Clients

Clients are essential for the invoice creation process. The Clients feature in Flowtly serves as a central hub for managing all client-related information and interactions. This feature allows you to maintain a detailed database of clients, including contact information, payment history with related invoices, all associated transactions, and related documents.

Create and Edit a Client

You can quickly add new clients by filling out a simple form that captures all necessary details like company name, contact information, billing addresses, and any custom fields relevant to your business. You can follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Clients:

   • Open Counterparties in the main menu, in the Counterparties & contracts group, and choose the Clients tab.

   • You will see every counterparty that is a client, with its roles, how complete its record is, its bank accounts and its tags.

   • Above the list there is a search field that allows you to quickly locate a client by name.

2. Create a New Client:

   • Click Add counterparty and choose client as the role. On the Clients tab the role is already selected.

   • The dialog asks for the tax number, country and name, and fills the name in from the company register for a Polish NIP. It is described in Counterparties.

3. Save and Review:

   • After saving, the client will appear in the list. Open its record with Open record and follow the link in the Client section to the client page, where you can provide additional information inside the following tabs:

• Overview tab: provides a summary of the client's key information, including name, country, currency, and document language. It displays detailed fields such as VAT number, due days, and the default contractor. Users can easily edit basic and financial details directly from this view. On the right side, a notes section allows users to leave and manage comments related to the client. Only the author can edit their own notes.

• Documents Tab: In the Documents tab, users can upload and store files related to each client. This can include contracts, invoices, agreements, or any other relevant documents.

  From the Add Document form, users can either select an existing document type or create a new one by clicking the "New document type" button.

  This opens a modal where the user can define the document type name, provide an optional description, and specify whether the document type is expiring.

  Newly created document types from this modal are available only for client entities. To add more global document types, go to Organisation settings → Document types.

• Address Tab: In the Address tab, you can provide the physical address of the client. The form includes the following optional fields:

  • Street line
  • Building number
  • Unit number
  • City
  • Post code
  • Country
  • Phone number

  There is no Save button. The six address fields save together, as one change, when you leave the group, and the phone number saves on its own. Fill from GUS (NIP) fetches the address from the Polish business register and saves it in one go. The status in the client page header, after the name, shows whether everything on the tab is stored, and the last change can be undone for 8 seconds; see Forms that save as you go.

• Payments Tab: This tab displays all invoices created for the client through Flowtly. As payments are received from the client, the Paid Amount will be automatically updated to reflect the transactions.

  You can also manually select transactions to associate with the invoice by clicking Assign transaction and selecting them from the drop-down list. The Assign transaction button is always visible, regardless of whether unassigned transactions exist for the client.

  If no matching transactions are available, the modal will display a "No results" message.

  In the modal that opens after clicking Assign transaction, you can specify the exact amount to be matched with the invoice. By default, the Transaction Amount field will display a value that covers the full invoice amount. If the transaction amount is lower than the invoice total, the transaction's full amount will be displayed instead.

  After saving, the Paid Amount column will update accordingly, and an icon indicating whether the invoice is fully paid or partially paid will be shown. Once a transaction is matched with the invoice, it appears as a separate row under the invoice. You can click on it to be redirected to the transaction page. Additionally, each invoice in the list is clickable and redirects you to the Invoice Preview page. Each attached transaction can also be removed from the invoice if needed.

• Contacts Tab: This tab allows to provide different types of contact for the Client. Among them are: Contact (usually general contact person for the client), Billing (person responsible for handling invoicing and payment-related communications), Debt Collection (person to be contacted if there are issues with overdue payments or collection activities). In addition to the type of contact, you will need to provide name and email. Title and contact phone are optional fields. Once saved, contact will appear in the list. You can update and remove these contacts as needed, ensuring that the correct person is contacted for each specific aspect of client management. When you edit an existing contact, each field saves on its own: a text field when you leave it, and the type as soon as you pick it. There is no Save button. If a change cannot be saved, the field shows Not saved and the reason, keeps what you typed, and Flowtly asks before you close the dialog and lose it.

  Note: Only the Billing contact will be used to automatically prefill client data when generating PDF invoices and sending them to the customer. It ensures that invoices are sent to the correct person who manages billing and payment processes.

Edit an Existing Client:

To edit an existing client:

1. Open the client from the Clients tab of Counterparties, and follow the link in the Client section of its record to the client page.
2. On the client page, locate the section you want to update (e.g., Basic information or Details).
3. Click the Edit button for that section.
4. Make your changes. Each one saves by itself: a text field when you leave it, a selection as soon as you pick it. Fields that only make sense together, such as the parts of an address or of a tax ID, save together. A small status next to the field shows when the change is saved.
5. Close the dialog when you are done. If a change was refused, the field says why, and Flowtly asks before you close and lose it. The last change can be undone for a few seconds, and a change made without a connection waits and saves itself once the connection returns; see Forms that save as you go.

Avoiding Duplicate Clients

When you save a new client, Flowtly checks its name against the companies and people already in your organisation — including any you already work with as contractors. If it finds a likely match, it won't create a second, disconnected record straight away. Instead, you'll see a message offering two choices:

• Add "client" to the existing record – keeps everything you already have on file (documents, notes, transaction history) in one place, and simply makes that same company invoiceable as a client too. Choose this when it really is the same company or person you already know.

• Create it as a new, separate entry – choose this when the name is just a coincidence and you're dealing with a genuinely different client.

This keeps a company's full history together instead of splitting it across two records, so you always have the complete picture when you look them up.

Example use cases

• Before creating your first invoice, you need to set up your client's profile with their billing details and contact information.
• You want to update a client's address, payment terms, or contact person to ensure all future invoices are accurate.
• You need to review a client's payment history, including all past invoices and associated transactions, to reconcile their account or follow up on overdue payments.
• Storing important documents like contracts, service agreements, or NDAs directly within a client's profile for easy access and record-keeping.
• Managing separate contacts for a single client, such as a general contact, a billing contact for invoice communications, and a debt collection contact for payment issues.