The primary purpose of Contacts is to enable sending of Debtor Documents and other items via integrations to your clients. In most cases Contacts should be individuals.
Contact Types are used to control who receives information for each client. A contact does not necessarily need to be the client themselves.
Examples include:
Debtor Management – Billing Contact (default)
Nimbus or other document management systems – Custom contacts can be set up as required
ATO SmartDocs – A dedicated SmartDocs contact can be created
When setting up a new Individual client, the system will automatically create a contact for that individual with a Billing Contact relationship.
For this reason, enter any email and phone details you wish to appear on the contact card before saving the client record.
To create a new contact.
Contacts can be created and updated either via the Contact Enquiry screen or by the Contact tab within the client card.
Contact Enquiry screen
This is accessed via the ‘Contacts’ module or via CRM menu and Contact Enquiry.
On the Contact Enquiry screen, click the +New button.
This will load the new contact screen, complete the relevant information, for example surname, first name and email address. You can also enter Mobile number if you need this for integrations such as ATO SmartDocs.
Then click the save icon at the bottom left of the screen.
The next step is to create the relationship for the new contact. Click the relationships tab within the contact type area.
Select the relevant contact type – most commonly this will be Billing
Within the select client area, select the relevant client
Set the delivery method
Portal - for the emailing of statements and invoices
Print – for the printing of statements and invoices
click on the save icon
This will save the relationship for Sheree Williams against Darling Harbour Trust. Once you are done, you can click the X to close the screen.
Contact maintenance
To edit Contact details, go to CRM module and select Contact Enquiry. This will load the Practice Management Contact Enquiry screen from within.
You can search for the relevant contacts. You can also click on the Filter icon on the far right to see all names associated with the name you have searched.
In this example, searching for Gladwin returns two results. To edit a contact, select it by clicking the contact name link.
This will open the contact screen. From here, you can update the relevant details, such as email address, telephone number, mobile number, and other contact fields.
If you need to update the contact’s relationship, select the Relationships tab. This tab shows where the Practice Management contact is linked.
At the bottom of the screen, you can see that Gladwin Williams is linked to A Business Pty Ltd as the Debtor contact and to Blue Lizard as the Bookkeeper contact.
Click the Edit icon (black pencil with white arrow) to make changes. Additional contact details, such as phone numbers and email addresses, can be added here.
Click Save to apply changes, then Close (X) to exit the contact record.
Alternate email addresses for billing contact 'invoice email'
Most integrations and Debtor Management use the email address recorded on the Details tab as the primary email address for a contact.
In some cases, a contact may prefer their invoices and statements to be sent to a different email address for one or more business entities. In these situations, maintaining a single contact record for the individual using their most commonly used or personal email address on the Details tab and their secondary email in the Relationships tab is best practice.
When creating or editing the relationship with the relevant business entity, enter the alternate email address in the Email Address field within the relationship. The Debtor Management site will then use this email address for that relationship only when sending debtor documents.
Leave this field blank unless an alternate email address is required, as this helps minimise ongoing administrative effort if an email address changes.
Connecting or editing a contact from the client card
You can connect a contact to a client or create a new contact from within the Contacts Tab on a client card.
You can then select to either create a New Contact or Link to an existing contact.
When creating a new contact, you will be guided through the same screens outlined above.
When linking to an existing contact, you will need to select the following:
Contact Type – For Debtor Management, this should be Billing
Contact to connect to – Select the appropriate existing contact
Delivery Method – For Debtor Management email delivery, this should be Portal
