Manage your clients

Every invoice and every quote relies on a client record: the name and address are printed on the document, and the email address is where your emails are sent. This guide shows how to create these records, import them from a file and keep them up to date.

1. Add a client

1. Open the Clients menu.
2. Click New client. The Add a client window opens.
3. Choose the source: Swiss company, Swiss person or Other.

Swiss company

Bill Alps searches the Swiss commercial register.

1. In Company name, enter at least 3 characters.
2. Click the company in the results. The Prefilled data box shows what was found: company name, UID number, canton and address.
3. Click Confirm selection. The form opens with this data, which you can correct.

If the company does not appear, click Enter the company manually: the name you already typed is carried over into the form.

Swiss person

Bill Alps searches the Swiss telephone directory.

1. In Find a person, enter a name or a phone number, at least 3 characters.
2. Click the person in the results. The Prefilled data box shows the name and, if they are published, the phone number, email and address.
3. Click Confirm selection.

If the person does not appear, click Enter the person manually.

Other

Choose Other for a client abroad or to enter everything yourself: the form opens empty, with the Company type selected.

2. Complete the client record

Check the Client type, either Company or Individual, then fill in the fields:

• Name: required, printed on documents.
• Email: the address Bill Alps uses to send invoices, quotes and reminders. The field is optional, but without it sending by email is refused.
• Phone: optional.
• Country, Address, Postal code and City: required. The country is set to Switzerland by default and the street No. is optional.
• VAT number and Company identification number: optional, for a company only, and printed on documents. For a foreign client, the field's help shows which identifier to use for each country.
• Notes: internal notes, never printed.
• Do not chase automatically: shown on an existing client when automatic reminders are turned on. This client gets no automatic reminder, but you can still send one from the invoice.

For Switzerland, Liechtenstein and France, you can search for the address: type in Search the address and click a result. If it does not appear, click I can't find my address to fill in the fields by hand. For other countries, the fields are shown directly.

Click Save: the message Client saved confirms that the client was created.

3. Add contact persons

A Company record can hold several contact persons.

1. In Contact persons, click Add contact person.
2. Fill in the First name and Last name, which are required, and if needed the Title, Email and Phone.
3. If there are several contacts, select Default on invoices and quotes on the one that should appear on documents.
4. Click Save.

The default contact is printed under the client name on the PDF. Emails are always sent to the Email field of the record, not to the contact's. If this field is empty, Bill Alps copies the first contact's email into it.

4. Find and edit a client

You can sort the list by clicking a column header, and the Search for a client... field searches the name, email and city. Click a row to open the record, edit it, then click Save. If you move to another screen without saving, Bill Alps warns you and offers Leave without saving.

If you change a record from Company to Individual, the VAT number, the identification number and the contact persons are removed when you save.

A team member who only has the Read permission on the Invoicing module can see the list and the records, but cannot create, import or edit anything. See the guide on team access.

5. Delete a client

1. Open the client record.
2. Click Delete at the bottom of the form.
3. Confirm with Delete.

6. Import clients from a file

1. In Clients, click Import clients.
2. Drop a CSV or .xlsx file of up to 5 MB, or click Choose a file. If the workbook contains several sheets, choose the one to import. Legacy .xls files are not supported.
3. Check the Field mapping: Bill Alps matches the columns based on their headings. Only the Name is required. For a field you do not want to import, choose Do not import.
4. If your file has no header row, turn off The first row contains column names.
5. For Country, choose Column or Fixed value. Without a country column, the suggested fixed value is Switzerland.
6. In Ready to import?, check the Valid, Errors and Duplicates counters, as well as the preview.
7. Click the import button, for example Import 12 clients. Stop interrupts the operation and keeps the clients already imported. At the end, Import complete summarizes the result and View clients takes you back to the list.

A few rules to know:

• A row whose email already exists, in your clients or earlier in the file, counts as a duplicate and is not imported. A row without an email is never considered a duplicate.
• An invalid row is skipped: missing name, unrecognized client type or country, invalid email, contact without a first name or a last name, address too long for the QR-bill. The details of the first 10 errors are shown under the counters.
• If the client type is missing, the row becomes a Company. An Individual row that carries a VAT number, an identification number or a contact also becomes a Company.
• Each row can carry only one contact, which becomes the default contact.
• If there is only one address column, Bill Alps separates the number from the street when it recognizes it.

7. Export the list

In Clients, click Export, then Export CSV or Export JSON. The export contains the clients shown: if a search is active, only its results are exported. The CSV file includes only the default contact of each client, and the import recognizes its columns if you want to reuse it.

Once your clients are set up, follow the guide Create an invoice or Create a quote.