Contacts

Overview

Contacts represent individual people in OneSuite. A contact may be a customer, prospect, vendor contact, ministry partner, staff contact, decision maker, or anyone your organization needs to communicate with. Accurate contacts make the rest of OneSuite more useful because email, SMS, calls, invoices, tasks, and history depend on reliable customer details.

Business Value and Typical Use Cases

Create a new customer profile.
Store direct phone and email details.
Link a person to a company or account.
Review communication history before follow-up.
Start invoices, tasks, or activities from the correct person.

Before You Begin

Confirm you can log in to OneSuite and access the module described in this article.
Make sure your organization has completed any required setup, such as license activation, user permissions, payment settings, or connected email accounts.
Use production records or approved test records when learning a workflow so you do not accidentally change live customer information.

Prerequisites and Permissions

Active OneSuite installation or trial.
User account with the appropriate role or permission.
Current production release interface.
Stable browser session.

Concepts

CRM stands for customer relationship management. In OneSuite, CRM is the shared record of people, companies, opportunities, tasks, and customer history. The purpose is not only to store names. It helps the business remember who the customer is, what has happened, what needs to happen next, and which records connect to invoices, emails, calls, SMS messages, deals, and activities.

How This Feature Fits Into OneSuite

CRM records can provide customer context for communications, appointments, invoices, payments, marketing audiences, and other OneSuite workflows. The exact relationship shown depends on the enabled production features and available customer data.

Where WooCommerce is configured, ecommerce customer/order context may also contribute to the broader customer history. Keep CRM identity information accurate so commerce, billing, and communication records can be understood together.

Screen Orientation

CRM records are the relationship foundation for OneSuite. Contacts represent people, companies represent organizations, deals represent opportunities, and activities/tasks capture the work performed around those relationships.

Before creating a new CRM record, search first. Duplicate contacts and companies fragment communication, invoice, appointment, and activity history and make later reporting less reliable.

When viewing a customer record, read the surrounding timeline and related information before taking action. OneSuite is most useful when staff understand the complete customer context instead of treating each module as an isolated list.

Open the area described in this guide and pause before editing. Identify the page heading, primary action button, search/filter controls, record list or detail panel, status indicators, and any related-record or history areas. This quick orientation prevents users from applying instructions to the wrong record or module.
When the page contains both a list and a record/detail view, use the list for discovery and the detail view for action. Search or filter first, then open the exact record and verify identifying information before making changes.

Role-Specific Guidance

Sales staff use CRM to maintain accurate prospects, customers, opportunities, follow-up work, and relationship history.
Office and service staff use CRM to identify the correct customer before sending messages, creating appointments, or beginning billing activity.
Administrators and managers should define consistent naming, tagging, ownership, and duplicate-prevention practices so the CRM remains trustworthy as the database grows.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Open CRM and select Contacts.
Search for the person by name, email, or phone before creating a new record. This prevents duplicate records and keeps customer history together.
Select the available Add Contact or New Contact action.
Enter the person’s name and the strongest contact methods available. Email and phone are especially important because communications and billing workflows often depend on them.
Add company, address, notes, tags, or available classification fields according to your organization’s process.
Save the contact and confirm the saved record opens or appears in the contact list.
Create a task, activity, invoice, email, SMS, or call from the contact when the next business action is known.

Expected Results

When completed, the record, action, or workflow described in this guide should be visible in OneSuite, searchable from the appropriate module, and connected to the related customer, company, invoice, payment, communication, or activity history where applicable.

Verification Checklist

Confirm the correct OneSuite user is signed in and the expected role/permissions are active.
Confirm the customer, company, invoice, product, message, appointment, employee, or other record shown on screen is the one intended for the task.
After saving or completing the action, refresh or return to the relevant list and verify the new status, history entry, balance, message, appointment, or record appears where expected.

Business Workflow

Customer inquiry → Search contact → Create or update contact → Add task → Send message → Create invoice → Review customer timeline.

Real-World Business Scenarios

New lead: search by name, email, or phone first; create the contact only when no appropriate record exists; then add the business information needed for follow-up.
Existing customer calls: open the existing record, review recent activity and related history, then create the next task, message, appointment, invoice, or note from the correct customer context.
Ecommerce customer: where WooCommerce context is available, use the existing commerce/customer relationship to understand online activity rather than creating an unnecessary duplicate CRM identity.

Advanced Operational Guidance

For repeatable business work, standardize naming, ownership, tags/statuses, and staff responsibilities before increasing volume. Consistency makes OneSuite search, reporting, history, and handoffs substantially more useful.
When multiple modules participate in the workflow, verify each handoff. Do not assume that completing one screen automatically proves the customer, payment, communication, or reporting outcome is correct elsewhere.
Use one authoritative customer identity whenever possible. Duplicate prevention is one of the most important habits for preserving useful CRM, billing, communication, and WooCommerce history.

Screenshots

Production screenshots appear here only after approved OneSuite captures are attached. Written instructions are complete without screenshots.

Best Practices

Require at least one reliable communication method.
Use consistent name formatting.
Avoid storing long relationship notes in the name field.
Review the timeline before contacting the customer.

Common Mistakes

Creating a duplicate without searching first.
Saving a phone number in the wrong field.
Using a company record when the business needs a person record.
Forgetting to link the contact to the correct company.

Troubleshooting

Symptom: the page or button is not visible. Cause: your role may not include access to this module or the current license may not include the feature. Solution: ask an administrator to review your role, workspace access, and license status. Verification: sign out, sign back in, and confirm the menu item appears.
Symptom: a saved record cannot be found. Cause: filters, search terms, ownership, or status views may hide records. Solution: clear filters, search by name, email, phone, invoice number, or company, and check active versus archived views. Verification: open the record and confirm the latest information appears.
Symptom: a workflow stops before completion. Cause: required fields, connected account setup, payment configuration, or missing customer details may be incomplete. Solution: review the required fields shown on the page and complete setup items before retrying. Verification: repeat the step and confirm the expected success message or updated status appears.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a contact be linked to a company?: Yes, where the relationship field is available.
Why is email accuracy important?: Email matching helps communications and invoices connect to the right history.
What should I do before deleting or archiving?: Confirm invoices, tasks, and history do not depend on the record.

Next Steps

Continue with the Related Articles section to follow the workflow into the next OneSuite function instead of returning to the homepage after every task.

Last Updated: August 21, 2026
Version: 0.3.2-Phase2B-SHORTCODE-RENDER-RECOVERY
Verified Public Source Baseline: PASS35H66DN RC1 GOLD R63.97
Documentation Revision: Phase 2B Enterprise Detail Expansion