Before you can raise an invoice or a bill, the app needs to know who you're transacting with and what you're transacting in. That shared information lives in two places, open to everyone in the organization: Customers & Suppliers and Products & Services, both under the Directory section of the sidebar.

Adding a customer or supplier

There's only one contact form — a person or company doesn't have to be filed as strictly a "customer" or a "supplier." Go to Directory → Customers & Suppliers and click New contact:

  • Name — the only required field.
  • Customer / Supplier checkboxes — tick either or both. A contact you both buy from and sell to (a barter arrangement, a supplier who's also a client) just gets both boxes checked; you don't need two separate records.
  • Active — untick this to hide a contact from new-document pickers without deleting their history.
  • TIN, Payment terms (days) (defaults to 30), Email, Phone.
  • Depending on your company's country, a compliance section may appear (for example, 1099 vendor details in the US, or an EOPT business-buyer flag in the Philippines) — fill this in if your administrator has told you it applies.
  • Address — optional; pick a type (Billing, Shipping, Registered, Branch, Other) and fill in as much as you have.

Click Create. The contact list shows a Customer or Supplier badge (or both) per row, and you can filter the list by type.

Adding a product or service

Go to Directory → Products & Services and click New item. Picking one of these on an invoice, bill, or expense line auto-fills its price, tax rate, and account so you don't have to type them every time.

  • Type — Product, Service, Non-inventory item, or Other charge.
  • Code and Name — both required; the code is a short, unique SKU or service code.
  • Short description — shown as the default line description on transactions.
  • Category and Unit (e.g. hour, pc, box) — optional, for your own organization.
  • Selling side: Sales price (what you charge customers by default), the sales tax rate, and the Revenue account it should post to.
  • Buying side: Purchase cost (what you typically pay a supplier), the purchase tax rate, and the Expense account it should post to.

Click Create. From the list you can Edit, Duplicate (a quick way to create a similar item), or Deactivate an item — deactivating just hides it from new-document pickers; anything already invoiced or billed with it is unaffected.

Changing an item's price, tax rate, or account only affects transactions you create after the change — invoices and bills that already used it keep whatever price and account were in effect when you created them.

For a large catalog, Import CSV / Export CSV buttons let you bring in or download the whole product list at once instead of entering items one at a time.

Common mix-ups

  • Looking for a separate "Suppliers" list — customers and suppliers share one contact list, distinguished only by the Customer/Supplier checkboxes and badges.
  • Expecting a price change on a product to update old invoices — it doesn't; only new transactions pick up the new price.
  • Trying to delete an item or contact instead of deactivating it — deactivating (not deleting) keeps historical documents intact.