Features at a glance
Multiple contact persons: associate up to 6 contact persons with a single customer.
Primary contact person: clearly designate one person as the main point of contact.
Email preferences: choose whether a contact person is included in email communications.
Seamless integration: sync contact persons between Adfin and Xero.
Validation Checks: ensure data accuracy by preventing duplicate entries.
💡 Tip: To automatically send invoice copies to receipt capture or document management software like Apron, Dext or Hubdoc, simply add the relevant email as a secondary contact on the customer directly in Adfin.
1. Creating a customer with multiple contact persons
Under the Quick create menu on the side bar, select New customer. When creating a customer in Adfin:
Mandatory fields:
Customer name
Primary contact person details: first name, last name, and email.
Note: The first contact person added is automatically set as the primary contact. You can adjust this later.
Adding additional contacts upon customer creation:
Step 1: Add additional contact persons by clicking "+ Add Contact".
Step 2: Provide details like name and email for Contact Person #2.
You can add up to 6 additional contact persons.
Note: Contacts are included in email communications unless excluded.
2. Editing and managing contact persons
Adding a new contact for an existing customer
Step 1: Open the customer profile in Adfin via the Customers view.
Step 2: Click “Add contact person”.
Step 3: Enter the new contact’s details and set their email preferences.
Removing a contact
Step 1: access the customer profile.
Step 2: locate the contact to remove.
Step 3: hit 'Remove'.
The contact marked Mandate person can't be removed while the direct debit mandate is active. Reassign the mandate person first (see below).
Changing who holds the direct debit mandate
Once a customer has an active direct debit mandate, one contact carries a Mandate person badge. Adfin sends mandate notifications to them, and they can't be removed or excluded from emails while the mandate is active. To move the mandate to another contact (for example because the email is wrong), open the three-dot menu next to the contact who should hold it and choose Reassign mandate person, then confirm. They're included in emails automatically from then on.
Updating details
To update contact details:
Step 1: access the customer profile.
Step 2: locate the contact to remove.
Step 3: click 'Edit details'
Modify and save changes.
3. Communication preferences
Email communication
Primary contact: receives all emails and reminders by default.
Additional contacts: can be included or excluded from communications.
To exclude a contact, tick the “Exclude from all email communication” option.
WhatsApp & SMS
Only the primary contact receives WhatsApp and SMS notifications to ensure clarity.
4. Validation and duplicate management
Prevent duplicate entries
Customer name: must be unique.
Contact persons: cannot have identical names under the same customer.
Email addresses: every contact under the same customer needs its own email address.
Error messages will prompt corrections when duplicates are detected.
Missing information
Email: required for all contacts to prevent errors.
Phone number: optional but necessary for SMS/WhatsApp.
5. Troubleshooting common issues
Duplicate names or missing mandatory fields may trigger an error. Correct the input and try again
"An email address is already associated with another contact for this customer"
The full message is An email address is already associated with another contact for this customer. Please ensure all email addresses are unique.
Every contact under a customer needs its own email address, so you'll see this when the address you've entered is already on one of the other contacts.
It comes up most often when you want a different person to receive the direct debit mandate emails and try to put their address on the contact holding the mandate. Move the mandate instead of duplicating the address: add that person as their own contact with their own email, then open the three-dot menu next to them and choose Reassign mandate person. See Changing who holds the direct debit mandate above.
6. Importing customers from Xero
When you first import customers from Xero:
All contact persons will be imported, including:
Primary contact person: first name, last name, email, phone (always included in emails).
Additional contacts: first name, last name, email with email preferences carried over.
On an ongoing basis:
When a customer is updated in Xero, we update:
Customer information (name)
Primary contact person information
Note: we do not capture any updates on secondary persons.
Updates or new secondary persons won’t be synced from Xero -> Adfin
Updates or new secondary persons won’t be synced from Adfin -> Xero
We only fetch secondary persons when customers are created.