their customer group, then the company. What the till shows about credit is covered in The Customer View. Setting and waiving a limit is done in the back office.
- Addresses and delivery details belong to Orders and Fulfillment.
When the network drops
Creating a customer still works with no connection, as a capture. The details ride along with the sale, and the record is created properly once you are back online, and the form tells you this before you submit. Editing a customer is refused with no connection, because there is no queued edit. See Working Offline.