Clients & Client Management

Manage your client relationships, organize client information, and track work in progress across all engagements.

Overview

The Clients section is your central directory for everyone you do work for. Whether you're a small firm with a handful of clients or a large organization managing hundreds of relationships, Hidma gives you a structured way to organize client information, track active engagements, monitor unbilled work, and understand the financial status of each relationship.

Clients in Hidma serve as the top level of your organizational hierarchy - underneath each client sit projects (the specific engagements or matters you're working on), and underneath those projects sit the individual time entries and billing transactions. This hierarchical structure ensures that all work, whether it's time tracking, billing, or payment recording, is always connected back to the client relationship it serves.

What You Can Do

Client Directory

The main Clients view shows you a comprehensive list of all clients in your system, providing at-a-glance visibility into each relationship. You'll see the client name and code (if your organization uses client codes for reference), their primary contact information including billing address and email, a count of how many active projects they currently have running, their work-in-progress amount (the value of unbilled work you've completed but haven't yet invoiced), and any outstanding bills awaiting payment.

This consolidated view helps you quickly assess the health of any client relationship - who owes you money, who has significant unbilled work accumulating, and which clients are actively being worked on versus inactive relationships.

Client Details

Click into any individual client to access their dedicated dashboard, which becomes your command center for that relationship. The client dashboard shows complete details including all contact information, billing address, payment terms, and any custom fields your organization has configured. You can view all projects associated with the client, both active and historical, giving you a complete picture of work you've done for them over time.

The billing history tab shows every invoice you've ever generated for the client, with status indicators showing what's been paid, what's outstanding, and what's overdue. Financial summary information displays their current account balance, total amount invoiced lifetime, total paid, and any credit balances they might have. This financial visibility is crucial for understanding the overall health and profitability of each client relationship.

Managing Clients

Creating New Clients When you onboard a new client, you'll capture their essential information in one place. Enter the client name, assign an optional client code for internal reference, add contact details for the people you'll be working with, specify their billing address and email for invoicing, set default payment terms (like Net 30 or Net 60), and fill in any custom fields your organization tracks. Once created, the client becomes available for project creation and time tracking.

Automatic Primary Selection

If a client has only one contact detail or address, Hidma will now automatically select it as the primary option, saving you an extra click.

Four Address Lines for Longer Addresses

Client profiles support four dedicated address lines in addition to Town, Postcode, and Country. This gives you room for longer building, street, unit, and district information, and keeps client records aligned with Xero's multi-line address structure — so addresses round-trip cleanly through the Xero integration.

Editing Client Information Client details change over time - contact people leave, billing addresses move, payment terms get renegotiated. The edit functionality lets you update any client information at any time. Changes to billing addresses and contact details automatically apply to new invoices, while historical invoices remain unchanged. This means you maintain accurate records of what information was current when each invoice was sent, important for audit purposes.

Client Codes Many professional services firms use client codes - short alphanumeric identifiers that make it easy to reference clients in conversation, reports, and file organization. These codes appear throughout Hidma on timesheets, invoices, and reports. You can assign codes manually when creating clients, or many firms use systematic codes like the first three letters of the client name plus a number. Learn more about client codes

Client Groups and Organization If your firm serves clients across different industries, regions, or service lines, you might want to organize them into groups for reporting and analysis purposes. Custom fields let you tag clients with industry classifications, geographic regions, partner responsible, or any other categorization that helps you segment your client base for business intelligence.

Key Features

🔍 Work in Progress (WIP) Tracking

One of the most powerful features of client management is real-time visibility into work in progress - time you've worked and have approved, but haven't yet billed. High WIP balances represent revenue you've earned but haven't collected, which impacts cash flow and can indicate billing delays.

The WIP report shows unbilled hours and amounts by client, helping you identify where billing attention is needed. You can see which clients have the largest unbilled balances, how long work has been sitting unbilled, and drill down to see exactly which projects and team members have unbilled time. Regular WIP monitoring - ideally weekly - ensures you're billing promptly and not letting revenue slip through delays. View the WIP Report Guide

📊 Client Financial Summary

Each client's financial summary gives you a complete picture of the economic relationship. See total lifetime billings showing all revenue generated from the client since the relationship began. View total payments received, broken down by period if needed. Check current outstanding balances showing what they owe you right now across all unpaid invoices. Monitor payment patterns to understand if the client typically pays promptly, slowly, or inconsistently - patterns that might inform whether you adjust payment terms or require deposits for future work.

📄 Client Reports and Exports

Generate comprehensive reports focused on specific clients or across your entire client base. Create account statements showing all transactions over a period - bills issued, payments received, current balance. Export client lists with contact information, financial summaries, and custom field data for analysis in spreadsheets or CRM systems. Pull billing history reports to analyze revenue patterns, seasonal trends, or project profitability by client. These reports transform raw transaction data into actionable business intelligence. Download client lists

Common Tasks

Adding a New Client

When you start working with a new client, here's the typical workflow. Navigate to Clients and click "Add New Client" or the + button. Enter the client name exactly as it should appear on invoices. If your firm uses client codes, assign an appropriate code following your naming convention. Add contact information - typically the main point of contact and the billing/accounts payable contact if different. Enter the billing address exactly as it should appear on invoices. Set default payment terms (most firms use Net 30, meaning payment due 30 days after invoice date). Fill in any required custom fields your organization tracks. Save the client, and they immediately become available for project creation.

Reviewing Client WIP

Regular WIP review should be a weekly habit for anyone responsible for billing. Navigate to the WIP Report from the Clients menu. Filter by date range to see work performed during specific periods that remains unbilled. Sort by amount to identify clients with the largest unbilled balances - these represent your biggest cash flow opportunities. Drill into specific clients to see which projects have unbilled work and which team members have time waiting to be billed. For each significant WIP balance, ask yourself why it hasn't been billed yet - is it awaiting approval, do we need more work to reach a billing milestone, or has it simply been overlooked? This discipline prevents revenue leakage and improves cash collection.

Updating Client Information

Client details evolve over time, and keeping them current ensures accurate billing and communication. Click into the client you need to update. Navigate to the "Edit" or details section. Update whatever has changed - perhaps a new billing contact, a revised address, updated payment terms, or changed status. Review any invoices currently in draft status, since they'll pick up the new information. Save your changes, and future documents will reflect the updated information while historical records remain unchanged.

Best Practices

Client Management Tips

Regular WIP Monitoring Make checking the Work in Progress report a weekly ritual, ideally at the same time each week. Review which clients have unbilled balances over a certain threshold - perhaps $5,000 or two weeks of work. For each significant WIP balance, determine whether there's a legitimate reason for the delay or whether you should be creating bills immediately. This proactive monitoring prevents situations where you discover months-old unbilled work that's now awkward to invoice.

Accurate Contact Information Treat client contact information as critical business data, not casual notes. Wrong billing addresses delay payment when invoices go to the wrong place. Outdated email addresses mean invoices don't reach accounts payable. Phone numbers help when you need to follow up on overdue payments. Review and update contact information whenever clients inform you of changes, and periodically verify it's still current during regular business interactions.

Consistent Client Codes If your firm uses client codes, establish and follow a consistent naming convention. Some firms use the first three letters of the client name plus a sequential number (ABC-001). Others use industry prefixes plus numbers (LAW-001 for law firms, MFG-001 for manufacturers). Whatever system you choose, consistency makes codes more useful for reference and reduces errors when team members need to select the right client.

Document Special Arrangements Some clients have non-standard arrangements - perhaps different billing cycles, special rate agreements, specific invoice formatting requirements, or multiple billing contacts for different practice areas. Use the notes or comments fields to document these arrangements where they're visible to anyone who might work on the client's matters. This documentation prevents errors and ensures everyone handles the client consistently.

Clean Up Inactive Clients Over time, you'll accumulate clients you're no longer actively working for - projects completed, relationships ended, or one-time engagements finished. Consider marking these clients as inactive or archived rather than deleting them (deleting could break historical reporting). This cleanup makes your active client list more manageable while preserving historical records for reference.

Xero Integration: When closing a client in Hidma, you now have the option to automatically archive the corresponding contacts in Xero, keeping both systems in sync effortlessly.

Related Topics

Client Setup

• Client and Project Codes - Setting up code systems
• Custom Fields - Adding client-specific data

Financial Management

• Work in Progress Report - Monitor unbilled work
• Creating Bills - Invoice your clients
• Recording Payments - Track payments received

Data Management

• Downloading Client Lists - Export client data
• Client Reports - Analyze client relationships

What's Next?

Ready to manage your clients effectively?

For new users:

1. Add your first client with complete information
2. Review the WIP report to understand unbilled work
3. Explore the client dashboard to see all available information

For experienced users:

1. Set up client codes for better organization
2. Configure custom fields for client-specific tracking
3. Generate regular WIP reports to monitor billing opportunities

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