You can create a new customer in Koho in several ways, depending on your workflow:

  1. From the Customers section – Add a new customer directly through the Customers menu.

  2. During the offer creation – Create the customer while creating an offer.

  3. During the contract creation – Add the customer when creating a new contract.

  4. When creating a project – Define a new customer as part of project setup.

  5. By importing data – Upload customer details from an external file.


The "Create Customer" form consists of the following tabs: Basic info, Address info, Invoicing info, Contacts and responsibilities, and Timetracking project.


Basic info

  • Name: The customer’s name is a required field. Using the “Fetch: PRH” button, customer details can be retrieved from the Finnish Patent and Registration Office database based on the customer’s name.
  • Description: An internal comment field for the customer. Its content is displayed on the customer’s card.
  • Customer Number: By default, the next available number is automatically assigned as the new customer’s number. Alternatively, a custom customer number can be entered manually. The customer number is used internally in Koho and can be utilized, for example, in searches.
  • Customer ID: An external identifier for the customer, used for example in integrations. This field accepts both letters and numbers.
  • Customer Group: This field allows a new customer to be linked to an existing customer group. By clicking the
    “+ Add group” button, a special group menu is also displayed if the customer needs to be linked to a special group. A guide covering customer groups can be found here: 3.1.4 Responsibilities, customer categories and customer tags
  • Business ID: The customer’s business ID. With the “Fetch: PRH” button, customer details can be retrieved from the Finnish Patent and Registration Office database based on the business ID, similar to the name search.
  • Phone: The customer’s phone number.
  • Email: The customer’s email address.
  • Website: The customer’s website URL can be entered in this field.




Address info


A customer can be assigned separate delivery and billing addresses if invoices should be sent to a different location. The “Copy Billing Address” and “Copy Delivery Address” buttons allow you to easily duplicate the details from one panel to the other if the same address information is to be used.


  • Name: The customer’s name.
  • Address: The customer’s street address (street name and number).
  • Address (additional line): A supplementary field for more detailed address information (e.g. apartment or floor).
  • Postal Code: The customer’s postal code.
  • City: The name of the customer’s post office location (city/town).
  • Region/Province: The customer’s region or province.
  • Country: The customer’s country.

 


Invoicing info


Note that some of the fields in this view may not be visible, depending on the functions enabled in the environment.


Billing Settings

  • Catalogue: A separate price list can be assigned to the customer, which prices will be used instead of the product register prices. Instructions on handling price lists can be found at the following link: 3.2.2 Customer-specific catalogues
  • Our Reference: The default value automatically added to the customer’s invoices in the “Our Reference” field. Note: The reference specified in the customer’s contract or project overrides this setting.
  • Your Reference: The default value automatically added to the customer’s invoices in the “Your Reference” field. Note: The reference specified in the customer’s contract or project overrides this setting.
  • Electronic invoicing intermediary: The operator transmitting the customer’s e-invoices can be selected in this field.
  • Web invoice address: The customer’s electronic invoice address.
  • Invoice Language: Specifies the language of the customer’s invoices: Finnish, Swedish, English, or Russian.
  • Billing charge: This setting allows an automatic surcharge to be added to the customer’s invoices. A separate product must be created in the product register for the surcharge.
  • Description (internal): An internal note automatically added to the customer’s invoices. Note: Internal notes are not visible to the customer.
  • Invoice description (Customer): A description automatically added to the customer’s invoices, visible to the customer.
  • Accounting Account: The default accounting account used on the customer’s invoices.
  • Accounting target: The default accounting target used on the customer’s invoices.
  • Default payment term: The default payment term applied to the customer’s invoices.
  • Payment interest: The default payment interest applied to the customer’s invoices.
  • Customer type: This setting specifies whether the customer is a business or a consumer.
  • Domain: If ticketing is enabled in the account, the domain can be specified here so that tickets arriving from this domain are assigned to the customer.

Billing Address Information

  • Invoicing email: If the customer has a separate email address for billing, it can be specified in this field. Otherwise, invoices sent by email will be sent to the email address defined in the customer’s basic info section.

Additional Billing Settings

  • Merge invoice rows: This setting allows you to choose whether the invoice rows are merged by product. The default value for this setting can be changed in the environment settings.
  • Merged row description formating: A field managed by Koho administration that allows the configuration of the content of merged rows.
  • Advanced row merging configuration: A field managed by Koho administration that allows the configuration of the basis for row merging.
  • Invoice default attachment: A default attachment added to the customer’s invoices.
  • Auto-delegate invoices: This setting allows you to define the basis for creating compiled invoices if the customer’s invoices should be compiled into a single invoice. Automatic compiling is possible for all contract invoices, all project invoices, or project invoices grouped by project.
  • Default price per hour: The default hourly rate applied to the customer’s recorded work sessions. Note: The default hourly rate overrides the customer-specific catalogue.
  • Employee-specific hourly rates: Employee-specific hourly rates can be defined for the customer, overriding the customer-specific hourly rate.
  • VAT 0%: The customer can be defined as VAT-exempt, in which case the VAT rate on the customer’s invoice rows is always 0.
  • Default rate level: A rate-class that can be selected for the customer, to be used as the default rate.

Additional Settings

  • Collab info: If the customer has access to the Portal, the content entered in this field will appear in the customer’s Portal view in a separate Instructions panel.
  • Collab lock period: If the customer has access to the Portal, this setting defines the validity period of files delivered to the ERP through the Portal, after which the file will no longer be available.
  • Collab login: This setting allows you to define the Portal login method.
  • SLA-level: If ticketing is enabled in the environment, this setting allows you to define a customer-specific SLA level.
  • Marketing ban: This setting allows you to place the customer under a marketing ban.
  • Block work sessions: This setting allows you to block the recording of work sessions for the customer.
  • Default travel product: The default travel expense product used for the customer when adding travel expenses.
  • Kilometers (default): The default number of kilometers entered when logging a travel expense for the customer.

Semantic Invoice Additional Fields


If the customer’s invoices must be sent in semantic format, these fields can be used. Otherwise, they can be left empty.



Contacts and responsibilities


In the Contacts and responsibilities view, you can define the customer’s contacts and responsible employees. Responsible employees can be used, for example, to limit visibility of customers and to direct the automatic creation of work assignments if work assignments are enabled in the environment.


The first responsible employee added for a customer is also set as the default salesperson for that customer. Salesperson information can be used in reporting to allocate sales. If customer responsibility roles have been defined for the environment, roles can also be assigned to responsible employees. Additionally, a fixed time period can be defined for a responsible employee, indicating when they are responsible for the customer. Customer responsibility roles are not enabled by default, so if you want to use roles, you must contact Koho customer support. A guide covering customer and project roles can be found here: 3.6.6. Customer and project roles


You can also assign responsibility teams and special responsibility groups to a customer. In this case, all members of the team or group are considered responsible for the customer, but none of them are assigned direct salesperson status. A guide on user teams and special groups can be found here: 3.6.4 Responsibilities, teams and groups


To add a contact, click the “+ New Contact” button. For each contact, you can define their name, title, role, and contact details. If the contact already exists for another customer, you can link the same contact from two different customers by clicking the “Link” button.



Timetracking project


In the Timetracking project tab, you can create a project for the customer during the customer creation phase and, if needed, link the customer to existing work order templates. Note that this tab is only visible when creating a completely new customer. When editing an existing customer, this tab is no longer visible.

Project

  • Name: The project’s name.
  • Description: An internal comment for the project, where you can specify details such as billing information, targets, and execution notes.
  • Project ID: A unique identifier for the project.

Participants


In the Participants section, you can define project participants and responsible persons. A participant can be assigned as the project’s salesperson if needed, and a project role, participation period, and budgeted hours can also be assigned to the participant.


More detailed project settings can be configured in the project’s edit mode after saving the customer. Instructions on creating and editing projects can be found in the following guides: 3.3.1 How to create a project? and 3.3.2 How to edit or delete an existing project?



Task templates


In the Task templates section, you can assign task groups to the project, which tasks should be imported into the project.

Assignments


In the assginemtns section, you can link the customer to the work order templates from which automatic work orders should be generated for the customer.



Once all required information has been filled in, you can save the customer by clicking the “Save” button.



Create a new customer in the "Customers" section: 

 

You can create customers in Koho through the “Customers” section in the admin panel. In this section, you can view and manage your customer information as well as create new customers. New customers are created using the
“+ Customer” button. The “+ Customer” button can also be found in the top navigation, which is always visible when the user is in the management side or in the settings.




2. Create a new customer while making a new offer 

 

You can also create a new customer while creating an offer. A new offer can be created, for example, on the “Offers”-page by clicking the “+ Offer” button in the side menu or by clicking the “+ Offer”-button in the top navigation.


On the offer form, you can create a new customer during the creation process by clicking the “+ New Customer” button in the “Basic info” section. Saving the offer will also save the customer information in Koho.


NOTE: When creating a customer this way, no project is created for the customer. Therefore a project must be created via the Projects menu. Read more about this in the following guide: 3.1.3 Why is a customer not visible in time tracking?




3. Create a new customer while creating a new contract

 

You can also create a new customer while creating a contract. A new contract can be created, for example, on the “Contracts” page by clicking the “+ Contract” button in the side menu or by clicking the “+ Contract” button in the top navigation.

 



On the contract form, you can create a new customer during the contract creation process by clicking the “+ New Customer” button in the “Basic info” section. Saving the contract will also save the customer information in Koho.


NOTE: When creating a customer this way, no project is created for the customer. Therefore a project must be created via the Projects menu. Read more about this in the following guide: 3.1.3 Why is a customer not visible in time tracking?



4. Create a new customer when creating a new project

 

You can also create a new customer while creating a project. A new project can be created, for example, on the “Projects” page by clicking the “+ Project” button in the side menu or by clicking the “+ Project” button in the top navigation.



On the project form, you can create a new customer during project creation by clicking the “+ New Customer” button in the “Basic info” section. Saving the project will also save the customer information in Koho.



5.  Importing customer data from an Excel or CSV file


Customers can also be imported into Koho from external data. This is done using the Import button in the Customers menu. Files imported into Koho must be in CSV or Excel format. This method is especially efficient when importing information for multiple customers at once. More detailed instructions can be found in the guide: 3.1.5 Importing customers from an Excel or CSV file.




Do you need more assistance? Please contact our customer service asiakaspalvelu@kohosales.com.