A client is a person or a couple you work for. Their card keeps the name, the email, the phone and your notes in one place, and it collects everything you do for them: their projects, their quotes, their contracts and their invoices.

This guide shows you how to add your first client, how to find them again, and what to do when a client is no longer active.

Add a client

Open Contacts from the left bar. The Clients list opens.
Click New client.
Type the Name. For a couple, write both names, like “Emily Carter & James Whitmore”.
Add the Email. It's optional, but you need it to send quotes, contracts and the portal link.
Press Create. The client's page opens, ready for the other details.

Tip: you don't have to start here. When you create a project, the New job flow asks Who is this job for? and lets you create the client on the spot. See Projects.

The client page

Click a client in the list to open their page. From top to bottom:

Name, Email, Phone and Tags. Click any of them to change it. Separate tags with a comma, for example “wedding, referral”.
Custom fields — the extra details you decided to track for every client (see “Track your own details” below).
The money: what the client Paid, what's Outstanding, what's Overdue and the total of their Accepted quotes.
Projects — every job for this client, with its date and status. Click one to open it.
Documents — their quotes, contracts and invoices, with the project each one belongs to.
Timeline — what happened with this client, most recent first.

At the top right, Send portal link emails the client a link to their portal. The link works for 7 days. See Client portal.

Link a client to a project

A project belongs to one client. You choose them when you create the project, and you can change them later:

Open the project.
Click Client in the key facts under the stage line.
Pick a client from the list, or choose Create new client if they're not there yet.

The project now shows on the client's page, under Projects, and the client's email is used for the project's quotes, contracts and invoices.

Find a client

The list has two views. Switch between them at the top left:

Table — a row per client. Click a column title to sort by it. Use the columns button to show or hide columns, like Created on or your custom fields.
Cards — a card per client with their Active projects, their Next date and what's Outstanding, plus quick buttons to email, call or copy their details.

Type in the search box to find a client by name, email or phone. The list filters as you type.

Save a view

If you often look at the list the same way, save it as a view:

Search, sort or change the columns until the list shows what you want. A Save view button appears on the bar.
Click Save view, give it a name and press Save.
The view sits on the bar as a pill. One click brings it back; a second click removes it.

The small arrow on a selected view lets you Rename it, Update with current filters or Delete it. You can keep up to 12 views per list.

Archive or delete a client

When you stop working with someone, you have two choices. They're very different:

Archive hides the client from your list. Nothing is lost, and you can restore them at any time.
Delete removes the client for good. It can't be undone.

In most cases, archive. To archive a client:

Open the client and click Archive at the top right. In the Table view you can also tick one or more rows and click Archive in the bar that appears.
Read What changes: the client's portal access closes.
Choose whether to Also archive their projects. It's on by default: the projects leave the portal, but their documents stay as they are. Turn it off to keep the projects active in your CRM.
Press Archive.

To see archived clients, switch the list from Active to Archived. Open one and click Restore: the portal access opens again, and you can choose to Also restore their archived projects.

To delete a client, click Delete and type their exact name to confirm. The client loses portal access for good. Their projects, contracts and invoices stay, without a client, unless you turn them on under Delete these too?

Track your own details

Need to remember the same thing for every client, like how they found you or their wedding venue? Add a custom field once and it shows on every client page:

Open Settings and, under Clients, choose Custom fields.
Add a field and choose its type: text, number, date, one or more choices from a list, a checkbox or a file.
Fill it in from each client's page, in the Custom fields card.

Bring your clients from another app

Coming from Studio Ninja or Pixieset? Open Settings → Import data, choose the app and upload the export files. Your clients come in with their details, and with their projects when the app exports them.
Need your list somewhere else? Export all (CSV) on the list downloads every client that matches your search. To export only some, tick their rows and click Export CSV.

Good habits

Always add an email. Quotes, contracts, invoices and the portal all go there.
One client, many projects. When a couple comes back for an anniversary shoot, create a new project for the same client instead of a new client.
Use a few tags, always the same ones. “wedding”, “portrait”, “referral” are enough to start.
Archive instead of deleting. Your history and your analytics stay complete.