Onboarding -
Adding Your First Customer & Location
Learn how to add your first customer and their service location. These are the two most fundamental records in Upbuoy, forming the foundation for all scheduling, routing, and billing.
Duration
15 minutes
Category
Getting Started
Part 1: Why This Step Is Important
In Upbuoy, everything revolves around your customers and where you service their pools. Adding a customer creates a profile for all their information, while the service location is the physical address that will be placed on a route.
The Customer Record
Stores contact information, billing preferences, and is linked to all their invoices, quotes, and work orders.
The Service Location Record
Stores the physical address, gate codes, property notes, and is the actual "stop" on a technician's route.
By entering this information now, you're setting the stage for building your first route in the next step.
Part 2: A Guided Walkthrough of the Onboarding Step
After adding your first technician, you'll land on the "Add Your First Customer" screen.
Here's a step-by-step guide to filling it out:
Step 1: Enter Customer's Name
First Name & Last Name: Fill in the primary contact person's name for this service location. This is who your invoices and communications will be addressed to.
Step 2: Enter the Service Address
This is the physical address where the pool is located.
Service Street
As you start typing the street address, you'll see a list of suggestions appear. This is our Address Autocomplete feature.
Select an Address
Click on the correct address from the suggestions list.
Auto-Fill
When you select an address, the City, State, and Zip fields will be filled in for you automatically. This ensures accuracy and saves you time.
Pro Tip: Using the address suggestions is highly recommended. It saves the location's precise latitude and longitude, which is essential for accurate route optimization later.
Step 3: Enter Contact Information
Enter the customer's primary email address. This is where invoices, quotes, and service notifications will be sent.
Phone Number
Enter the customer's mobile phone number. This is used for service text notifications (if you enable them). The field will automatically format the number as you type (e.g., (555) 555-5555).
Step 4: Continue
Once all the required fields are filled, click the "Continue" button. This action will:
Save this information to your database, creating both a new customer and their first service location.
Take you to the final step of the onboarding wizard: scheduling the service.
Part 3: Behind the Scenes: The "Magic" of Address Lookup
When you type an address into the "Service Street" field, Upbuoy is doing more than just saving text.
Address Autocomplete
We send your partial query to the Google Maps API via our own secure endpoint. Google returns verified, properly formatted address suggestions to ensure your data is clean and accurate from the start.
Geocoding
When you select a suggested address, we also retrieve its precise latitude and longitude. These coordinates are saved with the service location and are critical for the mapping and route optimization features you'll use later.
Part 4: Key Concepts & Pro Tips
Customer vs. Location
It's important to understand that a single Customer can have multiple Service Locations. This is perfect for property managers or clients with more than one home.
In this onboarding step, you're creating the customer and their first location simultaneously. You can always add more locations later from the customer's profile page.
Service Address vs. Billing Address
This onboarding step simplifies setup by asking only for the Service Address. By default, this is also used as the customer's billing address.
If your customer has a separate billing address (like a P.O. Box or office), you can add it later by editing their full profile on the main Customers page.
Adding More Customers Later
You're not limited to this one customer! You can add as many customers as you need at any time by navigating to the main Customers page and clicking the "Add New Customer" button.
Key Takeaways
Customer records store contact and billing information, while service locations are the physical addresses on your routes.
Always use the address autocomplete feature to ensure accurate geocoding for route optimization.
One customer can have multiple service locations - perfect for property managers or multi-home clients.
Next Steps
Great job! You've added your technician and your first customer. The final piece of the puzzle is to tell Upbuoy when to service this customer's pool.
Ready to continue?
Proceed to Module 4: Scheduling Your First Service