Ambivo Books User Guide
DocsUG-011
Customers
Adding and managing customers, default A/R accounts, statements
A customer is anyone who owes you money or might in the future. The customer list is the master record that drives invoicing, AR aging, customer-level reporting, and the receivable side of every sale you make.
Where Customers Live
Customers in Ambivo Books are shared with the rest of the Ambivo platform. The same customer record powers your CRM contacts, your Commerce sales orders, and your Books invoices. Adding a customer in Books also makes them available to Sales reps in CRM, and vice versa.
Behind the scenes the customer master is stored in the Core Ambivo API (MongoDB) and Books connects to it through a proxy. The integration also links each customer to the GL accounts in your books — for example, the Accounts Receivable account they should post against.
Getting There
- Click Customers in the left sidebar (under the secondary "masters" group)
- The customer list appears with search, filter, and pagination
Adding a Customer
Steps
- From the Customers list, click + New
- Fill in: Customer name — the trading or contact name; Company name — optional, for B2B; Email — used for sending invoices; Phone — for contact and reminders; Website — optional
- Click Save
The Books customer form today exposes only those basic fields. Address details, tax identifiers (TIN/EIN/VAT), D-U-N-S, timezone, and default-account assignments live on the underlying customer record but are managed through the Core Ambivo platform or directly via the API rather than from the Books UI.
What Happens Next
The customer is added to your master list. They are immediately selectable on the New Invoice form, the New Receipt form, and anywhere else Books needs a customer.
Customer Default Accounts
The customer data model supports a default tax code per customer, which the Core API uses to pre-fill new invoices. Default A/R and deposit accounts are not currently exposed as per-customer fields — Books falls back to the entity-wide defaults and your last-used deposit account when creating an invoice.
If you need per-customer default accounts (for example, per-currency receivables for international customers), set them through the Core Ambivo platform or via the API. The Books invoice form lets you override the account on any individual invoice line.
Editing a Customer
- Click the customer in the list
- Update the basic fields (name, company, email, phone, website)
- Click Save
Editing a customer only changes future activity — historical invoices keep the snapshot they had at the time. Fields not exposed in the Books form (address, TIN, default accounts) must be edited via the Core Ambivo platform.
Customer-Level Visibility
The Books Customers screen today is a list view with create / edit. A dedicated customer-level detail page with outstanding balance, transaction history, and linked CRM activity is on the roadmap. Today, to see what a customer owes you, run the AR Aging view (or the AR data exposed on the Dashboard) and filter by customer name.
For per-customer statements, use the Account Statement on your A/R account or generate one from the underlying records via the API. A polished per-customer statement export is on the roadmap.
Importing Customers
A bulk customer importer is not currently exposed in the Books frontend. To bring in a list:
- Add customers in the Core Ambivo platform's import flow — they will appear in Books automatically, or
- Use the Books REST API directly
The Books-side importers today are limited to Chart of Accounts, Trial Balance, and Bank Transactions — see Data Import (UG-060).
Customers vs. CRM Contacts
The same person can exist as a CRM contact (a sales lead) and as a Books customer (someone you invoice). In the Ambivo data model these are the same underlying record, distinguished by relationship_type:
- relationship_type = 'lead' → CRM lead
- relationship_type = 'customer' → Books customer
When you invoice a CRM contact for the first time, Books promotes them to customer automatically.
Read-Only Mode (QuickBooks Tenants)
If your tenant has QuickBooks configured as the invoicing system of record (invoicing_system = "quickbooks"), the Create / Update / Delete actions on Customers are blocked from inside Books. The list is still visible — you can search, view, and reference customers — but new customers must be added in QuickBooks and synced over. See QuickBooks Migration and Read-Only Mode (UG-090).
Common Questions
Can a customer also be a vendor?
Yes — for example, you might buy services from a contractor you also sell to. Create them as both. The two records share the contact details but post to different GL accounts.
Can I delete a customer?
Only if they have no posted transactions. Otherwise deactivate them — see the toggle on the detail page.
How do I see how much a customer owes?
Open the customer and read the Outstanding balance at the top, or run the AR Aging report to see all customers at once.
Can I send a reminder for an overdue invoice?
Yes — from the invoice itself. See Invoices (UG-020).
My customer has multiple billing addresses
The current customer record holds one billing address. Override it on individual invoices when you need a different one.
Tips and Best Practices
- Use the company name field for B2B customers — it makes invoices look more professional than a personal name.
- Set the customer email correctly. Books uses it for emailed invoices and reminders.
- Pick a tax code per customer when their tax treatment is consistent. It is faster and avoids errors.
- Don't create duplicate customers — search before adding. Duplicates fragment AR and confuse the aging report.
- Deactivate customers you stop doing business with rather than deleting. The history matters for tax filings.