The Customer Form Explained: Every Field, Button and Box

The customer form is where everything about one customer lives: their contact details, pricing, deposits, visit notes, order history and the links to your accounting and payment systems. This guide walks through the form from top to bottom, explains every field, button and box, and points out what each setting changes on orders, invoices and reports.

Before You Start

You need access to Customers in the brewery module. If a window says access is denied, ask an administrator to adjust your group. See Access Control.
Some boxes only appear when they apply to you. The Provincial Details section depends on your province, and the Square Link and card vault boxes depend on which integrations you have connected. The QBO Link box is always there, and tells you when QuickBooks is not linked.
The Contacts, Visits, Deposits, Recent Orders and Top Products boxes only show once the customer has been saved. A brand new customer needs to be created first.

Opening the Customer Form

To edit an existing customer

Navigate to Brewery → Customers.
Choose a list across the top of the table: Preferred Customers, Current Customers, Potential Customers or Master List.
Click the customer's row. Use the Filter Customers box or the alphabet bar if the list is long.

To add a new customer

On the Customers page, click New Customer.
Enter the Customer Name, choose a Customer Type and add any Notes.
Click Create Customer. BarSight creates the customer and takes you straight to the full form so you can fill in the rest.

The New Customer button also has an Add from Customer List option. It opens a shared list of known customers in your province. Click Add Customer on a row and it is copied into your own list as a Potential customer.

[SCREENSHOT: Customers page with the New Customer button open showing Add from Customer List, and the Preferred, Current, Potential and Master List tabs visible]

To bring in many customers at once, use Import CSV instead. See Import Customers from CSV in Minutes.

The Toolbar

The buttons across the top of the form act on the customer you have open.

Button	What It Does
New Customer	Opens the quick new customer window, the same as on the Customers page. It also has the Add from Customer List option.
Remove Customer	Deletes the customer after you confirm. A customer who has any orders cannot be removed. Merge them into another customer instead. It is not shown on a brand new customer.
Merge Customer	Moves this customer's history into another customer and then deletes this one. See Merging Customers below.
Grant Portal Access or Reset Password	Controls the customer's login to your online order portal. The button reads Grant Portal Access until the customer has a login, then Reset Password. See Online Order Portal Access below.
Send Email	Opens the email composer addressed to this customer. The message is saved against the customer, so it appears in the Email Communications box.
Create Order	Saves the form and then opens the new order window for this customer. See Creating Customer Orders.
Save	Saves every box on the form at once and returns you to the Customers list.

Several buttons further down the form, such as New Contact, New Visit, Create Order and Link Existing, save the form first and then open their window. Anything you typed before clicking is kept.

[SCREENSHOT: Customer form toolbar with each button labeled]

The Customer Box

The first box holds the basic details. It is split into Company, Contact Info, Notes and, in some provinces, Provincial Details.

Company

Field	What It Does
Company Name	Required. Shown on orders, invoices and every customer list.
Customer Type	Preferred, Current or Potential. This decides which tab of the Customers list the customer appears in. Preferred customers also show on the Current tab. A new customer starts on whichever of those tabs you looked at last.
Sales Person	The employee who looks after this account. When you log a visit for the customer, the visit is assigned to this person by default.
Internal Taproom	Tick this for the customer that represents your own taproom, so sales to it are counted as internal sales in your reports. Tick it on a single customer. Where BarSight needs one taproom customer, it uses the first one it finds.
Last Ordered From	Read only. Updated each time the customer checks out in the online order portal, and used to pre-select that facility on their next order. It shows `[None yet]` until then.

Contact Info

Field	What It Does
Company Email	The main address for the customer. All automated order and invoice emails are sent here. It is also needed to grant portal access and to request a card on file.
Company Phone	For your reference.
Address, City, Postal Code	The customer's address, used on invoices and for deliveries.
Province and Country	Start on your own province and country for a new customer. Check the province carefully. In British Columbia it decides whether the customer is included in the BC LDB Batch Report, and whether a license number is expected.
Delivery Area	Groups the customer on the Deliveries board. Start typing to pick an existing area, or type a new name and BarSight creates it when you save. Leave it blank for unassigned.

Notes

Customer Notes are internal notes about the account.
Delivery Notes are instructions for getting product to the customer, such as a back door or receiving hours. They appear on the customer's printed order and with the order on the Deliveries board.

Provincial Details

This section only appears when your province adds its own customer fields.

British Columbia adds three fields:

Field	What It Does
License Type	One of: (COU) - Counter, (GRC) - Grocery, (GRS) - Government Retail Store, (LIC) - Hospitality, (LRS) - Licensee Retail Store, (MOS) - Manufacturer's On-site Store, (RAS) - Rural Agency Store, (TWS) - Tourist Wine Store, (VQA) - Vintners Quality Alliance, (WIN) - Independant Wine Store or (DIS) - Distributor. A new customer starts on (LIC) - Hospitality.
License #	The customer's liquor license number. It prints on their orders next to the license type (except for Distributors), and it is the Customer_Number in the LDB report. For Counter customers the report uses your facility's store number instead.
Requires BC License	Ticked by default. Untick it for a customer who does not need a license, and BarSight stops flagging a missing license number on them.

The License Type has effects beyond the report:

Government Retail Store (GRS) customers do not pay the container deposit on orders and are priced using your BC duty prices. They are left out of the BC LDB Batch Report, because the LDB already has that information.
Counter (COU) and GRS customers do not need a license number. Neither do internal taprooms or customers outside BC. Every other BC customer does, and BarSight flags the customer as missing a license number until you enter one.
If the Default Sales Tax in the Pricing box is left on [System Default] when you save, BarSight picks a tax for you: 15% for Counter customers and 5% for everyone else, provided you have a tax set up at that rate.
A customer cannot be both an Internal Taproom and a GRS. If both are set, a red warning appears at the top of this section.

When you merge two customers, the surviving customer picks up the other's License Type and License # only if it does not already have its own. A surviving customer left on Counter counts as not having a License Type.

Bulgaria adds the ЕИК (Identify Number) field, the consignee number used in the customs XML. It is required if you want the Import XML feature to match orders to this customer.

[SCREENSHOT: Customer box showing Company, Contact Info, Notes and the BC Provincial Details section]

The Update Settings button at the top of the box opens Customer Settings in a new tab. That is where you manage the custom fields on visit notes and your Delivery Areas.

Contacts

Use contacts for the individual people at a customer, such as the owner, the bar manager and accounts payable. The box lists each person with their title, phone, email and a Primary tag. The primary contact is listed first.

Automated order and invoice emails always go to the Company Email. Everyone listed as a contact is also copied on them.

Click New Contact.
Enter a Name (required), Title / Role, Phone, Email and any Notes.
Tick Primary Contact if this is the person to deal with first.
Click Save Contact.

Click any row to edit that contact. The edit window has a delete button.

Pricing

These settings are copied onto the customer's orders as they are created.

Field	What It Does
Default Sales Tax	Choose [System Default] to use the tax on each product, or pick a tax to apply to everything this customer buys.
Discount Percent (Before Tax)	A percentage taken off new orders for this customer before tax is added. You can still change it on an individual order.
Payment Terms	Due on Receipt, Net 15, Net 30 or Net 60. When staff create an order in BarSight, the payment due date is set to the order date plus these days. Orders placed through the online portal do not get a due date this way.
Price List	No Override, or one of your price lists. Prices on the customer's orders fill in from the list wherever it has a price for the product. For a GRS customer, the BC duty price takes priority over the list. The Edit Price List button opens the price list page for users with access. See Setting Up Customer Price Lists.
Free Deposits	The customer is not charged the deposit on returnable items such as kegs. The items are still tracked in the Deposits box, with a price of zero.
Free Gov. Deposits	The customer is not charged the government container deposit on packaged products.

Product Restrictions

By default a customer can buy any product. To limit a customer to a short list, such as a restaurant that only carries two of your beers:

Tick Restrict to specific products. A list of your products appears.
Tick the products this customer is allowed to order.
Click Save.

When someone tries to add any other product to the customer's order, BarSight refuses with the message that the customer is restricted to specific products. The same list applies to delivery orders.

If you tick the restriction box but leave every product unticked, the customer cannot order anything. Untick the box to remove the limit. Your ticked products are remembered while the box is off.

Order Facilities

This list controls which of your facilities the customer can choose from when ordering through the online order portal. It exists so storage-only facilities never appear to customers.

A new customer starts with the facility you are working in ticked. If you are working in a storage-only facility, every non-storage facility is ticked instead. Review the list and tick any others the customer can order from.
Untick any facility the customer should not order from.
The portal refuses an order for any facility that is not ticked, with a message asking the customer to select a valid facility. A customer with no facilities ticked cannot order online at all.

This list only affects the online portal. See Brewery Facilities Explained for how facilities are set up.

Accounting and Payment Boxes

The Square and card vault boxes appear only when that integration is connected. The QBO Link box is always shown.

QBO Link

Shows a Linked Customer dropdown of your QuickBooks Online customers. Pick the matching QuickBooks customer to link them, or leave it on [Create New] to have BarSight create the customer in QuickBooks when you save. If QuickBooks is not connected, the box says so. See Connecting QuickBooks Online.

Square Link

Shows whether the customer is linked to a Square customer.

If it is not linked, a new Square customer is created when you save.
To use an existing Square customer instead, click Link Existing, or Change Link if one is already set. Choose the customer in the window and click Link Customer. The list loads every customer from Square, so it can take a moment.
Click Unlink in that window to remove the link. A new Square customer is created the next time the customer is saved.

Linking an existing customer avoids creating duplicates in Square. See Connecting Square Invoices.

Card Vaults (Moneris, Paychex, Clover, Chase, Elavon)

If you take card payments through one of these processors, the form has a vault box for it. It shows the masked card number and expiry of the card on file, or No card currently on file. Card details can only be added after the customer has been created.

Update Card opens the processor's secure card page in a new window, where you can enter a card yourself.
Request Card Info, in the same button's menu, emails the customer a secure link so they can enter the card themselves. The customer needs a Company Email, and BarSight confirms when the request has been sent.
Chase also shows a Profile Id dropdown. Once a card is on file, it shows the billing address and postal code stored with the card.

Only the masked card number is shown in BarSight. See Connecting Moneris and Connecting Elavon.

[SCREENSHOT: Customer form showing the QBO Link, Square Link and a card vault box with Update Card menu open]

Visits

The Visits box is your sales log for the customer. Each row shows the date, type, a shortened version of the notes, the follow-up date and the person the visit is assigned to (under Recorded By), newest first. Click a row to open and edit it.

Click New Visit.
Choose the Customer if it is not already filled in, and set the Date of Call.
Choose a Visit Type: In-Person, Phone, Email or Other.
Optionally set a Follow-Up Date.
Check Assign To. It starts as the customer's Sales Person, or you if there is none.
Fill in any custom fields you have added, and write the Notes.
Click Save.

A Date of Call in the future creates a reminder task for the person it is assigned to.
A Follow-Up Date creates a follow-up task for that day.
Deleting a visit also removes the tasks created for it.
The custom fields come from Update Settings. You can add text boxes, text areas, dates, numbers and dropdowns.

The Recent Task Comments box below it shows the three newest comments that staff have left on tasks created from this customer's visits and follow-ups. Click one to open the task. See Record Customer Visit Notes for CRM Tracking.

Email Communications

If your group has access to Communications, this box lists the last ten emails sent to or received from the customer, with the date, direction, subject and which account handled it. Click a row to read the message. Send Email writes a new one if you have edit access to Communications, and View All opens the customer's full email history.

Deposits

When you sell a returnable item with a deposit, such as a keg, BarSight tracks it here until it comes back. Each row is a deposit line from an order.

Column	What It Shows
Item and Serial #	The returnable item. For tracked kegs, each keg has its own row and its serial or lot number. Click the number to open that keg's deposit history report.
Order and Order Date	The order the item went out on. Click the number to open the order.
Ordered	How many went out.
Returned	How many have come back. A number that is still short of Ordered is highlighted.
Credited	How many of the returned items have had their deposit credited back to the customer.
Balance	The deposit money still held for the item. The total of all rows is at the bottom of the box.
Action	Return Items records items coming back. Rows on orders that are still Pending show Pending instead.

Recording a Return

Click Return Items on the row.
Set the Date, and add a Reference Number if you have one.
Choose the Return To Facility. It starts as the facility the order was sold from.
Tick the items that came back. For bulk items, enter the quantity instead.
Click save. If the deposit has no dollar value, BarSight warns you that no credit will be created and asks you to confirm.

The returned stock goes back into the facility you chose, and the customer is then offered a credit for the deposit on their orders.

The Box Buttons

Filter Deposits searches the rows by item, serial number, order number or order date.
Bulk Return returns many items in one go. See Bulk Return Customer Deposits in One Click.
Show All reveals rows that are hidden because they are fully returned and credited. Only outstanding deposits are shown until you click it.

To turn deposit tracking on, see Set Up Deposit Tracking for Kegs and Growlers. For credits and refunds on orders, see Processing Order Refunds and Returns.

[SCREENSHOT: Deposits box with a tracked keg row, the Return Items button and the Bulk Return and Show All buttons]

Recent Orders and Top Products

Recent Orders lists the customer's 50 most recent orders with the number, type, date, who entered it and the total. Open Order opens the order and View PDF opens its invoice. If there are more than 50, a link at the bottom opens the complete history in a new window. Filter Orders searches the list, View All prints the full history and Create New Order starts a new one.
Top Products shows the five products and package sizes the customer has ordered the most, by quantity, across all of their orders. It is handy before a sales call.

Merging Customers

If the same customer was entered twice, merge the duplicate into the one you want to keep.

Open the duplicate customer, the one you want to get rid of.
Click Merge Customer.
In Merge Into, choose the customer to keep.
Click Merge and confirm.

All of the duplicate's orders, visit notes and deposit records move to the customer you kept. Its customer notes and delivery notes are added to the end of the kept customer's notes, and the duplicate is then deleted. This cannot be undone.

The duplicate's contacts, product restrictions, order facilities and integration links are not carried across, so copy across anything you need to keep before you merge. To merge many at once, see Bulk Merge Duplicates in One Pass, or Merge Duplicate Customers for a walk-through of a single merge.

Online Order Portal Access

Customers can place orders themselves through your online order portal. Their login is created from the customer form.

Make sure the customer has a Company Email.
Click Grant Portal Access and confirm. BarSight saves the form and emails the address on file with instructions for logging in.
If they forget their password later, open their customer form and click Reset Password. They are emailed a reset link.

Both actions save the form first and then return you to the Customers list. Use Order Facilities to control which facilities the customer can order from, and Product Restrictions to limit what they can buy.

Tips

Fill in the Company Email early. Portal access, card requests and every automated order email depend on it.
For BC accounts, set the Province, License Type and License # as you create each customer. They decide whether the customer appears in the LDB report and what their orders cost.
Put the customer's receiving instructions in Delivery Notes rather than Customer Notes so the driver sees them on the order.
Use Potential for customers you are still pursuing, and move them to Current after their first order, so your Current list stays a list of active accounts.

Troubleshooting

Problem: I cannot remove a customer.

Solution: A customer who has orders cannot be removed. Merge them into another customer instead.

Problem: A message says the entry is locked and waiting for a response from an API.

Solution: BarSight is still syncing the customer with QuickBooks, Square or a payment processor. Wait about a minute and try again.

Problem: Grant Portal Access or Request Card Info says I need an email address.

Solution: Enter a Company Email for the customer, then try again.

Problem: A BC customer shows Missing licence information in the Customers list, or a missing License Number on an order.

Solution: Enter the License #. If the customer does not need one, change the License Type to Counter or untick Requires BC License.

Problem: A customer cannot order through the online portal.

Solution: Check Order Facilities on their customer form. A customer with no facilities ticked cannot order online. This can happen on customers created before new customers were given a starting facility.

Problem: An order is refused because the customer is restricted to specific products.

Solution: Tick the product under Product Restrictions on the customer form, or untick Restrict to specific products.

Problem: A customer's deposit is missing from the Deposits box.

Solution: Click Show All. Deposits that are fully returned and credited are hidden by default.