Adding a New Client: Step-by-Step Guide

A client record is the thing everything else in NextCrew hangs off. Orders, rates, invoices, portal logins, crew preferences — none of it exists until the client does. It takes about five minutes to create one properly, and most of what makes it useful later is filled in during those five minutes.

▶ Watch a client record being created

That is the whole job. Everything below is detail for when something is unusual — you do not need to read it to get started.

Who this applies to

• Account managers and business development — you create most of these, often straight after a first conversation.
• Client coordinators — you live with whatever was filled in, so you are the one who finds out what was skipped.
• Administrators — the dropdowns in Step 3 are yours to set up, and everyone else lives with what you choose.

Before you start

Steps

Step 1: Open the form

Go to CRM and click Add New Client.

Step 2: Fill in who they are

The identity fields — company name, address, website and social links. Type the name exactly as it should appear on an invoice, because that is where it ends up.

Step 3: Set the four fields that drive everything else

These four are dropdowns, and they are the difference between a client list you can work from and one you can only scroll. All four are yours to change — they live in Code Tables, NextCrew's name for the lookup lists behind every dropdown.

Also set Assigned Team Member. One named person, not a team — shared ownership of a client reliably means nobody owns it.

And Line of Business if you run more than one, so you can tell which part of the business serves them.

Step 4: Save, then build the account out

Click Save. The record exists. What you add next depends on what the client is for.

What your crew can see

This is the single most common way something private ends up in front of a worker, and it happens because both fields are on the same screen and one is obviously a text box.

What to do next

A client record on its own does nothing. In order:

1. Add the contacts — without them nothing can be sent anywhere.
2. Set up rates — before the first order, not after the first invoice.
3. Decide on portal access — do they place their own orders and approve their own timesheets?
4. Set the first follow-up task — a new client with no next action is how an account goes cold while everyone assumes someone else has it.

If it's not working

I can't see Add New Client

Symptom. You are in CRM and there is no button.

Check, in order:

1. Your role. Creating clients needs the CRM: Add Client permission. Managers and Administrators have it; other roles may not.
2. Ask an administrator to check Settings > Staff > Roles, edit your role, and enable CRM: Add Client.
3. Sign out and back in after the change. A permission granted mid-session does not always appear until you do.

See Admin guides to managing company permissions.

A dropdown is missing the option I need

Symptom. Account Type, Lead Source or Follow-Up Status has no value that fits, so people pick the least wrong one.

Cause. These are code tables, and they ship with defaults that were not written for your business.

Fix. An administrator adds the value in Code Tables. It then appears for everyone. Do not work around it by picking something close — a year of least-wrong answers makes the field useless for reporting. See Code Tables HQ.

We've ended up with the same client twice

Symptom. Two records for one company, with orders and history split across both.

Usual cause. Two people created the client within a few days of each other, using different spellings — the legal name on one, the trading name on the other.

Preventing it. Search before you create, using a distinctive fragment of the name rather than the whole thing. “Mercy” finds Mercy General Hospital, Mercy Health Partners and Mercy Gen. Hosp.; typing the full legal name finds only the one spelled exactly that way. Most duplicates are created by someone who searched correctly for the wrong version of the name.

If one already exists, pick the record that carries the most history — usually the one with the invoices — and make it the one you keep:

1. Move what can move. Contacts, documents and notes can be recreated on the surviving record. Do that first.
2. Accept what cannot. Orders, timesheets and invoices stay on the record they were created against. Nothing will bring them across.
3. Rename the loser so nobody picks it by accident — something like Mercy General — DO NOT USE, see other record.
4. Set it to Inactive. Do not try to delete it; its history is attached either way, and an inactive client is filtered out of every list view worth using.
5. Add a note on the surviving record saying a duplicate exists, which one, and what is stranded on it. Otherwise somebody finds the old invoices in a year and assumes they are missing.

How to know it's complete

• ✅ The company name matches what should appear on an invoice.
• ✅ Account Status, Account Type, Lead Source and Follow-Up Status are all set — none left on a default nobody chose.
• ✅ One named person is in Assigned Team Member.
• ✅ At least one contact exists, with a working email address.
• ✅ There is an open, dated follow-up task.
• ✅ Nothing commercial has been typed into Policies and Procedures.

Related articles

• Add & Maintain Client Contacts — the people on the record, and the Client Contact List report
• Set Up Client Portal Access — giving a contact a login, and what they can do with it
• Configure Client Rate Tables — pay and bill rates, before the first order
• Preferred and Not Preferred (DNR) Crew — who the client wants back, and who they do not
• Manage Prospects and Build a Pipeline — the same record before you have won them
• Code Tables HQ — every dropdown in Step 3, and how to change it
• Guide to Managing Follow Up Statuses — the eight defaults and how to fit them to your team
• Your Data, Your Way: list, view and filters — building the client list you actually work from
• User Guide to Manage Configuration for CRM — every other CRM setting behind these screens
• Admin guides to managing company permissions — who on your team can create and edit clients

FAQ

Q: I don't see the option to add a new client. Why?

A: You most likely do not have the CRM: Add Client permission. An administrator enables it under Settings > Staff > Roles. See the troubleshooting section above.

Q: Can I add more than one contact for the same client?

A: Yes, as many as you need — the person who calls in orders, the one who approves timesheets, the one who pays the invoice. They are often three different people.

Q: Are the policies I add visible to the crew?

A: Yes. Policies and Procedures are shown to crew members when they apply for that client's shifts. Anything you would not want a worker reading belongs in Notes instead.

Q: The client has several sites. One record or several?

A: Several, linked as parent and child, if the sites need to be staffed or billed separately. One record only if everything genuinely runs through one address and one invoice.

Q: Do I have to fill in everything before saving?

A: No. Save the core record, then add contacts, rates, documents and preferences. The order that matters is in What to do next above.

Q: What happens to a client we stop working with?

A: Set Account Status to Inactive. The record, its history and its invoices all stay. Deleting a client with history behind it is rarely what anyone actually wants.