Customers and the Customer Portal

Everything TimelyDo keeps about the people you invoice, and the private page where each of them sees what you sent.

5 min read Updated October 2026 Invoicing

The short version

Add a customer once, from Customers or right in the invoice editor. Their details go onto every invoice, and their own settings win over yours. Turn on the portal to give them one private page with all their invoices and estimates.

Customers

Adding a customer

Open Customers and select Add customer, or start typing in the customer box of the invoice editor. Typing an email address puts it in the email field of the new customer, anything else becomes the name.

Choose whether you invoice a person or a business. A new customer starts as the kind you picked last. The country decides the address fields: in Germany, for example, the postal code comes before the city and there is no region.

What a customer holds

A name, an email address for the invoices, a phone number, the billing address and, for a business, a tax number. For a VAT number in the EU, TimelyDo asks the EU register and shows whether it could be confirmed. Internal notes are only for you.

FieldUsed for
Name and addressThe Bill to block of every invoice
EmailWhere invoices, reminders and receipts are sent
Tax numberPrinted under the address, needed for many business invoices
Invoice languageThe email, the PDF and the invoice page, in English or German

Their own settings

Under Tax and preferences a customer can have their own invoice currency, payment terms, hourly rate and look. Empty means your defaults from Invoice settings are used.

The currency list suggests your default and the currency of their country first. Their hourly rate is used when you add hourly work for them, and when you bill logged time without typing a rate. Their look is the template and colour their invoices start with, including a colour of your own.

Working with them

Billing contacts

A business often wants invoices to reach more than one person. Add up to 5 billing contacts and they get a copy of each invoice: the send dialog puts them in Copies, where you can still change them for one email.

The customer page

Opening a customer shows their details, what they still owe and what you billed in total per currency, and their latest invoices. Each invoice opens its own page, a draft opens in the editor. New invoice starts an invoice with the customer already chosen.

Archiving a customer

Archive a customer you no longer work with. They leave the list and the editor search, and their invoices stay as they are. Restore brings them back at any time.

The portal is off while a customer is archived. It works again at the same address when you restore them.
Portal

The customer portal

The portal is one private page per customer with every invoice and estimate you sent them, never a draft. At the top it shows what is still to pay, per currency. Each row opens the invoice or estimate page, where it can be paid, accepted or downloaded.

Turn it on from the customer page with Turn on the portal. The page is not listed by search engines and records nothing.

Sharing and turning it off

Copy the address and send it yourself, or select Email the link to open your own email app with the link already written in. TimelyDo sends nothing for you here.

New address turns the old address off, for when it reached the wrong person. Turn off closes the portal completely.

Help

FAQ

Q

Can a customer have invoices in two currencies?

Yes. Each invoice has its own currency. The customer page shows what was billed and what is still owed per currency, never added across.
Q

Does changing a customer change invoices already sent?

No. A sent invoice keeps the details it went out with. Drafts pick up the change.
Q

Can the customer pay from the portal?

Each invoice in the portal opens its own page, where it can be paid by card when you take card payments.

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