# Create a Customer

The fields the warehouse needs, and the ones that only matter when you invoice.

A customer record serves two departments. Dispatch needs somewhere to send goods; accounts needs somewhere to send the bill. They are often not the same address.

## Add one

- **Go to Customers and select Customer**

  A business name or a person's name, whichever the customer trades as.

  ![The Customers list with its Customer action, showing existing UK trade accounts with their contact details and status.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/inventory/customers/customers-list.png)
- **Enter the billing address**

  Where the invoice goes. Often a head office that has never seen a pallet.
- **Enter the shipping address**

  Where the goods go. This is what prints on the packing slip and what the carrier is given, so it needs a postcode a driver can find.
- **Set the payment terms, and a rate list if they are on contract pricing**

  Both carry onto every document raised for them afterwards.

> **Tip:**
>
> **Add every site now, not at the first order**
>
> A customer can hold several shipping addresses, and the order picks one. Entering them up front saves the warehouse a phone call on the day something has to go out.

## What the fields feed

*Create Customer, the fields that reach a document*

> **Note:**
>
> **One customer, every app**
>
> This record is the same one Finance bills and the same one a repair ticket is raised against. An address corrected here is corrected everywhere.