Customer Management
Sideboard keeps a customer directory for your store. Every customer has a profile with their contact details, store credit balance, and a full history of their transactions with you — buylist payouts, credit redemptions, and manual adjustments. If you’re connected to Shopify, customer records sync bidirectionally so the same customer appears in both systems.
What’s tracked per customer
Each customer record holds:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Name (first + last) | Used on buylist orders and store credit payouts |
| Email address | Unique identifier; used to match customers across systems |
| Phone number | Optional |
| Store credit balance | Current available balance for your store |
| Transaction history | Every credit issued or redeemed, with timestamps and amounts |
Adding a customer
You can add customers individually or in bulk.
Single customer:
- Go to Customers in the sidebar.
- Click New customer (top right).
- Enter their name, email, and optionally a phone number.
- Click Save.
The customer is immediately available on buylist orders and can receive store credit.
During a buylist order:
You don’t need to pre-create customers. When you create a buylist order, you can look up an existing customer by name or email, or create a new one on the spot. Sideboard will create the customer record automatically.
Searching and finding customers
The Customers page has a search bar that filters across name, email, and phone number in real time. You can also sort the list by name, credit balance, order count, or join date.
Common search patterns:
- Type a first name to narrow the list instantly
- Paste an email address to find an exact match
- Search a partial phone number if you only have part of it
Customer profiles
Clicking a customer opens their profile page. From here you can:
- Edit their name, email, or phone
- View store credit balance and add or deduct credit manually
- Browse transaction history — every payout, redemption, and adjustment, in chronological order
- Add a comment — internal note visible only to your staff
- Edit notes — a free-text field for longer-form context (e.g., “prefers cash, only brings Pokemon cards”)
Deleting a customer
Customers can be soft-deleted from their profile. A soft-deleted customer no longer appears in search results or on new buylist orders, but their historical transactions remain intact for your records. If you need to re-activate a deleted customer, contact Sideboard support.
Shopify sync
If your store is connected to Shopify, customer records stay in sync automatically:
- When you add or update a customer in Sideboard, the change pushes to Shopify.
- When a customer updates their profile in your Shopify store, the change pulls back into Sideboard.
- Store credit balances sync in both directions — Sideboard is the source of truth, but Shopify stays current.
Matching is done by email address. If a customer already exists in Shopify when you connect, Sideboard will link the records automatically during the initial sync.
You don’t need to manage this sync manually — it runs in the background whenever a change happens.
Permissions
All staff members can view and search the customer list, view profiles, and create new customers. Adjusting store credit and adding internal notes are also available to all staff. Only store owners can delete customers.
What’s next
- Store Credit — How credit is issued, redeemed, and tracked
- The Order Flow — How buylist orders create customers and pay out store credit
- Shopify Integration — Connecting your Shopify store for bidirectional customer sync
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