When to create a customer

Before you can create a quote or sale order for someone, they need a customer record. Common creation triggers:

Incoming RFQ from a new lead
Customer's first purchase order arrives
Sales rep asks for a customer code so a quote can be drafted

Menu: Plating → Sales → Customers.

Customer list

Creating a new customer

Click + New (top-left). A blank customer form opens.

Minimum fields for usable record:

Field	Example	Why it matters
Name	Acme Aerospace Inc.	Appears on every quote, SO, invoice, PDF
Customer checkbox	✓	Flags them as a customer (not vendor)
Address	1234 Main St, Toronto ON	Bill-to and ship-to default here
Primary Contact	Jane Doe	Name, email, phone — the person you email
Tax ID	GST/HST number	Required for invoicing

Save, then fine-tune.

Multiple addresses + contacts

Under Contacts & Addresses tab, add:

Additional delivery addresses (Delivery Address type) for customers with multiple sites.
Additional invoice addresses (Invoice Address type) for AP-only billing contacts.
Additional contacts (quality, purchasing, shipping) so emails go to the right person per event.

Each is its own sub-record. When creating a sale order, dropdowns filter to addresses linked to this customer.

Plating-specific customer settings

Under Sales & Purchase tab, find the Fusion Plating block:

Field	Purpose
Default Invoice Strategy	Deposit / Progress / Net Terms / COD. Seeds every new SO.
Default Deposit %	Pre-filled if strategy is Deposit.
Account Hold	Check this to block new SOs, invoicing, and shipping for non-managers. Use when payment is overdue.
Hold Reason	Free text — visible on the banner when someone tries to create an SO.

Part Catalog tab

Every part the customer orders is tracked here. Open the tab to see:

List of parts with revisions
Per-part default coating
Drawings / 3D models
Historical order count

Add new parts directly from the tab. See Part Catalog guide for details.

Price list

Under Pricing, link a Customer Price List if you have one. This overrides the default coating-config pricing for this customer only — useful when you've negotiated a volume discount or a contract rate.

Archiving a customer

Customers you no longer deal with: click the ⚙ menu → Archive. Historical records stay intact; they just disappear from pickers. Un-archive any time.

What can go wrong

Duplicate customer records

Someone creates "ACME Inc." and later someone else creates "Acme Inc.". Odoo won't block this. Before creating a new customer, search. If you find a duplicate, use the ⚙ menu → Merge to combine them.

Account on hold but SO went through

Only non-manager users are blocked. Managers can override for a genuine emergency — look at the SO's chatter to see who did the override and why.

Wrong address on the PDF

Addresses are picked per-SO from the customer's address list. Check which address you picked in the Direct Order wizard or SO header.