Contacts vs Customers
Two pages, similar data, different purposes. Easy to mix up the first week.
Contacts
People and companies — anyone you've talked to, regardless of whether they bought anything. Leads, prospects, vendors, journalists who called once. Light record: name, phone, email, tags.
Customers
People and companies who are paying or have paid you. A Customer has memberships (which Person/Company is on the account, in what role), call history, work record history, integration sync state, notes. Heavier record.
The lifecycle
A Contact becomes a Customer the first time a work record is created against them (an appointment, a quote, an order). The promotion is automatic — you don't manually convert.
Why two surfaces
You search Contacts when triaging an inbound lead. You open Customers when you need history. Different rhythms, different filters.