How to add and organise customers

Most trades carry their customer list in three places: the phone's contacts, a diary with numbers scribbled in the margins, and memory. It works until it doesn't — the day you're parked outside a house you've definitely worked at before, with no idea which flat, and the customer's number saved under “Dave boiler”.

This tutorial covers adding customers properly in TradePlanr — names, addresses, numbers and the notes that matter on site — plus how to handle landlords with multiple properties and whether to import your list in one go or build it as you work.

1. 1. Add your first customer

   Open the Customers tab and add a new customer. Name and phone number are the essentials; add their email if you'll be sending quotes and invoices, and the property address so directions, reminders and paperwork all point at the right door.

   Take the extra thirty seconds to get the details right first time — this record follows the customer through every job, quote and invoice from here on, so a typo now is a typo on everything.

   The new customer screen in TradePlanr with name, phone, email and address fields filled in

2. 2. Decide: import your list or build it as you go

   If you've got an existing book of customers, adding the regulars in one sitting means the history starts building straight away. But don't let a backlog put you off — plenty of trades just add each customer the first time they book a job, and the list fills itself within a month or two.

   Either way, the habit that matters is attaching a customer to every job you create. A job without a customer is a job you'll be squinting at in six months wondering whose kitchen that was.

   Tip

   Don't bother importing customers you'll never work for again. A short list of live customers beats five hundred names from 2019 you have to scroll past.

3. 3. Handle landlords and agents with multiple properties

   A landlord isn't one address — they're one bill payer and half a dozen properties. Add the landlord as the customer with their own contact details, then record each rental property's address against the jobs you do there, so the invoice goes to the person who pays while the work history stays pinned to the right house.

   This matters most for gas engineers doing annual CP12s across a portfolio: when the landlord rings asking “which ones are due?”, the answer is in the app rather than a shoebox of old certificates.

   A landlord's customer record in TradePlanr showing jobs across several rental property addresses

4. 4. Add the notes that save a wasted trip

   The notes field is where the job-saving details live: “key safe by the side gate, 2580”, “stopcock under the stairs”, “Worcester 30i, installed 2021”, “dog is friendly, cat is not”, “parking is permit-only — ring ahead”. None of it feels important until you're stood on the doorstep without it.

   Write notes for the version of you turning up in eighteen months, or for the apprentice you send instead. If anyone on the team reads the customer record before knocking, they should arrive knowing what you know.

   A customer's notes in TradePlanr recording access details, parking and the boiler model on site

   Tip

   Boiler or consumer unit details in the notes mean you can order the right parts before you set off — the difference between one visit and two.

5. 5. Keep the list tidy

   Before adding a customer, search the list first — duplicates are how history gets split across two records and half of it goes missing. Use the search when a number rings in, too: seeing the name, address and past jobs before you answer makes you sound like you remember everything.

   When details change — new number, new tenant, customer moves house — update the record then and there. A customer list is only useful while it's true.

A tidy customer list isn't admin for its own sake — it's what makes the rest of TradePlanr compound. Every job, invoice and certificate you attach to a customer from here builds the history that wins you the repeat work.