Entities (customers & suppliers)

Entities are your address book of the companies and people you do business with: customers, suppliers and others. One record holds a name, tax numbers, addresses and contact people. You choose the record wherever these details are needed, instead of typing them again.

Where to find it: Sales → Entities → Entity list and Sales → Entities → New entity

Do not confuse these with Sales entities in the Finance menu. Those are your own companies that issue invoices. See Sales entities and the glossary.

When you'll use it

• You add a customer or supplier you will deal with more than once.
• You correct a customer's address, tax number or contact person in one place.
• You look up what a customer has ordered so far.
• You tidy up entities that Complaia created from orders.
• You hide a customer or supplier you no longer work with.

Key concepts

• Entity type — Company or Individual. It decides which fields the record has:
  • a company has a tax ID, registry numbers and contact people;
  • an individual has a first name, a last name and personal contact details.
• Relationship type — what the entity is to you: Customer, Supplier, Broker or Other. It is mostly a label for filtering. One place uses it: the supplier field on an external receipt lists only entities of the Supplier type.
• Three addresses — Billing, Delivery and Additional.
• Contacts — the people at a company, each with a role, e-mail address, phone and note. A contact person who left can be switched off but kept on record.
• Active or inactive — only active entities are offered when you choose a customer, buyer or supplier on another screen. Inactive ones stay on the list and on the documents that already use them.
• Documents keep their own copy. Changing an entity does not change orders or invoices that already exist. They keep the details from the moment they were created.

You choose entities in these places:

• the customer on a new order;
• the customer of a shipment;
• the buyer on an invoice;
• the supplier on an external receipt (entities of the Supplier type only).

The lists of entities on those screens end with a link to add a missing entity. It opens New entity in a new browser tab. It needs the Entities (B2B/B2C): Create permission.

Entities created from orders

Complaia also creates entities for you, from the customer details on orders. This happens in three cases:

1. An order is imported from a connected shop or marketplace. The order is not linked to the entity.
2. A shipment is created from an order, whether by a person, by an integration rule or by a pickup for a claim or return. This happens for every such shipment, however the customer was entered. The shipment's customer is set to the entity.
3. You tick Save the customer to the entity list on a new order. This option appears only when you typed the customer yourself. The order is linked to the entity.

Before creating anything, Complaia looks for an existing entity. It tries, in this order:

1. the tax ID, including the EU VAT number, in any written form, with or without dashes, spaces or a country prefix;
2. for a company, the company name, exactly, ignoring upper and lower case;
3. the e-mail address, compared with the entity's personal e-mail and with the e-mail of each of its contacts;
4. for a person, the full name, but only when the order has a tax ID or an e-mail address.

Entities of the Customer type are preferred. An entity whose tax ID or e-mail address differs from the order's is never chosen. Inactive entities are found too.

When nothing matches, the new entity:

• is an active entity of the Customer type;
• gets the billing and delivery addresses from the order;
• gets one contact with the order's e-mail address and phone;
• gets a note saying which order it was created from, except when you ticked the option on the new order. The note and the contact's role are written in your company's language.

The screens

Entity list

Column	What it shows
Entity	The name. Underneath: the e-mail address of an individual, or the short name of a company. With the edit permission, a pencil opens the edit form
Status	Active or Inactive
Kind	Person or Company (the entity type)
Type	The relationship type
Tax ID / PESEL	The company's tax ID, or the person's PESEL (Polish personal ID number). Shown only to people allowed to see sensitive data
Contact	The e-mail address and phone. For a company, those of its first contact, with a note such as +1 contact when there are more
Address	An address of the entity
Created	When the record was added

Click a row to open the entity. Ctrl-click or Cmd-click opens it in a new browser tab. The header has Refresh and New entity.

The search box finds an entity by its name, short name, tax numbers, addresses, phone or e-mail, and by the name, e-mail address or phone of any contact.

You can filter the list by:

• status, kind, type (Customer or Supplier) and creation date;
• two things without a column: NIP (the tax ID, only for people allowed to see sensitive data) and City (the billing city).

The entity page

The entity page is for reading, with a refresh button and Edit in the header. It shows:

• the name, the internal note, the website, the record's ID with a copy button, and the dates the record was created and last updated;
• Basic data — the name and the entity type. For a company: the short name and website. For an individual: first name, last name, personal phone and personal e-mail. People allowed to see sensitive data also see the relationship type, the tax ID, EU VAT, REGON, KRS and PESEL, each with a copy button;
• Addresses — billing, delivery (shown as Shipping) and additional;
• Contacts (for an individual: Contact details), each with a green or red dot for active or inactive;
• Order history — orders linked to this customer, newest first, 20 per page. Each row shows the number, the customer name from the order, the date, the status and the amount. Click an order to open it.

Order history lists:

• the orders on which this entity was chosen as the customer;
• orders whose customer has the same tax ID or EU VAT number as the entity;
• orders whose customer has the same e-mail address as the entity or one of its contacts.

It needs Orders: View or Entities (B2B/B2C): Sensitive data.

📷 Screenshot to add: an entity page of a company with Basic data, Addresses, Contacts and the Order history panel

Common tasks

Add an entity

1. Go to Sales → Entities → New entity.
2. In Basic data, choose the Entity type and the Relationship type.
   • Company: type the Name (required). Optionally add the Tax ID, Website, EU VAT, REGON and KRS. An EU VAT number must start with an EU country code, for example DE123456789.
   • Individual: type the First name and Last name. One of the two is enough. In Personal data you can add the PESEL, Personal phone and Personal email.
3. In Addresses, fill in Billing, Delivery and Additional as needed: Street, Postcode, City, region and Country. The country starts on the one from your company details.
4. For a company, click Add contact in Contacts for each contact person. Fill in Full name, Role, Email, Phone and Note. Active contact is on for a new person.
5. In Settings, you can leave an internal Note.
6. Click Create. You see Entity created. and the new entity opens.

A new entity is always active. Clear in the header empties the form.

Fill in a Polish company from its tax ID

1. On the new-entity or edit form, set Entity type to Company and type the 10-digit tax ID (NIP) in Tax ID.
2. Click GUS. The button appears next to the field once the number is a valid Polish tax ID. Dashes and a PL prefix are ignored.
3. Check the details. The Name, REGON, KRS and address are filled in from the Polish company register (GUS). The address goes into all three address blocks, and you can change it afterwards. The EU VAT number is filled in only when the field is empty and the company is listed as an active VAT payer. Otherwise a notice says it was left empty.

On the edit form, the Tax ID field, and with it the GUS button, is shown only to people allowed to see sensitive data.

Edit an entity

1. Open the entity and click Edit, or click the pencil on the list.
2. Change the fields. To add or remove contact people, use Add contact and Delete in Contacts. For a person who left but should stay on record, switch off Active contact.
3. Click Save. You see Entity saved.

If you click Refresh with unsaved changes, Complaia asks first, because the changes would be lost. The header also shows when someone else is editing the same entity.

Hide an entity you no longer use

1. Open the entity's edit form.
2. In the Active field, switch off the switch labelled Visible.
3. Click Save.

The entity becomes Inactive. It is no longer offered on new orders, shipments, invoices and external receipts. It stays on the list and on existing documents. Switch it back on to use the entity again.

Delete an entity

You need the Entities (B2B/B2C): Delete permission.

1. Open the entity's edit form and click Delete in the header.
2. Confirm Delete entity?

The window says the entity will be deleted permanently. In fact, the record is not erased. It is switched to Inactive, exactly as in the task above, and you can switch it back.

An entity that is the customer of any shipment, including a cancelled one, cannot be deleted. Switch it to inactive instead.

See what a customer has ordered

1. Open the entity.
2. Scroll to Order history. Use Next and Back to page through it.
3. Click an order to open it.

When it doesn't work

What you see	Why	What to do
There is no GUS button	The Tax ID is not a valid Polish tax ID, the entity type is Individual, or, on the edit form, you are not allowed to see sensitive data	Check the number. For foreign companies, type the details yourself
GUS lookup works only for a valid Polish NIP.	The number has ten digits but is not a valid Polish tax ID	Correct the number
No company found for this NIP	The register has no such company, or the register could not be reached	Check the number and try again, or type the details yourself
A notice that the entity is not listed as an active VAT payer on the White List, and the EU VAT number was not filled in	The Polish register of VAT payers lists the company with another status	Leave EU VAT empty, or type the number yourself if you know it
The EU VAT field turns red and the entity is not saved	The number does not start with an EU country code	Add the country code, for example DE
The entity cannot be deleted because it is used in shipments.	The entity is the customer of at least one shipment	Switch off Visible on the edit form instead
A "deleted" entity is still on the list as Inactive	Deleting only deactivates	Nothing to do. Filter the list by status to hide inactive entities
An entity cannot be found when choosing a customer, buyer or supplier	It is inactive. On an external receipt, it may also not be of the Supplier type	Switch Visible back on, or change the Relationship type to Supplier
The supplier list on an external receipt is empty	Your role has warehouse permissions only. The list of entities needs one of the permissions in the note under the table below	Ask an administrator to add, for example, Entities (B2B/B2C): View
The Type column shows broker or other instead of a name	These two types are not translated on the list	Open the entity to see its type
The Address column shows only a country	The column shows the additional address. An entity with only a billing address shows the default country there	Fill in the additional address, or open the entity
The tax numbers and the relationship type are missing on the entity page	Your role lacks Entities (B2B/B2C): Sensitive data	Ask an administrator to add it
Order history says there are no orders, although there are some	You see the panel through an invoicing permission, but the list needs Orders: View or Entities (B2B/B2C): Sensitive data	Ask an administrator to add one of them
The same customer exists twice	The orders had different details, for example a different tax ID or e-mail address. An individual with neither a tax ID nor an e-mail address always gets a new entity. New entity does not check for duplicates	Keep one record up to date and switch the other to inactive. Records cannot be merged
Order history shows an order status in Polish	The panel does not translate the built-in status names	Open the order to see the status in your language
A note or contact role of an automatic entity is in another language	Automatic entities are written in your company's language	Nothing to do

Permissions

The permission names below are as shown in the role editor, in the Entities (B2B/B2C) group.

To do this	You need
Open Sales → Entities and the entity page	View
Add an entity	Create
Save a typed customer to the entity list from a new order	Create
Edit an entity, including switching Visible	Edit
Use Delete	Delete
See tax IDs, EU VAT, REGON, KRS, PESEL and the relationship type on the entity page	Sensitive data. People who can create or correct invoices see them too
See Order history on an entity	Orders: View or Sensitive data

People who work with orders, shipments, production orders, route planning or invoices can choose entities on those screens without View here. Warehouse permissions alone are not enough.

Related

• Orders — choosing a customer on a new order
• The order record — what is copied from the entity to an order
• Shipments · Invoicing · External receipts
• Sales entities — your own invoicing companies, a different thing
• Roles & permissions