Customers
The central record connecting sales orders, invoices, shipments, and payments.
A customer in Augno is the company or contact you sell to, serving as the central record that connects sales orders, invoices, shipments, and payments. Every customer carries identity, segmentation, default terms, and addresses that flow into downstream workflows automatically.
What a customer is
A customer record defines:
- Identity: name, external number, alias, and contact info (email, phone, website)
- Segmentation: one customer type group (who they are) plus zero or more pricing groups (how they're priced)
- Default terms: payment terms, shipping terms, carrier and carrier option, priority, and default sales rep
- Addresses: default billing and shipping addresses plus additional locations
- Status: account status controlling whether orders can be placed and shipped
Why customers matter
Customers drive nearly every sales workflow:
- Sales orders: customer defaults auto-fill terms, addresses, carrier, priority, and sales rep
- Pricing: group membership determines which customer prices, volume discounts, and discount codes apply
- Shipping: default carrier, addresses, and freight exemption flow into shipments
- Invoicing and payments: billing address, payment terms, and Stripe integration drive collection
- Reporting: sales, customers, and activity reports segment by customer, type group, pricing groups, and sales rep
Defaults that cascade to orders
When you create a customer, you set defaults that automatically populate on every new sales order:
| Default | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Payment terms | When and how the customer pays |
| Shipping terms | Who pays freight and how it's calculated |
| Carrier / option | Shipping provider and service level |
| Priority | Order processing precedence |
| Sales rep | Team member assigned to the order |
| Bill-to address | Billing destination on invoices |
| Ship-to address | Delivery destination on shipments |
All defaults can be overridden per order.
Exemptions
Customers carry two independent exemption flags:
- Commission exemption: excludes the customer from commission calculations
- Freight exemption: waives freight charges on orders
Exemptions use OR logic across the customer and all their groups: if either the customer or any group is exempt, the customer is treated as exempt.
Parent-child hierarchy
Customers can be organized in a parent-child hierarchy:
- Parent: the main account, typically the bill-to entity
- Children: additional locations or divisions under the parent (typically ship-to locations)
Each child has its own configuration (addresses, terms, status) but belongs to the parent. Orders can be created for either the parent or a child. Child customers without customer-specific prices inherit pricing from the parent.
Contacts
Customers have contacts: the people at the customer's organization who receive notifications. Each contact carries notification preferences that control whether they receive order confirmation emails, invoice emails, or both. When you create a sales order, contacts are automatically added to the order based on these preferences.
Product line access
Customers can be restricted to specific product lines through their pricing groups. When product line restrictions are set, the customer can only order products from those lines.
Getting started
Before creating a customer, you need:
- At least one customer type group for classification
- Payment terms, shipping terms, and a carrier configured
Then create a customer to begin selling.
Next: Create a customer