Customer records
What this is for
A customer record holds a name, a phone number, an email and an address, and gathers every order that person has placed.
You need them for delivery — you can't deliver to someone you have no address for. Everything beyond that is optional, and worth doing to the extent you'll actually use it.
Adding a customer
Two places, and they're the same record either way.
From the back office: go to Customers and select Add Customer.
From the POS, while taking an order — which is where most customers get created, because that's when you're talking to them.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Customer Name | Required. |
| Phone | With country code. This is what you'll search by most often. |
| Email Address | Needed if they should get order emails or sign in online. |
| Customer Address | Needed for delivery. |
Finding someone at the till
On the POS, search by name, phone or email. Results appear as you type, with a count — "Found 3 customer(s)".
Search before you create. A regular who rings every Friday should be one record with fifty orders, not fifty records with one order each — and the phone number is the reliable way to find them.
If nobody matches, Add new customer creates one without leaving the order.
Walk-ins
Not every order needs a customer. Dine-in and counter sales can go through as Walkin with no record at all, and for most restaurants that's the majority of trade.
Attach a customer when it earns its place:
- Delivery — you need the address.
- Pickup — so you can call if there's a problem.
- Regulars — so you can see what they order.
- Account customers — so unpaid orders are attached to someone.
- Loyalty — points need somewhere to live. See Loyalty.
Don't ask a table of four for their phone number because the field exists. Collect what you'll use.
What a customer record shows you
Open a customer to see their details and their order history — every order, its total and its status, plus the Total Amount Received from them.
That's the useful part. Before a regular's table goes down, thirty seconds here tells you what they drink and what they always send back.
Importing customers
Import Customer brings in a list from a spreadsheet — moving from another system, or loading a mailing list you already keep.
Check the file first. An import of half-formed records is harder to clean up than it was to avoid, and duplicate phone numbers make search useless.
Editing and deleting
Open the customer to edit.
Deleting offers two options:
- Delete customer — removes the record.
- Delete with their Orders — removes the record and every order they placed.
Be careful with the second. Those orders are in your sales figures. Deleting them changes your history, not just the customer list. Removing the customer alone is almost always the right answer.
Privacy, briefly
You're holding names, phone numbers, emails and home addresses.
- Collect what you need, not what you can.
- Restrict who can see it. Customer permissions are set by role — see What each role can do.
- Delete on request where the law where you trade requires it.
This guide can't tell you what your local rules are. It can tell you the controls exist.
Good to know
- Customers belong to the restaurant, so they're shared across branches. A regular at one location is recognised at the other.
- Phone numbers are the practical key. Encourage staff to search by phone rather than by name — names get spelled differently, numbers don't.
- Customers who sign up online create their own records. See Customer accounts and addresses.