Saying Who Pays for a Shop

A customer store is a place — a shopfront your van visits. A customer is the business that legally owes you the money for what that shopfront buys. They are not the same thing: a chain can have ten shops on three routes and still be one customer you invoice and chase.

Until a shop says who pays for it, no invoice can be raised for it. An order can still be booked — booking commits nothing — but the moment you try to issue the invoice you will be told:

This page is how you clear that.

Linking a shop to its customerCopy Anchor Link

1. Open Operations → Customer Stores from the sidebar.
2. Click the shop's name to open it (or use the row menu → Edit).
3. The first card on the form is Who pays for this shop. It tells you the current state:
   • Billed to <name> — the shop already resolves to a customer, and invoices for it will land on that customer's account.
   • Not linked to a customer yet — the shop cannot be invoiced.
4. Under Customer billed for this shop, open the picker and choose the customer. Type to search by name, number, phone, or city.
5. That's it — the link saves immediately. It is not part of the amber unsaved-changes bar, so you do not need to save the form afterwards, and editing the shop's address later never disturbs it.

If you pick a customer that no longer exists, the console tells you so and nothing is stored — pick an existing one, or create it first.

When you have no customers yetCopy Anchor Link

If your customer list is empty, the card says so instead of showing an empty dropdown, with a Create a customer link. Create the business that will be invoiced — usually the owner's firm or the chain's head office — then come back to the shop and pick it.

Linking while creating a shopCopy Anchor Link

The same card appears on the New customer store form. Pick the customer there and the link is applied as soon as the shop is saved. If the shop saves but the link does not, you are told exactly that and taken straight to the shop's edit page so you can try again — the shop is not lost.

Changing or removing a linkCopy Anchor Link

• Changing it is just picking a different customer. Invoices raised from then on go to the new customer; invoices already issued are unaffected.
• Unlinking — click Unlink this shop. You are asked to confirm, because after unlinking no invoice can be raised for that shop until it is linked again.

Clearing the backlog before you start invoicingCopy Anchor Link

At the top of the Customer Stores list you will see either an amber "N not linked to a customer" count, or a green "Every shop is linked".

1. Click the amber count to show only the shops that still need a customer.
2. Work down the list, opening each one and picking its customer.
3. You can also reach this from Filters → Customer link → Unlinked at any time; the choice stays in the page URL, so a refresh keeps it.

The list's Bills to column shows the paying customer for each shop, or an Unlinked badge where there is none.

Who can do thisCopy Anchor Link

Linking is a separate permission from editing a shop — redirecting a shop's receivables to a different business is not the same act as correcting its GPS pin. If your role does not include it, you will still see who pays for a shop, but no picker. Ask an ops manager or administrator to set the link.

Two shops, one customerCopy Anchor Link

That is normal and expected. Link every shopfront of a chain to the same customer — the money is owed by the business, and the shop is how you analyse where it was bought.