A business account is the company-record equivalent of a customer. Use it for fleet operators, taxi firms, leasing companies, and any trade customer whose vehicles you service under a company name rather than an individual's.
Business accounts have:
- A company name and an address
- One or more contacts — the people you actually talk to (
businessContacts) - Phones / emails — stored as labelled key-value pairs in a generic
businessContactInfotable - Permissions in the
businesses.*group (see Permissions reference)
The business record's tabs
| Tab | What's on it |
|---|---|
| Info | Company name, address, notes, and the labelled phone / email rows |
| Contacts | The named people at the company (Business contacts) |
| Fleet | Vehicles derived from the account's jobcards, and their reminders |
| Jobs | Every jobcard billed to this account, so you can see what the company has had done |
| Financials | What the account has been invoiced and paid, shown only to roles with the payments view permission |
Financials is the one tab that can be missing: Reception and Technician roles typically can't see it, so they get the other four.
Creating one
Add a business account from the Businesses page, or inline from a jobcard when you need one mid-booking. A new account is created with two contact rows already in place, labelled General Contact and Finance, both empty. Fill them in from the account's Info tab. The Finance row is the one Pistonlog looks for when it emails an invoice, so it's worth completing even if it's the same address as the general one.
Vehicles aren't directly linked to a business
Just like with private customers, vehicles aren't bound to a business account at the record level — the link is through shared jobcards. When a jobcard for a fleet vehicle is created, you pick the business account on the jobcard. The vehicle appears in the business's history via that shared jobcard.
The business record's Fleet tab shows every vehicle that has appeared on one of its jobcards in the garage you're currently working in. It's derived from the jobcard history, not a separately maintained list, so a vehicle appears there once it's been linked to a jobcard for the business.
When you'd use one
- A taxi company drops off any of its cars — bill the company, not the individual driver
- A leasing operator sends multiple cars through — single contact for accounts, multiple drivers
- A local business has several pool cars — VAT-registered, needs invoices in the company name
Business account vs customer
| Customer | Business account | |
|---|---|---|
| Represents | A person | A company |
| Contact details | One name + phone + email | Multiple named contacts; phones/emails stored as labelled key-value pairs |
| Vehicles | Linked through shared jobcards | Linked through shared jobcards (same model) |
| Invoicing | One invoice per visit | Same — one invoice per visit on the jobcard. Consolidated billing isn't a feature today |
Related
In this section
Business contacts
A business account can have multiple named contacts — fleet manager, accounts, drivers — each with their own role
Business account fields
What's stored at the company level — name, VAT number, billing address, credit terms
Fleet reminders
Reminders for a business account's vehicles, with per-vehicle override for which contact gets notified