Clients are the people you work for, and companies are the accounts they belong to. Every order, invoice, subscription and support conversation hangs off a company, and every person signs in to the client portal as themselves. This page covers adding and organising clients, the company records behind them, importing and exporting, and viewing the portal as a client.

How clients and companies fit together#

• A client is one person with one email address. That address is what they sign in with.
• A company is the account. Billing, account credit, shared files and shared access belong to the company, not the person.
• A person can belong to more than one company, with a different role in each.
• A person who isn't in any company stays on your list, but can't use the portal. Signing in would show them an empty account.

Adding a client is the invitation. There is no separate invite email to send and no password to set. The client goes to the portal, types their address, and receives a six-digit sign-in code.

Where things live#

Screen	Menu path	Route
Client list	Clients	/clients
Add a client	Clients → Add client	/clients/new
A client's record	Clients → click a row	/clients/[id]
Import from a file	Clients → More → Import from a file	/clients/import
Companies	Clients → More → Companies	/clients/companies
Statuses, signup and custom fields	Settings → Clients	/settings/clients

The client list#

The list shows one row per person with their company, status, order count, spend, portal access, assigned manager and last order. Use the column manager to add optional columns: Type, Health, Lifetime value, Created, Updated, Pipeline stage and Phone.

Above the table you'll find:

• Status tabs, one per client status, so renaming a status in settings renames its tab.
• Search clients and a filter panel.
• Quick figures: People, Not signed in and No manager.
• A select mode for bulk actions. Select rows, then move them all to one status at once.

Each row's menu offers Edit, Sign in as user, New invoice, New ticket and Remove, depending on your permissions.

Add a client#

1. Go to Clients and click Add client.
2. Under Who they are, enter Full name and Email. Optionally add Phone, an Account manager, a Status and a Pipeline stage.
3. If you've defined custom fields, fill them in under More about them.
4. Under Company, choose one of:
   • A new company: type a Company name and an optional Domain. This always creates a new company with this person as its owner, even if another company has the same name.
   • An empty company: pick a company that has nobody in it yet (for example one you created on the Companies screen).
   • No company yet: the person is added to your list without portal access.
5. Set what they can see in that company with the three access switches (see below).
6. Click Add client.

The first person on a company is always its Owner. Colleagues join an existing company when its owner (or an admin) invites them from the portal's Settings → Team. See The client portal.

Client fields#

Field	What it's for
Full name	How they appear everywhere.
Email	What they sign in with. One address is one account. It can't be changed from the portal.
Phone	Optional.
Account manager	The team member responsible for this client, shown on the record and the list.
Status	Internal category, such as Lead or Client. The client never sees it.
Pipeline stage	New, Contacted, Qualified, Proposal, Won or Lost. Only meaningful while they're still a lead.
Affiliate	A referral partner code. Future sales are credited to that partner, per your commission settings. Available on the edit form.
Billing address	Address, city, country, state or region, postal code, company name and tax ID. This is what prints on invoices.
Custom fields	Your own fields from Settings → Clients.

Seeing a client's email and phone needs the See contact details permission. Without it, those fields are hidden rather than shown empty.

Per-company access#

Each person's membership in a company has three switches. They're separate on purpose: a bookkeeper who pays the bills shouldn't automatically read every order and ticket.

Switch	What it gives the person
Collaborate on orders	They're added to every order and subscription on the account.
Collaborate on tickets	They're added to every support conversation on the account.
Access invoices	They see the account's invoices and get its billing notifications.

Without Collaborate on orders, a person sees only the orders they placed themselves. These switches work together with the person's role in the company (owner, admin, member or viewer), which decides what they can do. See The client portal.

Client statuses#

Statuses are internal labels for where a person stands with you. They appear as tabs on the client list and as a pill on each record. The client is never told and never sees them.

You start with six:

Status	Built-in meaning	Can be deleted
Contact	Filled in a form or emailed support. No account yet.	No (system)
Lead	Created an account but has never paid.	No (system)
Client	Has bought at least one paid service.	No (system)
Client Team	A colleague a client added to their own account.	No (system)
VIP	Handled personally, every order goes to a named manager.	Yes
Churned	Was a client, hasn't ordered in a long time.	Yes

New clients start as Contact unless you pick another status.

Customize statuses#

1. Go to Settings → Clients (or Clients → More → Manage statuses).
2. In Statuses, rename any status, change its colour, edit its description, or reorder with the arrows. The order here is the order of the tabs.
3. Click Add status to create your own.
4. Save the list.

System statuses can be renamed but not removed. A status still in use can't be deleted until you move its clients to another status. Renaming a status relabels every client who has it.

Custom fields#

Custom fields add your own information to every client record: their industry, how they heard about you, a contract date.

1. Go to Settings → Clients → Custom fields and click Add a field.

2. Enter a Name and choose a Type:

   Type	Holds
   Text	Free text.
   Number	A number.
   Date	A date.
   Dropdown	One of a list of Choices, entered one per line.
   Checkbox	Yes or no.

3. Optionally switch on Required on the client editor.

4. Optionally switch on Show in the client's portal, where they can fill it in. The field then appears on the client's Settings → Profile page.

5. Click Add field.

Each field is saved immediately. You can have up to 50.

A field's type and its storage key are fixed once it exists. The key (shown under the name) is also the column name the CSV import matches. Removing a field hides it everywhere, but the values already entered are kept and come back if you add a field with the same name.

A client's record#

The record has a section menu on the left:

• Overview: details, notes, tags and custom fields.
• Company: each company they belong to, with its type and health, how to reach it, what this person can see, account credit, the other people in it, shared files and credit history.
• Orders and Tickets.
• Invoices and Subscriptions for their companies.
• Activity: ratings they left, forms they sent back, and the Viewed as log.

The side rail shows Portal access (no access, invited but not yet in, or signed in at least once), plus Email, Phone, Account manager, Created, Last seen, Last order, Lifetime spend and Referred by.

Actions on a record#

Action	What it does
Status pill	Change the status on the spot.
Sign in	View the portal as this client (see below).
Edit client	Open the editor in a dialog.
New invoice	Opens the invoice composer with their company chosen.
New ticket	Opens a support ticket for their company.
Send an onboarding form	Email or copy a link to one of your published forms.
Share file	Jump to the company's Files panel to upload a file every member sees in the portal.
Merge another record into this one	Fold a duplicate into this person.

Send an onboarding form#

1. Build and publish a form under Forms. See Forms.
2. On the client's record, open the actions menu and choose Send an onboarding form.
3. Pick the Form. Private forms are marked "they sign in first".
4. Click Email it to the client, or copy the link and send it yourself.

What the client sends back through their link is filed on their record under Activity → Forms. If email can't be sent, the form is delivered as a support conversation in their portal instead.

Account credit#

Account credit belongs to a company, not a person. Everyone in the company spends the same balance. Balances are kept per currency and never converted.

On the client's Company section, each balance shows with:

• Adjust: choose Add credit or Remove credit, enter an amount and a Note. The client reads the note.
• Pay out: send credit back as money, either Back to the original card or PayPal payment, or Sent another way (a bank transfer you made yourself, recorded with its reference).

The Credit history panel lists every movement. Credit is created by overpayments, refunds to credit and cancellations, and is spent first on the next invoice or checkout. See Invoices and credit.

Action	Permission
See balances	See invoices
Adjust	Adjust account credit
Pay out	Adjust account credit and Refund a payment

Merge duplicate clients#

1. Open the record you want to keep.
2. Choose Merge another record into this one.
3. Pick The duplicate.
4. Click Merge and delete the duplicate.

The duplicate's companies, orders, tickets, ratings, notes, tags and answers move to the record you kept, and the duplicate is deleted. The kept record keeps its own name and email.

If only the duplicate has ever signed in, their account moves over and they keep signing in as before. If both have signed in, the merge is refused unless the duplicate's account has no password, no Google link and no active session.

Companies#

The Companies screen lists every company with its logo and domain, type and health, people, order count, lifetime value and creation date. Contact icons let you open WhatsApp, Telegram, email or a booking page in one click.

Company fields#

Field	Options
Company name	Required.
Domain	A label only. It never decides who belongs to the company.
Type	Direct, Agency or Reseller.
Health	Healthy, Watch or At risk.
Contact channels	Support email, WhatsApp, Telegram and Book a meeting (any https booking link).
Logo	PNG, JPEG or WebP up to 2 MB. Shown on the client lists and in their portal.

Type, health and contact channels are yours. Clients can change their company's name, website and logo from the portal, but not its type or health.

Company actions#

• Edit: change the fields above.
• Manage people: open the client list filtered to this company.
• Merge another company into this: its people, orders, invoices, payments, subscriptions, credit, tickets, projects and files move here, and the duplicate is deleted. The kept company keeps its name, type and health.
• Delete: its people stay as clients but lose access to it. A company with orders, invoices, payments or tickets on record can't be deleted.
• Add a company: create an empty company, then add its first person from Add client → An empty company.

Import clients from a CSV file#

1. Go to Clients → More → Import from a file.
2. Upload a CSV with a header row, or paste its contents.
3. Under Which column is which, check the mapping. ClientOS guesses from the headers. Email and Full name are required; Company, Company domain, Phone, Status, Pipeline stage and your custom fields are optional.
4. Review What will be created. Rows without a name or a valid email are skipped before anything is sent.
5. Click Import.

The result shows Created, Already yours (matched an existing client, nothing changed) and Needs attention (listed by line).

How rows are handled:

• Each imported person can sign in at the portal straight away, the same as adding them by hand.
• A Company value always creates a new company. Rows naming the same company share it, and the first row becomes its owner.
• Status is matched against your existing statuses by name. An import never creates a status.
• Pipeline stage takes new, contacted, qualified, proposal, won or lost.
• Anyone you already have is skipped, so re-importing an old export is safe.

Export clients to CSV#

On the client list, open More → Export all as CSV (or Export these as CSV when a filter is on). The file has the same columns the import reads, so it reads back in: name, email, phone, company, status, stage, manager, orders, spend with currency, created, signed in, and one column per custom field.

Email and phone are only included if you hold See contact details, and spend only with See prices.

View the portal as a client ("Sign in as")#

When a client says "an invoice is missing from my billing page", you can see exactly what they see.

1. Open the client's record and click Sign in (or choose Sign in as user from the row menu on the list).
2. Under Why?, type a short reason. It's required and recorded in the activity log with your name.
3. Click Open their portal.

The rules:

Rule	Detail
Read-only	You can look at everything, but any change is refused. You can't place orders, pay, reply or edit.
Time-limited	The view ends by itself after 30 minutes.
Visible	A bar across the top of every portal page says whose portal you're viewing, who started it and when it ends. Click End to stop.
Never more than the client	You see only what that client can see, scoped by their own role and access switches.
One at a time	Starting a second view ends the first.
Audited	Start and end are written to Settings → Logs, and every view is listed on the client's Activity → Viewed as panel with who, why, when and for how long.

The Viewed as panel is visible to anyone who can see the client, so an account manager can check who has been in a client's portal without holding the permission to go in.

Permissions#

Permission	Allows
See clients	The client list and records.
See contact details	Email and phone.
Add a client	Adding clients, which also invites them to the portal, and CSV import.
Edit a client	Details, status, access switches, sending onboarding forms, sharing files.
Delete or merge a client	Removing and merging.
Export clients	The CSV export.
View the portal as a client	"Sign in as".
See companies / Change companies	The Companies screen, and editing, merging and deleting companies.
Client settings	Settings → Clients.

See Team and permissions for building roles.

Tips#

• Use No company yet for contacts you want on file but aren't ready to give portal access.
• Keep statuses few and meaningful. Each one becomes a tab.
• Before a big import, add your custom fields first so their columns can be mapped.
• Use Health to flag accounts that need attention, then filter the list by it.