# Manage customers

> Customer records — addresses, VAT numbers, group membership, and guest accounts.

Source: CBX documentation, version 4.0 preview (unreleased). Canonical page: https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/orders/manage-customers. Last updated 2026-07-20.

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> **Audience:** store admins, back-office staff · **Scope:** the Customers screen · **Last reviewed:** 2026-07-20

**What this does** — The customer record is the account behind orders: addresses, contact data,
VAT number, language, and — commercially decisive — the **customer group**. Here you fix typos,
upgrade someone to the trade group, or link a store customer to their site login.

## Steps

1. Go to **Customers** and open a record (the orders list links here from each order too):

   ![The customer form](./img/customer-edit.jpeg)

2. What you'll actually edit:
   - **Billing Address** — company, salutation, name, address, country/state, email, phone.
   - **Delivery Address** — a separate block; **Same as billing** collapses it.
   - **VAT IN** — the VAT number; for EU B2B customers this drives reverse-charge handling, so
     fixing a wrong one matters.
   - **Customer group** — move the customer between segments; their pricing mode, permissions
     and discounts change with it (see
     [customer groups](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/commerce/set-up-customer-groups)).
   - **Language** and **Newsletter** — communication preferences; notifications use the
     customer's language.
   - **Platform User ID** — the linked site account; this link is how a login lands on this
     customer record (and in the group its platform group maps to).
3. **Save**.

## What happens next

Changes apply to the account and to **future** orders. Placed orders keep the address data they
were ordered with — that's deliberate (the order is the historical record); the order screen
links back here for the current data.

## Good to know

- **Guest checkouts** create temporary records ("No customer account" rows in the orders list
  are their earliest stage). Completed purchases become permanent customers; abandoned
  temporaries are pruned automatically after the lifetime set in **Settings → Maintenance**.
- Which fields customers themselves see and must fill (checkout, quotation, profile) is the
  [Customer Fields matrix](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/settings/tailor-the-customer-fields) — not this screen.
- The **custom fields** at the bottom are free-form slots (labels from **Settings**) — usable
  for internal notes like a CRM id, and readable by rules.