How do I add a contact and give it more than one role?

Contacts are your organisation's shared address book: the customer you invoice, the supplier you buy from, the owner whose property you manage — all here, used by every module from the same place with no duplication.

Steps

1. Open General Settings → Contacts — image 1 — and press Add Contact.
2. In the form — image 2 — enter the name, phone (the dialling code is filled from the default country), e-mail and address.
3. Under roles, tick everything that applies: the same person may be a customer and a supplier at once, so tick both.
4. Fill in any custom fields you added for contacts — a credit limit or a preferred contact method for instance.
5. Save. The contact appears immediately in every selection list matching its roles: the sales invoice, the supplier bill, the lease contract.

Notes

• The role decides where the contact shows up: someone without the "supplier" role will not be found in a purchase bill's supplier list.
• Do not create two records for the same person because they both sell to you and buy from you; one record with two roles keeps their true balance in both directions.
• Review your contacts before entering opening balances; merging after activity accumulates is far harder than getting it right at the start.
• A contact is not a user: it has no password and does not log in. See the article on the difference in Getting Started.