Configure Customers for Your Business
Before you add your first customer, it’s worth spending ten minutes deciding how customers should behave by default across your whole organization. Set these rules once in Settings, and every new customer inherits them — while you keep the freedom to override individual customers when a real relationship calls for it.
This page is a decision guide. For each setting it tells you what you’re choosing, what we recommend, and when to override it — so you can set things up to match how your business actually works, not ours.
The one idea behind all of it: default, then override
Almost every customer setting follows the same pattern:
- The organization default — set in Settings, it applies to everyone automatically.
- The per-customer value — set on an individual customer’s profile, it overrides the default for that customer only.
So the question is never “default or custom” — it’s “what should the sensible default be, and which customers are the exceptions?” Get the default right and you’ll rarely touch the exceptions.
All of these settings are organization-wide and require the settings.write permission. If you can see a setting but not the Save button, ask an admin to adjust your role. Changing a customer’s own profile needs customers.write instead.
1. Discount limit — cap the org, set the customer
Where: Settings → Customer Discount • full guide
This is the clearest example of default-then-override, and the one most businesses get wrong.
- The organization setting is a ceiling, not a default — the maximum discount anyone on your team can save on a customer. Set it to
10%and no customer can be given more than a 10% standing discount. - Each customer’s profile carries their own discount %, anywhere from 0 up to that ceiling. That percentage then applies automatically to their orders.
| You want to… | Do this |
|---|---|
| Stop staff over-discounting | Set the org Max Discount Limit to your real cap (e.g. 15%) |
| Give one loyal customer a standing 10% | Leave the org cap as-is; set Discount % to 10 on their profile |
| Allow any discount | Set the org limit to 0 (means “no limit”) |
Set the ceiling to the highest discount a manager would ever approve — not the highest you’ve ever given. It’s a guardrail, so err on the tighter side; you can always raise it.
2. Customer types — the categories your team picks from
Where: Settings → Customer Types • full guide
Every customer is tagged with a type. Rentablez ships three you can’t remove — Company, Individual, and 3PL — and lets you add your own (Government, Reseller, NGO, School…).
Decide up front:
- Which custom types do you actually need? Add only the categories you’ll filter or report on. Don’t mirror your entire CRM — a handful of meaningful buckets beats twenty you never use.
- Retire, don’t delete. When a type falls out of use, disable it so it disappears from the create screen but existing customers keep their tag. Deleting only removes the choice; it never re-tags anyone.
The built-in 3PL type is special: it automatically captures end-client details on the customer record. That behavior is tied to the system type — you can’t get it by naming a custom type “3PL”. See 3PL Rider Accounts.
3. Risk scoring — let Rentablez flag risky customers for you
Where: Settings → Risk Scoring
Rentablez can score each customer’s risk automatically and show a badge on their profile, so staff see trouble before they hand over stock. You choose which signals count and how much each one weighs — or leave it off and set risk by hand.
The decision: automatic scoring, or manual?
- Manual only — every customer just has a simple Good / Bad flag you set yourself. Fine when you’re small and know your customers by name.
- Automatic scoring — turn it on and Rentablez computes a score from real behavior, then labels each customer Low / Medium / High risk against cutoffs you set.
If you switch it on, pick which factors matter to you and give each a weight:
| Factor | What it measures | Turn on when… |
|---|---|---|
| Overdue — days | Unpaid invoices past their due date | Late payment is your main risk |
| Overdue — amount | Total unpaid money past due | Large balances worry you more than lateness |
| Payment timeliness | Average days late on recent paid invoices | You want to reward habitually prompt payers |
| Customer-caused damage | Breakdown events in the last 12 months | You rent fragile or high-value gear |
| Unresolved inspection defects | Open critical/major defects | Returns come back damaged and unfixed |
| Loyalty credit | Long-standing, high-volume customers | You want tenure to reduce a customer’s score |
Start simple: enable just Overdue — days and Loyalty, save, then use Preview Impact to see how your existing customers would be scored before committing. Add more factors once you trust the output.
After any change you can Rescore All to re-evaluate every customer at once. A customer’s automatic score never blocks a booking on its own — it’s a warning for your staff, and you can always override the flag on the profile.
4. Overdue grace period — when “late” becomes “overdue”
Where: Settings → Receivables
An invoice becomes overdue a set number of days after its due date. That single number decides when receivables reports light up and feeds the “overdue” risk factor above.
| Grace period | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 days (default) | Overdue the day after the due date — strictest |
| 3–7 days | A short cushion for cheques/bank transfers to clear |
| Higher | Looser follow-up; use if your customers routinely settle late by arrangement |
This setting and risk scoring are linked. If you widen the grace period, customers who were flagged for being a few days late may drop off the risk radar — which is usually what you want, but check it matches how aggressively you chase payment.
5. Terminology — call them whatever your industry calls them
Where: Settings → Terminology
If “customer” isn’t the word your business uses — maybe they’re clients, renters, hirers, or members — rename it once and the new word appears everywhere in the app: menus, buttons, forms, and reports.
Terminology only changes the label, never the behavior. A renamed “Client” is still a customer under the hood, with all the same settings, types, and risk scoring described above.
A sensible starting point
If you just want to get going, here’s a configuration that works for most rental businesses:
- Customer Discount — set the max limit to the highest discount a manager would approve (e.g.
15%). Leave individual customers at0%and raise them case by case. - Customer Types — add only the one or two custom types you’ll actually filter on. Leave the rest.
- Risk Scoring — enable Overdue — days and Loyalty, run Preview Impact, then Rescore All. Add factors later.
- Receivables — start at
0days grace and loosen only if your customers legitimately need clearing time. - Terminology — rename “customer” only if your industry genuinely uses a different word.
You can revisit any of these at any time — nothing here is a one-way door.