Contact records includes customers, suppliers, employees and anyone else you do business with. Each contact record contains all the essential fields for recording information plus any custom fields added by you. Within the record you will also find information boxes providing summary information and links to processes elsewhere in Brightpearl, such as sales and purchases, account balance and tasks.
You can change your search settings at Setup > Contacts > Search options:
- Contacts Search Mode - Select Match All to search and display results which include the search term somewhere within the name, select Match Complete for faster and more relevant results.
- Settings for "match" complete" - Select Loose to match any search terms or Strict to match all search terms.
Quick Customer/Supplier Search
Use the Quick Search box at the top right of the screen to search by contact name, company name or number. Leave the field blank to search for all. Make sure you select Customers or Suppliers from the drop-down menu before clicking Go.
Refining Your Search
If the Quick Search is not specific enough, go to the Customers or Suppliers menu and select List all Customers/Suppliers. All your customers or suppliers are listed. Click the Show filters button to display the search options:
Use any of the available fields in order to locate the contacts, click the Filter report button to apply your selections.
You can even search by your custom fields, click the Add filter link and select which of your custom fields and what entry it should have.
Saving Searches to Favourites
To easily access regularly used contact searches, enter your search criteria and click Filter report. Once your results are displayed click the Add to favorites link at the bottom of the Brightpearl page. You can do this throughout Brightpearl!
Enter a name for your search and specify whether you want to make this favourite available to all users or if you it's just for you.
To access your favourites click the Star icon 
on the left-hand side, just above the notification area.
Pre-configured Searches
In both the Customers and Suppliers sections of your Brightpearl system, you also have some pre-configured quick searches that you can access from the relevant menu. You can browse contacts by tag, status or those recently added.
Viewing Contacts
Each contact is made up of the main header and then a selection of tabs. Down the right-hand side you have various information boxes providing summary information and quick links to processes.
Choosing Your Search Mode
You can change the way that the contact search works at Setup > Contacts > Search options. This setting is for the whole company.
Match All
This mode checks for a match or partial match within a certain set of fields:
Firstname, Lastname, Company, Postcode, First line of address, Customer code
... so searching for "ward" will match "James Ward", "The Warden Centre" or "Flying Towards Bob". This can be slow on larger databases, and for databases over about 20,000 contacts can return more results than you might want.
Match Complete
This search is a little stricter, and returns results by relevance, using the same fields as above. Searching for "Ward" would return "James Ward" and "The Warden Centre", but not "Flying Towards Bob".
If you're using Match complete then you can choose whether the search is Strict (matches all your terms, ie typing "James Ward" will only bring back contacts containing "James" AND "Ward"), or Loose: return contacts containing "James" OR "Ward".
Searching for contacts by email
If you enter an email address in the search box, then email address 1, 2 and 3 will be searched for an exact match. This overrides the above search methods.
Changing Display Columns in Contact Lists
To choose which customer data is visible in a listing of contacts, hover your mouse over your UserID in the top-right and select My Preferences. You can edit which columns are displayed including any custom fields that you have created. These settings are unique to each user, allowing different staff members to easily see the information that’s relevant to them.
Viewing Contact Record
Main Header
The main header of each contact record is always displayed in the viewing/edit screen. You will also see this in the contact information bar throughout Brightpearl which will allow you to jump directly to the contact record.
Click Edit to amend the contact Company name, Firstname and Lastname.
Click the company name to view a company level record, this will allow you to see all the contacts added under this company name. You can also see them listed in the colleagues tab of each individual contact.
Click the red email address to compose an email to the contact. You can do this from anywhere else in Brightpearl that you see a red email link. This will open a new window where you can drop in any pre-defined email templates, attach files and add other CC or BCC contacts. If you leave the "Add to timeline" box ticked, then the whole email will be added to the timeline - there's no need to copy the email to your Dropbox. You can see incoming emails in the timeline if you're using a Dropbox.
The header also displays any existing tags. You can add new tags by clicking the Add a tag link.
Info tab:
This tab is where you can view, add and change contact information for the contact, such as email addresses and phone numbers. This is also where you can see if the contact is marked as a supplier or employee, rather than a customer. You can assign a contact owner, status and lead source, and importantly for marketing purposes, whether the contact has opted in or out of receiving emails. Enter a pop-up message to alert users to important information when using the account, perhaps you have put the account on stop and don't want any more orders created!
Addresses tab:
Two addresses can be added to each contact, which can be marked as the invoice (billing) address or delivery address, the one selected as the default is used as the contacts main address. For example, when adding a sales order the default address is added as the customer address, and the invoice and delivery addresses applied appropriately.
Financial tab:
This tab allows you to set default financial information for the contact, such as price list, tax code, currency and nominal code, you might use this if you want to monitor a particular contact or set of contacts orders separately in the accounts. Record payment method, credit terms and limits, discounts and bank details.
Custom fields tab:
This is where any custom tabs and fields you have added will be displayed.
Timeline tab:
The Timeline keeps a record of everything that happens on the contacts account. Entries will often provide a link to the related documentation in Brightpearl, such as sales/purchase orders or emails. Each entry is colour coded to help you find the information you need; click the Display options link to select what type of activity you are interested in viewing.
Tickets tab:
This is where you can view open tickets created by/for the contact through the Helpdesk module. Click the link to add a new ticket.
Files tab:
You can upload files to contact records in order to keep a record of external documents, such as emails or scanned images. Attach the files here and see them listed below. To view a document click on it.
Colleagues tab:
When more than one contact is added with the same company name they will be linked as "colleagues". If there are no related contacts this tab will not be displayed. Each company must have a single contact set as the primary contact.
Adding & Editing Notes
Brightpearl will add some notes automatically; for example when an invoice is sent by email to a contact, a note will be added to the contact's notes trail. Waiting for payment is an example of a bad note; the information is stored elsewhere in the system, and another note will need to be manually added when payment is made to prevent misunderstandings. “Customer visited office to talk about progress. See minutes file” would be an example of a good note. Notes are automatically tagged with the current date and the administrator name.
Using QuickNotes
Wherever you see a box for entering notes in Brightpearl, you'll see a drop-down menu underneath it which allows you to have some "canned response" notes for quickly dropping in, saving time. Using QuickNotes is a great way to speed up your day-to-day workflows.
Editing notes
If you have added a note to a contact's record, you will also be able to delete it. Locate the note in the contact's Timeline and click the Delete link. This can't be undone, so once it's gone it's gone!
Contact Pop-up Messages
You can set urgent messages for contacts; these will appear at the top of the when placing a sale/purchase order for them, and will appear in a pop-up whenever the contact is viewed, payment allocated etc. Typical messages might remind the administrator that a credit note is due, returning product is expected back from the customer etc. To add a message, search for the contact using the quick search box, edit the contact and type a note into the "pop-up message" box in the Notes tab.
Information Boxes
Time Tracking:
The time tracker allows you to monitor how long you spend working on activities for the contact. The clock starts as soon as you open the record. Click Save to accumulate the time. The total time used is displayed above, click on it to view the Time Log for the contact where you can see what the time was spent doing and bill the contact. This is a great way to track the effort involved with clients, leads and customers. If you want to manually edit the time, then pause the timer and just type in the time box. It's HH:MM:SS. You can choose to tag the time to a job or activity too if you like, so if you're working on a project then the time can also appear in that project's reports.
Activities:
This is where you will see any outstanding or due tasks relating to this contact, including calls, follow-ups, events, meetings and things to do. You can add/schedule new activities and easily mark activities as complete using the links.
Learn more about tasks & activities
Open Sales& Quotes/Purchase Orders:
This box summarises any open Sales/Quotes or Purchase Orders, depending on whether this is a customer or supplier record. You can click on the order numbers to jump straight to the original documents. You can also use the links to view a full history of sales and purchases for the contact; great for seeing total spend over a period of time!
Financials:
This box displays the total outstanding account balance and the credit limit, use the links to view a full financial history, make/receive a payment or view/send a statement.
