The Contacts page holds everyone you work with in Avaza: your own team, the companies you work for or buy from, and the people at those companies. From here you invite people into your account, choose what they can do, and keep their details up to date.

This guide covers the Contacts page, companies and their contacts, and adding team members. For roles, licences, rates and working hours, see managing users.

The Contacts page

Open Contacts from the left menu. Administrators, Finance Managers, Portfolio Managers and Project Managers see it. Nobody else does. The page has four tabs:

  • Team: the people who work in your business, called team members.
  • Companies: your customers and suppliers, one row per company.
  • Company Contacts: the people at those companies, grouped by company. Avaza also calls them external contacts.
  • Archived: team members and contacts who no longer have access.

Search finds people by name, email address, phone number, position, tag, company, role or invitation status. Use Group, Sort, Fields and the filters to arrange a tab, or a quick filter such as Pending invites or No roles assigned. A green dot on a person's picture means they have Avaza open right now.

Add a company

Every company contact belongs to a company, so start there.

  1. On the Companies tab, click Add Company.

  2. Type the Customer Name and choose the company's Currency. The other fields are optional.
    To add the first contact at the same time, fill in Contact First Name, Contact Last Name and Contact Email. If you fill in one of them, all three are needed.

  3. Click Save.

Everyone who can open Contacts can add, edit and delete companies. Company names must be unique in your account. If your subscription limits the number of companies, Avaza tells you when you reach it. You can also add a company while you add a contact (below), a project or a bill.

Company details

Click a company's name to open its page. The Details tab has two sections you can change with Edit:

  • Company Information: the name, Billing Address (used on invoices and estimates), phone, fax, website and comments.
  • Financial Details: the Currency, the Invoice Trading Term that sets the due date of new invoices, the Bills Trading Term, the default Estimate Template, Retainer Template, Invoice Template and Bill Template, Allow Automatic Invoice Reminders, Require Purchase Order Numbers when sending Invoices, and the company's Tax Number.

You can't change a company's currency once it has invoices, credit notes, payments, estimates or expenses. The other tabs (Contacts, Dashboard, Projects, Invoices, Estimates, Timesheets, Expenses, Schedules and Bills) show everything linked to the company.

The Dashboard tab of the Harvest & Co. company page, showing its uninvoiced time, expenses and fixed amounts by project, with the Unpaid and Expense Summary widgets below
The Invoices tab of a company page listing one paid, one late and one draft invoice, with Paid and Balance columns

Add a company contact

  1. On the Company Contacts tab, click Add Contact.
    To add someone to a particular company, click the person icon next to the company's name instead, or choose Add Contact from the company's ⋮ menu on the Companies tab.

  2. Choose the Company, or click Add new company and type its name.

  3. Enter the person's Email Address, First Name and Last Name. Phone numbers, position, tags, rates and working hours are optional. Rates and working hours are useful for contractors.

  4. Under Assign Roles, tick what the person may do in Avaza, if anything.

  5. Leave Send Email Invite to User ticked to invite them now, or untick it to invite them later. The box appears once you tick a role.

  6. Click Save.

A company contact can have these roles:

  • Project Collaborator: create and respond to tasks on projects they're a member of. It's the minimum role for opening a project.
  • Timesheet/Expense User: log time and expenses on their projects. It counts towards your Timesheet/Expense User licences.
  • Scheduling User: can be booked on projects in resource scheduling. It counts towards your Scheduling User licences.
  • Chat User: reply to direct messages and take part in the channels they're added to. It doesn't use a Chat User licence for a company contact. See chat for external contacts.
  • Timesheet Approver: approve timesheets on projects where they're set as an approver.
  • Customer Finances: see their company's estimates and invoices, apart from drafts, in the customer portal.

Only Administrators can give Timesheet Approver and Customer Finances. A contact with no roles can't sign in and gets no invitation, but you can still send them invoices and estimates.

Administrators, Finance Managers and Portfolio Managers also see Add to specific projects. Membership is what a contact needs to open a project with Project Collaborator, log time on it with Timesheet/Expense User, or approve its time as a Timesheet Approver. See project membership.

Add a team member

  1. On the Team tab, click Add User. You can also click + at the top of any page and choose Add Team Member.

  2. Enter the person's Email Address, First Name and Last Name.

  3. Check the roles under Assign Roles. Project Collaborator, Timesheet/Expense User and Chat User are already ticked. Untick any the person doesn't need, because some roles use a licence.

  4. Leave Send Email Invite to User ticked, and click Save.

A team member's email address can't belong to anyone else in your account, including company contacts and archived people. Managing users explains every role and field, and which roles use a licence.

Invitations

An invitation email has a link to accept it. The person then sets a password and their time zone, or confirms with their existing Avaza login if they already have one. After that, they sign in at your account's web address.

The Invitation Status column shows where each person is:

  • Green tick: they've accepted.
  • Resend: invited but not accepted yet.
  • Send Invite: they have roles but haven't been invited.
  • Blank: no roles, so no access.

Each new invitation replaces the previous one, so only the link in the newest email works. An older link shows "This invitation has expired." If an invitation doesn't arrive, see invitations not received.

Edit, archive or delete

Click a person to edit them in the Edit Team Member or Edit External Contact popup. Its tabs are Details, Approvers and, for Administrators, Finance Managers and Portfolio Managers, Project Membership. To move a contact to another company, change their Company Name.

  • Rates and roles: changes don't reach projects the person is already a member of. See managing users.
  • Email addresses: only an Administrator can change the address of someone who has roles. See changing an email address.
  • Shared addresses: contacts at different companies can share an email address, within some rules. See duplicate email addresses.

The ⋮ at the end of each row holds the other actions:

  • Archive (Administrators only): removes the person's roles and access, but keeps everything they've done. Restore them from the Archived tab. See archiving users.
  • Delete: removes the person for good. Administrators, Portfolio Managers and Project Managers can delete someone with no history in Avaza: no timesheets, expenses, tasks they created, updated or were assigned, task comments, chats, schedule bookings or recurring invoices. Archive everyone else.
  • Delete Company, on the Companies tab: removes the company and its contacts. It's blocked while the company has projects, invoices, credit notes, payments, estimates, expenses, recurring invoices or recurring expenses, or a contact who can't be deleted.

Import contacts

Administrators can import companies and contacts from CSV files. Click Import on the Companies or Company Contacts tab. See importing data.

Next steps