Customers#

A customer is anyone you sell to — a company or an individual. Customer records are created once and reused across every sales order, delivery, and return. Keeping them clean up front makes everything downstream easier.

Overview#

Every customer has:

• A unique code (auto-generated or manually entered)
• A name and optional legal name
• A country and company type (for companies)
• Tax registrations (GSTINs per state, for Indian companies)
• Addresses (billing, shipping, office — any number)
• Contacts (named people with designation, email, phone)
• Bank accounts for receiving payments
• Attachments (PAN copy, onboarding form, MSA, etc.)

Customers go through the approval workflow — Draft → Pending → Approved — if customer approval is turned on in Settings › System Settings. You can only use an Approved customer in sales orders.

Typical workflow#

1. Create the customer as a draft, filling in the core details
2. Add at least one address (usually the billing address)
3. Add at least one contact (sales spoc or accounts spoc)
4. For Indian companies, add the GSTIN(s) for the states they bill/ship from
5. Optionally add bank accounts and attachments
6. Submit for approval
7. Once approved, the customer is available in sales order creation

Creating a customer#

1. Navigate to Sales › Customers
2. Click + New Customer
3. Pick Party Type:
   • Company — default for most B2B customers
   • Individual — for direct-to-person customers (you do not capture company details)
4. Fill in the core fields (see below)
5. Click Save → lands in Draft

Core fields#

Duplicate detection#

If you type a name, email, or phone that matches an existing customer (or supplier — parties are shared across both), Neriyam shows a dialog listing possible matches. You can:

• Link to existing — reuse the matching party record instead of creating a new one
• Create anyway — tick Allow duplicate and proceed

Customer detail page — tabs#

After creating and saving, the customer opens on the detail page. Long-form data is split across tabs:

Details#

Read-only view of the core information and status. Shows:

• Current lifecycle status (Draft / Pending / Approved / Rejected)
• Approval trail — who submitted, who approved, and when

When the same party is also registered as a supplier (linked via the cross-role flow), the Details tab shows an Also a supplier badge with the supplier's code (e.g., SUP-00012). Clicking the badge navigates to the supplier detail page — permission permitting. Users without PURCHASE.VIEW_SUPPLIERS see the badge but get a permission error on click.

Use Edit to make changes (allowed only in Draft and Rejected states; limited edits allowed after Approved).

GST#

Appears for Indian companies only.

Each GSTIN entry captures:

• GSTIN — 15-character number
• State — auto-derived from the GSTIN state code
• Trade Name
• SEZ flag
• EOU flag (Export Oriented Unit — required for the Deemed Export category)
• Default flag — one default GSTIN per customer

Add, edit, or delete GSTIN rows. A customer can have many GSTINs (one per state they are registered in).

GSTIN validation#

When you add or edit a GSTIN, Neriyam checks:

• Format — 15-character pattern (^[0-9]{2}[A-Z]{5}[0-9]{4}[A-Z][1-9A-Z]Z[0-9A-Z]$).
• Checksum — position 15 is validated against the GSTN modulo-36 algorithm. A typo anywhere in the GSTIN is caught here.
• PAN consistency — characters 3–12 of the GSTIN must match the customer's PAN.
• State-code consistency — characters 1–2 must match the GST state code of the GSTIN's selected state.
• Per-row exclusivity — the SEZ and EOU flags cannot both be true on the same GSTIN row.
• Within-organization uniqueness — each GSTIN value is unique per organization (you cannot register the same GSTIN to two different parties in the same organization).

Cross-row rules by GST Category#

The party's GST Category determines what GSTIN combinations are allowed:

• Registered (REG): GSTINs cannot have the SEZ flag. Use the SEZ category if you operate from an SEZ.
• Composition Dealer (CMP): no SEZ-flagged or EOU-flagged GSTINs.
• SEZ Developer/Unit (SEZ): all GSTINs must have the SEZ flag set.
• Deemed Export (DEE): at least one GSTIN must have the EOU flag set.
• UIN Holder (UIN): GSTINs cannot have SEZ or EOU flags.
• Unregistered (UNR) / Export-Foreign (EXP): no GSTINs allowed.

These rules are checked when you add or modify GSTINs and when you submit the customer for approval.

Addresses#

Add any number of addresses. Each has:

• Label (Billing, Shipping, Office, Works, etc.)
• Address lines, city, postal code, state, country
• Default flags for billing and shipping — used to pre-fill sales orders

For countries with a seeded state list in Neriyam (India, US, Germany, Canada, Australia, UK), select a state from the dropdown — required. For other countries, enter the state name as free text. The two fields are mutually exclusive: based on the chosen country, you provide one or the other, not both.

Contacts#

Named people at the customer organization. Each has:

• First name, last name
• Designation
• Email, phone, mobile
• Default flag — used as the default contact on sales orders

Bank Accounts#

Captured for customers who you receive payment from with specific bank details. Each account has standard banking fields (account holder, account number, IFSC, bank, branch).

Documents#

Upload attachments — PAN card, GST certificate, MSA PDF, onboarding form, etc. Each upload is limited by the Max Attachment Size set in Settings › System Settings.

Workflow actions#

Actions are in the row menu on the list and at the top of the detail page. They appear based on status and your permissions.

What you can edit after approval#

Once a customer is approved, the hard-frozen fields are:

• Code
• Party Type (Individual vs Company)
• Country
• Tax ID / GSTIN
• Company Type
• GST Category
• Registration No.

Still editable after approval:

• Name, Legal Name
• Email, Phone, Website
• Addresses, contacts, GSTINs, bank accounts, attachments (add/edit/delete freely)

This lets you keep contact and address data current without the formal re-approval cycle.

List page#

The customers list has:

• Search by code, name, tax ID
• Filter by lifecycle status
• Columns: Code, Name (with "Individual" badge), Country, Tax ID, Status
• Row menu: View PDF, Submit, Approve/Reject, Recall, Delete
• Click a row to open the detail page

Your search, sort, filter, and page are kept in the URL — bookmark or share.

Related#

• Sales Orders — where customers are used
• Approval workflow
• Document numbering — where customer codes come from
• System Settings — turn customer approval on or off