Getting started with the CRM

What is the CRM?

Home opens with quick cards — your last invoice, your last quotation (when Quotes are switched on) and your newest customer — each with a one-tap create button, so the next bill or quote is never more than a click away.

The CRM (customer book) is one place to remember every customer and everything about them — so nothing lives only in your head. You don't need a website to use it; it is a full business tool on its own.

Billing and credit have their own guides — see CRM billing & credit and the bill counter. This one covers the basics.

Opening the CRM — it sets itself up

The CRM is already on for every account — there is nothing to install or activate. Click CRM in your dashboard sidebar. The way back out is always the same: Back to Main Dashboard at the top of the CRM menu (on a phone, inside the Menu sheet) — “Main Dashboard” is the name of your account level, where your websites, your businesses and your account settings live. A CRM-only team member sees Sign out there instead, because the CRM is all they have.

CRM → Home

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1. 1Many booksRun more than one business from the same login — each keeps its own customers and invoices.

Business modes — the CRM speaks your language

A business mode reshapes the CRM around your trade, so a boutique sees “Orders & fittings” where a clinic sees “Patients” and “Treatments”. Pick one when prompted, or any time from CRM → Business type & features. While you hover or tap a type there, the small phone-bar preview on the page shows how the bar reads in that type's words — before anything changes; a switch mid-use asks first and says what moves and what stays.

There are ready-made modes for Shop/Retail, Wholesale, Services/Repair, Clinic, Coaching, Real Estate, Restaurant, Freelancer/Agency, Salon, Manufacturing, Pharmacy, Gym, Boutique/Tailor, Electronics, Transport, Jewellery, Travel, Events and Vehicle Dealer / Auto Mall — plus General, which keeps everything on. A mode changes three things:

Run more than one business — separate CRMs, one login

Many owners run two shops, or a shop plus a side business. The CRM keeps each one as its own separate book — its own customers, bills, staff and business type — under your single login. Nothing mixes: each book keeps its own invoice numbers, GST profile and reports.

Where the hub lives. With more than one business, tapping CRM in your sidebar no longer drops you into whichever book you used last — it opens the Businesses hub, a card per book with what each is owed and what is due today, and the total to collect across all of them on top. With a single business it goes straight into the CRM, because there is nothing to choose between.

Your businesses now show up as cards, just like your websites: on the main dashboard home you'll see a Your Businesses section (each card shows what's left to collect and tasks due), and with more than one business the sidebar's CRM entry opens the Your Businesses page — every book as a card, with the total to collect across all of them on top. Add New Business opens a picker of 20 business types; choose one and the new CRM arrives already set up — the right screens first, a ready pipeline, reminder templates — with its name and the emoji you picked on the card (change either later from the card's Rename / change emoji menu). Inside the CRM, switching is one tap either way: on today's menus, the chip row at the top of Home; on the new menus (rolling out book by book), tap the business name at the top of the screen — on a computer, at the top of the left menu, or its Switch business button — and pick the one to open; on a phone, Menu → Switch business opens the same list. Adding a business now starts with three quick questions — what the business does, whether it bills at a counter, whether it has staff or files — and marks the Recommended type; every other type stays one tap away, and nothing is decided for you. The same “Not sure? 3 quick questions” button sits on the CRM Home until you pick a type. You can keep up to 10 businesses under one login.

One more comfort: in Account settings → Start page you (or any team member, for themselves) can choose where a plain sign-in lands — the dashboard, a website's orders, a specific business's CRM home, or the billing counter. Owners can also set a landing spot for each team member from the Team pages — it's only a landing spot, never a limit.

Operations & Team modules — the full business OS (optional)

Beyond customers and billing, the CRM has a set of operations modules any business can switch on from Business type & features. They stay completely hidden until you enable them, so your CRM stays as light as you want it:

Automations that message customers on WhatsApp — from your own number

CRM → Automations turns a trigger into actions: a follow-up task, a tag, a status — and, once your WhatsApp API number is connected, a WhatsApp message from your own number using one of your approved layouts. The triggers cover the whole money loop: a new lead, a contact added, a deal moving stage, a quote accepted or declined, an invoice issued, an invoice fully paid, an invoice overdue (checked once a day, sent once per invoice) and a recurring payment or renewal falling due — memberships, AMCs, fees.

Every {{slot}} of the layout is filled from what the trigger knows. Type words or tap a placeholder chip: {name}, {first_name}, {phone}, {business} always; {invoice_number}, {amount}, {amount_due}, {due_date} on invoice triggers; {plan} on renewals; {stage} and {deal} when a deal moves; {quote_number} and {response} on quotes. A live preview shows the message with sample values. Recipes written for your business type come first under Suggested for …; a rule's switch shows green while it is on. The library offers ready layouts written for each trigger — your business mode's own first (a gym's membership renewal, a clinic's report-ready, a repair shop's device-ready) — and a layout you don't have yet opens the WhatsApp hub's Templates tab pre-filled for submission. Three recipes get you started: Invoice sent → WhatsApp it, Overdue → polite reminder, Renewal due → reminder. The same placeholders work in task titles (“Collect {amount_due} from {name}”).

A follow-up task from a rule can go to your team members, in turn (Give the task to → Team members, in turn) — handy for sharing new enquiries fairly; see Hot leads and sharing enquiries.

Books with case files also get file triggers — a file changing status, a file pending too long, a loan moved to Loan closed and, with Vehicles switched on, a vehicle document expiring (road tax, fitness, PUC, insurance, permits). Each is offered only where that department is switched on, so a salon never sees them. Their placeholders: {file}, {status}, {reg}, {vehicle} and {amount}; {days}, {agent} and {agent_phone} when a file waits too long; {closed_on} on a closed loan. The status always reads in the file's own words — an RTO NOC file never says “RC transfer completed”.

A rule can also send the customer an update — the standard update for what happened, or words you write. It waits in Customer messages for one tap, or goes out from your WhatsApp API number when that switch is on. The trigger A WhatsApp update to a customer could not be sent lets a rule make a follow-up task when one fails.

Vehicle dealers get the whole flow pre-wired. The Vehicle Dealer / Auto Mall mode turns these on and seeds an automatic workflow: when a deal is marked Vehicle booked, a Finance file opens by itself; when the loan is marked Loan disbursed, the Insurance file and the RTO file open together; completing RTO opens a Workshop pre-delivery job card; and finishing the workshop step creates the delivery task with a congratulations message ready to send. (A book that picked this mode earlier keeps its own chain — Finance done → Insurance → RTO — untouched.) Each new file stays linked to the one it came from: the customer, the vehicle and the people on the file carry over, the loan's bank fills the RTO file's hypothecation financier, and the loan amount is read live from the Finance file — the loan agent is never copied in as the RTO or insurance agent. A file already open for the same customer and vehicle is never opened twice, and marking a loan Loan closed years later never restarts the chain. Every link of the chain is an ordinary automation you can edit or switch off under Automations.

Files that wait too long get a follow-up by themselves. Every case file counts its days pending — from its start date (or the day it was added), stopping when it is finished or rejected, and pausing while it sits On hold — and shows a priority: Normal, then Medium, High and Critical at 30, 60 and 90 days (change the days for each department under Auto-assign & priority). In a Vehicle Dealer book this is on for Finance, Insurance and RTO: a file still being worked when it reaches Medium, High or Critical gets one follow-up for the person new files of that department go to, with the file's agent and their phone in the note; when five or more files of one department reach the same level on the same day, they arrive as one list instead of five tasks. The very first check only sums up what is already behind — one summary per department and level. A file that is approved, disbursed, issued, rejected or finished never gets one. Any department of any business can switch it on or off under Auto-assign & priority.

Home — your morning screen

Home is the first page of the CRM and the one worth opening every morning: it shows the money and the work that need you today. It arrives in one go, so the tiles never jump around while the numbers load. What's on it:

• Four lead tiles, picked by your business type — a shop leads with Sold today, To collect, To pay and Follow-ups; a dealer, a clinic or an agency with its deals in play; a coaching centre or a gym with the fees due this week. A number that could not be read this time shows “—”, never a made-up ₹0. With Money records switched on, Payouts due, Money due and Cheques to deposit appear after the other tiles under More numbers for logins with Mark payments received.
• More numbers — everything else in one line you can open: spent this month, collected this week, customers, low stock and, for GST-registered books, GST to pay (this month) — sales GST minus purchase credit; tap it for the full math on the GST page.
• Today · follow-ups — what is due by this evening, the late ones first, each with a one-tap done circle and a five-second Undo; when two or more departments have follow-ups due, they are grouped by department (See all opens the rest of that department's list), and All follow-ups opens the page. The Follow-ups tile says how many are overdue — or, when none are, how many are due later today. If you switched Follow-ups off and none are open, the tile reads Turn on follow-ups and takes you to Business type & features.
• Payments to collect — overdue invoices with a WhatsApp reminder button per row.
• Recent customers — the latest people in your book (in your business's own word — patients, students, members…).
• Sync — pulls your latest website customers and enquiries right now instead of waiting for the automatic sync.

A new Home is on its way. Books move to it one by one; yours changes on its own when the rollout reaches it, and nothing you have set up moves. The new Home is built around your business type: four tiles named in your trade's words (a clinic sees Under treatment, a coaching centre Fees due and Classes today, a distributor Outstanding and To dispatch, a salon Due for a rebook), a Today line for shops (billed · spent · to collect), and cards below that follow your type — Who owes you / Payments due (the oldest unpaid bills, with Remind beside a customer's bill), Today's follow-ups (Mark done, for those who may, with a five-second Undo), occasions this week, quotes waiting, classes today. What is still to collect is always on the page: a tile, the Today line, or a To collect chip under More numbers. A brand-new book asks one question first — What does your business do? — and then shows Your next step: three small steps with a ring that fills as you finish them. The ··· menu on a card offers Hide this card to the owner and to a manager with Operations, and Show hidden cards at the end brings one back. The line under the title says when the numbers were last updated, with Refresh beside it. The ✦ button beside Home starts the walkthrough (a new book's Your next step card offers it too); it never starts by itself. The tiles are the same boxes before and after the numbers load, so nothing jumps.

From anywhere in the CRM, press Ctrl+K (or ⌘K on Mac) to search and jump straight to any contact, deal or invoice.

Customer messages — ready to send, never assumed sent

Customers → Customer messages holds the WhatsApp messages the CRM prepares for your customers — an update when a file changes step, a wish you switched on, a message you wrote on a customer's page. When something is waiting, Home shows a Messages to send card with the count; with nothing waiting there is no card. Sending takes two steps: Open in WhatsApp opens the message in your own WhatsApp, ready to send, and when you come back Did it go? asks you — only It went marks it sent, so the history never shows a message as sent that you did not send. When a WhatsApp API number is connected, the owner can let messages go out from that number by themselves. History on the same page lists everything prepared and sent, with Sent today: N at its head, and Settings holds the switches and the words of every message — each section says its state in one line and folds its explanation under How this works.

Contacts vs leads — one book, two kinds

Everyone lives in Customers; the difference is simply how far along they are. A lead is someone who enquired but hasn't bought yet; a customer is someone who has. On the Customers page, Filters → Show (All / Leads / Customers / Archived) works each group. The phone number is the identity — one number, one person, with their whole story on a single page — so when a lead later buys, everything still lands on that same contact. For adding, importing and merging people, see Contacts & leads.

Your website feeds it automatically

If you run websites here, you never re-type a customer into the CRM — they flow in on their own. Every 15 minutes (or instantly, with Home's Sync button) the CRM pulls in:

• Store customers — people who ordered on your website arrive as customers.
• Form enquiries — contact-form submissions arrive as leads; each enquiry is also listed under CRM → Leads.
• Bookings — appointment bookings arrive as leads too.

The sync is careful with your work: it never overwrites a name or note you edited, and it never brings back a contact you moved to Trash on the strength of old history — only a new order, booking or enquiry from their number, made after you trashed them, brings them back (with a note on their timeline saying which website did). Only entries with a phone number sync — the phone is how the CRM recognises the same person everywhere. When the same person enquires again, no duplicate is created — a "New enquiry" note lands on their timeline, and your automations can react to Existing lead enquires again separately from brand-new leads. Leads can also arrive from outside your website (IndiaMART, JustDial, any form) through your lead-capture link under CRM → Websites & lead capture.

Each website chooses which business it feeds. If you run more than one business in the CRM (say a bakery and a catering service, each with its own website), open CRM → Websites & lead capture: every website is listed with the business its customers go to — blank means Main business. Tap Change, pick the business, and choose whether to bring in the website's past customers (all of them, from a date, or only new ones). The dialog prints the real numbers and exactly what will happen before you confirm; WhatsApp order alerts then go out from that business's number. Switch a website off if you never want its enquiries in any CRM (a spam-prone landing page, for example). Nothing here deletes data, and every change is listed under History.

Moving a website between businesses. When a website already brought customers into one business and you point it at another, the dialog asks what to do with them: keep them where they are, move them to the new business with their notes, tags and tasks, or remove them to Trash. Customers with invoices, payments on record, deals, case files, vehicles or class enrolments in the old business are never removed — a copy of their card goes to the new business instead — and customers who also came from another website, or were added by hand, stay too. Invoices, payments, balances and deals never move. Every move or removal has an Undo in History that puts the customers back exactly; the website keeps sending new customers wherever you pointed it. Removing a whole business from the CRM sends its websites back to Main business, and the business itself can be restored from Removed businesses at the bottom of Your Businesses. From a business's menu you can also choose Open this by default, so the CRM opens on that business instead of Main. Under Advanced in the same dialog, a website's form enquiries and car-sell requests can go to a different business than its orders — each person still lives in exactly one place. When you connect a website, the business's GST identity (legal name, GSTIN, PAN, address, state) fills itself from the website's Business Info wherever the CRM field is empty; the Business profile page has a Copy from website button for the same thing.

You decide what flows in. The same page has a "Rules for all websites" panel: switch any source off (store customers, form enquiries, bookings, car-sell requests), pick a from date so old history stays out, or switch to Manual so nothing arrives until you press Import now on a source — each row shows how many entries are waiting. Turning a source off just pauses it; nothing already in your CRM is removed.

Team members — staff work the CRM, not your login

You shouldn't have to hand your phone (or forward your OTP) to whoever manages the counter. Invite staff into the CRM from CRM → Team — they sign in with their own mobile number, never your login.

Keep a staff profile for them under CRM → Staff (HR) with the same mobile number and it connects to their login the moment they accept — they can then mark their own attendance and see their own profile.

Payout details stay with the people who pay. A referral partner's PAN, bank account, UPI and usual payout % are shown — and can be added or changed — only by someone who can confirm payments; everyone else sees the numbers masked (••••1234) and no payout %, so nobody can quietly swap the account a payout goes to. The same goes for the referral payout % on a loan file: only someone who can confirm payments sees it or changes it.

When you are the one invited — working inside another business's CRM — the Team page shows only that business's name and a way back to your own CRM: adding or removing people there is always its owner's job, and inviting someone into your CRM happens from your own CRM's Team page. On a business's own website address (their /admin), their CRM is the only one you work in there. An invitation waiting for you also shows as a small 1 invite pill on the CRM entry in your sidebar.

CRM → Team

Activity — who did what, tracked

CRM → Activity is the record of everything anyone does in your CRM — invoices issued and cancelled, payments marked, contacts added or deleted, exports, settings and team changes — each with who, when, the before → after of every edited field, and the device it came from.

• The dashboard on top: actions in the period (vs the previous one), people active, money moves, Needs a look (deletions, exports, cancellations, access and settings changes), field changes, phone vs computer — plus activity by day and by hour, by area, and a Who did what table per person (actions, last active, what they mostly do, how much from a phone, risky actions, distinct networks).
• One line on top: the period chip (Today · 7 days · 30 days · This month · Last month · All time · Custom dates — a sheet on a phone, the chips side by side on a computer), the Filters button and the ⋯ menu (Refresh · Download CSV for Admins · Activity settings for the owner).
• Filters opens one sheet with everything: Views (the one-tap views and your saved ones), People (a team member — "You" is your own trail; Support and Your provider are shown by role, never by personal name), Areas (Contacts, Invoices, Payments, Expenses, Staff…), Show (Needs a look · Money only · With changes), Device (Phone · Computer) and Search (an invoice number, a name, a network address). A tap applies at once; the filters you applied sit as chips under the line — tap a chip's × to take it off, Clear for the whole picture back. Rows read as sentences — "Ravi issued invoice INV-0042 · ₹12,500 · Ravi Traders" — and link straight to the document; a row's Network shows the address behind it.
• Salary and payroll amounts are hidden from anyone without Mark payments received access, in this log too.
• Every website has the same console — open a website → Settings → Activity log to see who changed a price, cancelled an order, edited a page or invited staff on that site. It sits on the owner's own menu; staff don't see it. Full guide: Activity log.
• Needs your attention — when someone other than you deletes, exports, cancels, revises, merges or changes access or settings, it shows at the top of Activity and as a red strip on Home (“3 risky actions by someone else — see who did what”); if you installed the dashboard app on your phone with notifications on, it also pings you the moment it happens (one ping per burst — a bulk delete of 40 is one alert ×40). Tap Show to see the trail, ✓ to dismiss. Only you (the owner) see and clear alerts — a manager can't silence an alert about their own action. Your own actions never alert you.
• Views (in the Filters sheet) — one-tap filters (Needs a look · Money moves · Deletions · Team today · From phones) plus your own: set any filters, name them under Save this view. Saved views are shared with everyone who can open Activity.
• Activity settings (owner only, under ⋯) — Team members see: everyone's activity (default) or only their own — admins and managers always see everything; and the alert switches (in-app, push to phone).

Finding your way — the menu, in plain words

The left menu (and the phone's Menu button) is grouped the way you think about your business, not the way software is built:

• Home — today at a glance in four tiles picked by your business type: a shop sees sold today, to collect, to pay and follow-ups; a dealer or an agency sees its deals, follow-ups, to collect and customers; a coaching centre or a gym sees the fees due this week first. Every other number — spent this month, collected this week, low stock, GST to pay and, with Money records on, payouts due, money due and cheques to deposit — is one tap away under More numbers. Tap any tile to act. + New at the top makes a bill, invoice, customer, expense, payment, quote or deal from anywhere (on a phone it opens from the bottom of the screen).
• Customers — the people: customers & suppliers, follow-ups, customer messages, website leads, documents, and Visits when switched on in Business type & features (who went to which customer, when, and what happened — Customer visits).
• Work — the work in play: deals, and — when your business uses them — the file desks (finance, insurance, RTO, job cards), vehicle records and classes.
• Sales — what you sell and bill: Bill counter, Invoices, Quotes, To collect, Refunds & returns, Items & prices.
• Money — what comes in on a schedule and what goes out: Recurring payments, Money records (payouts, statements, cheques and salary payments — when switched on in Business type & features; the vehicle-dealer type switches it on for new books), Expenses, Supplier bills (with Purchase orders — order from a supplier, then turn their bill into a supplier bill in one tap), Sales reports, GST report.
• Team & operations — Team & partners, Activity, and the optional staff/attendance/payroll/branches modules.
• Setup — business profile, message templates, automations, lead capture, integrations, import, custom fields — and Business type & features, where everything above is yours to arrange.

Nothing you switched off disappears with your records. A row you switched off that still holds records stays in the menu, dimmed, at the end of its group — “Switched off · 12 records” — and one tap takes you to Business type & features to switch it back on (it shows for whoever may change the menu). Follow-ups never hide while one is open, even if you switched that row off.

Make it yours. Business type & features lets you pick your business type (which renames rows to your words — patients, students, members…), switch any row on or off, order the rows, and choose the phone's bottom bar: Home plus up to three buttons you use most (say Bill · Customers · To collect for a shop, or Deals · Customers · Invoices for an agency). Everything else stays one tap away under Menu.

On the new menus (rolling out book by book — your book may still be on today's): the phone's Menu folds Setup into one Setup · N row — tap it to open the rows, with Customize menu inside; Help stays below it, always visible. A + at the bottom right of Customers, Follow-ups, Invoices, Quotes, Items, Deals, Expenses and Staff opens that page's own Add — the same as the button at the top. If the phone loses its connection, a line under the header says You're offline — showing what was loaded and goes the moment it is back.

Show me around. Every main page has a small ✦ button beside its title — a 30-second walkthrough that points at the two or three things that matter on that page. Home runs it once on your first visit; Help & guide lists them all so you can replay any of them.

Team members see less, on purpose. A member's menu shows only what their role can use: a Viewer's Setup group is just Help, an Agent doesn't see Business profile or Business type & features, anyone who can't create invoices doesn't see the Bill counter, and + New (and every Add / New / Download button) offers only the things they're allowed to do — a Viewer sees a customer's open follow-ups without Add, and Documents offers Remove only to a login that may edit customers. Almost nothing ends in "no permission".

A sheet with changes you haven't saved asks before it closes. Pressing ✕ (or Escape, or tapping outside) on a form you changed shows Close without saving? right at the top of the form — Keep editing takes you back to save, Close without saving drops the change. Nothing you only looked at ever asks: a form you opened and left as it was closes straight away.

Words you'll see. We use plain English everywhere: Credit is what a customer owes you (what some call khata or udhaar), To collect is your unpaid invoices, Supplier bills are purchases with GST you can claim, Expenses are day-to-day costs without a tax invoice.

Common questions

Quick answers to the doubts owners raise most when they first open the CRM.

I don't have a website — can I still use this? Yes, fully. Contacts, follow-ups, billing, credit and team all work with zero websites. The website sync is a bonus, not a requirement.

Will switching business modes lose my data? No. Modes only change words, tab order and starter content. Nothing is ever deleted, and sections holding your data stay visible.

Does customer money pass through us? Never. CRM billing shows your UPI and bank details; customers pay you directly and you mark it received. See CRM billing & credit.

My website customers aren't showing up. Tap Sync on Home. If someone still doesn't appear, check they have a phone number — entries without one can't sync.

Where do WhatsApp broadcasts and auto-replies live? In the WhatsApp hub, which works hand-in-hand with your CRM contacts — see WhatsApp API hub.