Customers
A customer is a contact you sell to. In Solid Accounting, customers, vendors, employees, and other contacts all live in one list: Contacts (sidebar or Lists → Contacts). Each contact has one type — Customer, Vendor, Employee, or Other — and you can filter the list by type and by active status.
For invoices, payments, aging, and statements, see Accounts Receivable.
Customer fields
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Type | Customer for anyone you invoice |
| Company name, first and last name | Use whichever fit — a business, a person, or both |
| Display name | How the contact appears in lists, pickers, invoices, and statements |
| Email, phone, mobile, website | Contact details; the email is used when you send an invoice |
| Default account | Suggested account on new invoice lines; override per line |
| Notes | Free text for your own reference |
| Active | Inactive contacts drop out of pickers; their history stays |
If a business is both a customer and a vendor, create one contact of each type.
Adding customers
- Contacts → New Contact opens the full form.
- From a form — in any customer picker (invoice, estimate, Receive Payment), type a name that doesn't exist yet and choose Add "…" as customer. You go back to the form with the new customer selected.
- In bulk — bring customers over with a migration from QuickBooks® or other software, or a CSV import. See Import & Export.
Statements
Customers → Statements builds a statement for one customer and date range: opening balance, each invoice, payment, and credit memo in order, and the closing balance.
Statement for Acme Corp — April 2026
Opening balance 4,200.00
04/05 Invoice 1042 1,800.00
04/12 Invoice 1051 2,500.00
04/18 Payment received -3,000.00
04/29 Invoice 1063 900.00
────────────────────────────────────
Closing balance 6,400.00
Statements come straight from the ledger — there's no separate statement record — and export to PDF.
Where customers show up in reports
- A/R Aging — open balances by how overdue they are; your collections list.
- Statements — one customer's activity and balance.
- Income Statement and other financial reports — filter or drill down to a customer's transactions.
Inactive customers
Mark a customer inactive when you no longer sell to them, or to clean up contacts imported in bulk. Inactive customers:
- Don't appear in invoice, estimate, or payment pickers
- Are hidden from the Contacts list unless you filter for Inactive Only or All Status
- Keep all their invoices, payments, and statements
You can make them active again at any time. Nothing is deleted.
Common gotchas
Two customers with the same name. Common after a migration. Give them distinct display names (add the city, for example) so they're easy to tell apart in pickers.
Balance is not zero but there are no open invoices. Almost always an unapplied payment or credit memo. Open the customer's transactions to find it.
Can't delete a customer. Customers with transactions can't be deleted. Mark them inactive instead.