Contacts and organizations: your customers in one place
How to manage contacts in stipt: people, companies and partners, people involved on records, the contact page and its timeline, and customers needing attention.
In this guide
- What are contacts in stipt?
- What is the difference between a person, a company and a partner?
- How do I add a contact or a company?
- How does a contact link to a record?
- What are people involved and how do I link a team member to a record?
- How do I use people involved in planning and rules?
- What do I see on a contact's page?
- How do I mark a customer who needs extra attention?
- Frequently asked questions
Short answer
In stipt every customer lives under Contacts: people, and organizations with the Company or Partner role. Each record has one primary contact, and through the People involved module you link team members and partners to a record under a profile, such as Sales rep or Installer. A contact's page shows all of their records, conversations, tasks and appointments, plus a timeline of notes and sent messages.
By the makers of stiptUpdated October 5, 20268 min read
What are contacts in stipt?
Contacts are stipt's address book. Every person you talk to and every company they belong to lives here, and every record, conversation and quote links back to a contact. You find it under Contacts in the left rail, behind the people icon.
Contacts are part of stipt's core: there is nothing to install, and every member with the User or Admin role works with them. Contacts also appear on their own, for example when a customer writes in on WhatsApp for the first time, or when you send an email to an address that is not a contact yet.
Keep your contacts tidy and your colleagues and dot always know who they are dealing with. A member with the Field worker work profile can read contacts but cannot create, edit, merge or export them; that takes the Back office work profile.
What is the difference between a person, a company and a partner?
A person is an individual. Every person has a type: normal (a regular customer or lead), internal (a colleague) or not important. The list shows the badges Internal and Not important.
An organization is a company people can belong to. An organization has the Company role, the Partner role, or both: a supplier who is also a customer is simply one organization with two roles. You change the roles with Edit on the organization. At least one role always stays on, and the Partner role cannot be turned off while self‑billing is enabled for that organization.
On a person you see the Linked company, and on the company page the people who belong to it. When a customer shares a household with a partner or co‑owner, you connect a secondary person to the same contact. They then share records and emails, and a WhatsApp from the secondary person's own number lands on the same contact.
How do I add a contact or a company?
You add a person via Contacts, New, New person. Fill in the name and optionally email, phone, language and birthdate. If the email address already exists, stipt blocks it, so you do not create a duplicate.
You create an organization with New company or New partner. Pick the role or roles and link existing people as members right away. You can also link a person to a company later through the Linked company field, or from the company page.
If two contacts exist for the same customer after all, merge them; the conversations move to the contact you keep. When a customer comes in through WhatsApp without a name, the phone number stands in as the name at first. Once WhatsApp passes along a profile name, stipt fills it in automatically. A name you entered yourself is never overwritten.
How does a contact link to a record?
Every record has one primary contact: the customer. When you create a record, you first pick or create the contact or company. Change the primary contact later and it updates on the record and on every record below it.
You switch a record's customer with the switch button on the record's customer card, in the Change customer window. There you choose whether the customer is a person or a company. Pick a company and the linked person stays on as the point of contact.
On the customer card the phone number is a call link: clicking it starts your phone or calling app. That way you call a customer straight from the record, the person or the organization.
What are people involved and how do I link a team member to a record?
Besides the customer, a record often involves people from your own team or from a partner: a sales rep, a surveyor, an installer. You link them in the People involved block, through profiles. Each company names its own profiles, such as Account manager, Sales rep, Installer or External partner. A profile has an icon, a type (team members or partner organizations) and an explanation of the role, which dot reads too.
You manage profiles under Settings, Modules, People involved. People involved is a module that is on by default. On the record, click + on the People involved block, pick a profile and then the person or organization.
Each profile has exactly one holder per record. Pick someone for a role that is already filled and you first see who gets replaced; afterwards the timeline shows who replaced whom. Need two technicians on one job? Create two profiles, for example Installer and Assistant installer. The same person may hold several roles.
How do I use people involved in planning and rules?
People involved are not just bookkeeping: other parts of stipt work with them. Per appointment type, the calendar can automatically put the team member who carries out the appointment on the record under a profile. Rules and tasks can use the person in a profile as recipient or assignee, for example the installer on the record.
An admin can tick several records in the CRM list and use Assign member to put someone in a role on all of them at once. If the role on a record is already filled by someone else, stipt skips that record and tells you how many were skipped.
In the CRM list you add a column per profile through Columns, such as Account manager, and sort on it. The Assigned member filter finds records by the name or profile of a person involved.
What do I see on a contact's page?
Open a contact and the left side lists all of the customer's records in a tree, with the timeline below it. The right side holds three blocks: Conversations, Tasks and Appointments. Conversations shows everything with this customer, searchable and with the same icons as the inbox. Tasks shows the office tasks linked to the customer or one of their records. Appointments shows upcoming appointments first.
The timeline shows what you sent the customer and what was written down about them, across all of their records: automated emails and WhatsApp messages with their delivery status, and every note. Status changes and field changes are deliberately left out; they belong on the record itself.
A note you post here lands on the customer and shows on every record of that customer, with a Customer label. Something that applies to the whole person, such as prefers calls in the evening, only needs writing down once. If it is about one job, write it on that record.
How do I mark a customer who needs extra attention?
For customers where nothing may go wrong, such as an open complaint or an appointment that really has to be on time, you set the special attention mark. Use the shield next to the customer name, on the customer card of a person, an organization or a record. A short reason is required, so colleagues know what to watch out for.
The mark belongs to the customer and shows up everywhere right away as a small amber shield: in the CRM list and on every record, in the inbox next to the customer name, and in the calendar on the appointment block and on the cards in the Plan sidebar. Hover the shield to read the reason.
Mark an organization and all of its contacts and records inherit the mark. In the CRM list the Special attention filter shows every record of marked customers at once. Turning the mark on or off lands on the customer's timeline, with who did it and when.
Frequently asked questions
Can I merge duplicate contacts?
Yes. Merge the contacts and the conversations move to the one you keep. A new contact with an email address that already exists is blocked right away.
How do I find a customer by phone number?
Open search with Cmd+K (Ctrl+K on Windows) and type the number. How you type it does not matter: 0612345678, 06 12345678 and +31 6 12345678 find the same contact, from six digits. A company domain such as @company.com finds all contacts of that company.
Can I link two technicians to the same record?
Yes, with two profiles, for example Installer and Assistant installer. Each profile has exactly one holder per record, so it is always clear who has which role.
How does stipt store email addresses and phone numbers?
Email and phone are personal data. stipt encrypts them per company before storing them and only shows them to people who may see them. Search still works through secured lookup data, never on the raw values.
What is the difference between a customer note and Internal notes?
A customer note is a moment on the timeline, with a date and a name, and shows on every record of the customer. Internal notes is a single free‑text box you overwrite, for something that always applies.
Does managing contacts cost extra?
No. Contacts come with every User or Admin seat, and the People involved module is on by default in the Module center. No add‑on is needed.
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