The Account Dashboard Tour

The account dashboard is the single most-used page in Suprata. Every customer interaction, every job, every invoice, every payment passes through it at some point. If you only deeply learn one screen in the system, make it this one.

This article is a guided tour. Every section explained, with notes on how to use it well and what to skip when you're in a hurry.

When you'd use this

A customer is on the phone and you need to assess where things stand at a glance.
A new dispatcher or office manager joining your team needs orientation.
You suspect you've been ignoring half the dashboard's features and want to find what you've been missing.

The example: Bob Jim

We're using a real residential customer from one of our environments — Bob Jim, a residential account with a balance, several jobs, several invoices, and the kind of activity history a small service business builds up after a year. Yours will look similar in shape.

The account dashboard for Bob Jim

The header

At the top: account name, account type (Residential / Commercial / etc.), primary phone, primary email, billing address. This is the at-a-glance "who is this customer" panel.

A few things to know:

The name shown for a Residential account is built from the primary contact (e.g., "Jim, Bob"). For a Commercial account, it's the organization name. This is automatic — don't try to override it by editing the contact's name to look like a business name (it'll cause real problems with reporting).
The primary phone and email are pulled from the primary contact, not from the Account itself. To change the displayed phone, change which contact is primary or edit the primary contact's record.
The header sticks while you scroll, so the customer's identity stays visible while you work.

The balance and recent payments panel

A summary of: current balance owed, last payment date, last payment amount, last invoice. This is the "should I worry about this account" panel.

How to read it:

Balance > 0 = customer owes you money. Click through to invoices to see the breakdown.
Balance < 0 = you owe the customer (a credit on file). Click to see credits.
Balance = 0 is healthy.
Last payment is the most recent dollars-in event regardless of how applied.
Last invoice tells you when the customer last got billed.

For a customer on autopay or a subscription, balance should hover near zero. A persistent positive balance on a recurring customer is a red flag — investigate, don't ignore.

The Contacts list

A list of every person attached to this Account, in order. Position #1 is the primary contact.

Reorder by drag-and-drop (or whatever ordering control your version exposes) to change the primary. The primary's name and email drive system-generated emails.

For a residential household, you typically have one or two contacts (the homeowner, sometimes a spouse). For commercial, you may have several — owner, AP, on-site manager, decision-maker. See Working with property managers (one contact, many accounts) for the multi-Contact pattern.

The Jobs tab

Every job ever created for this Account, with status and date. Click any row to open that job.

Useful patterns:

Filter by status to see what's open right now. Closed jobs in the historical list are useful but rarely the active concern.
Sort by date descending — most recent first — when you're trying to figure out "what did we last do for this customer?".
Look at recurring patterns. If the same job type comes up every six months, that's a service-agreement candidate. See Creating a service agreement.

A common workflow: customer calls, you open the Account, scan the Jobs tab to see what's been done recently, decide whether the new request is a follow-up or new work, then create or reopen accordingly.

The Invoices tab

Every invoice billed to this Account. Status, amount, balance, date.

What to do here:

Click an unpaid invoice to send it again, mark it paid, or apply a credit.
Look at the aging — invoices older than your terms allow are the AR follow-up list.
Cross-check against the balance panel. The sum of unpaid invoices should match the account balance. If it doesn't, you have unapplied payments or credits floating around (see Payments and Credits below).

For details on the lifecycle of an invoice, see Estimates vs. invoices and Sending an invoice to a customer.

The Payments tab

Every payment received from this Account. Date, amount, method, the invoice it was applied to (if any).

Three patterns to watch:

Unapplied payments — money received but not matched to an invoice. These show up as a credit balance until applied. If you see persistent unapplied payments, your team is taking money without coding it to invoices.
Method mix — if a customer is "always cash" or "always card on file", that tells you something about how to structure their next interaction.
Refunds — display alongside payments (often in red or with a clear sign). Verify these are intentional, not data-entry errors.

The Contracts / Agreements tab

Active and historical service agreements for this Account. Each row shows: agreement name (which template), start date, end date, status, next scheduled tick.

If the customer is on a maintenance plan, this is your at-a-glance "what's their plan and when's the next visit?" panel. See Creating a service agreement and Recurring schedules on agreements.

For a customer not on any agreement, this tab is empty and that's fine.

The Schedule / Appointments tab

Upcoming and past appointments for this customer, calendar-style.

Use this when:

The customer asks "when's my next visit?" — check here.
You're trying to avoid double-booking the same property for two unrelated jobs.
The customer has a recurring monthly visit and you want to confirm the next four months are on the calendar.

The Notes panel

Free-form notes attached to the Account. See Account notes and when to use each type for the full guidance.

The pinned/important note (if your version supports pinning) belongs at the top — gate code, dog warning, language preference, the one thing the next person opening this account must read.

The Tags panel

Account-level tags: the structured labels that describe this customer's billing relationship. See Tagging accounts and contacts well.

A handful of well-chosen tags here is a quick visual indicator of the relationship. "VIP", "Net-30", "Subscription", "Past-Due" — at-a-glance status without having to read paragraphs.

Contact-level tags appear on each contact, not here.

The Activity / Timeline panel

System-generated chronological log of what's happened on this account: jobs created, invoices sent, payments received, status changes, emails delivered.

This is the "what happened when" view. Read this when you're trying to reconstruct a sequence of events — when did we last bill them, when did they pay, when did the dispute happen.

You don't write to the timeline; the system writes to it as you work.

The Calls panel (if you have phone integration)

Inbound and outbound call records tied to this Account. Useful when:

The customer says "I called you yesterday" and you want to verify.
You're auditing how often you're in contact with a customer.
A complaint requires reviewing the call history.

If you don't have a phone integration set up, this panel is empty.

The Emails panel (if you have email integration)

Sent and received emails to/from this Account. Same idea as the calls panel — verify communication history when needed.

The AI summary panel

If your version has AI summaries, this panel shows a one-paragraph summary generated from notes, jobs, and recent activity. See Account notes and when to use each type for guidance on when to trust it.

Treat as a primer for unfamiliar accounts; the actual notes are the source of truth.

The Reservations panel (if you run reservations)

For customers who book bookable assets (slips, sites, units), this panel shows their bookings. Skip if you don't run a reservations operation.

How to navigate the dashboard efficiently

A few habits that compound:

Start at the header, then go straight to the panel that matters for what you're doing. Don't read the whole page top-to-bottom every time.
For a phone call, the order is: header (who) → balance (status) → Jobs (recent) → Notes (what should I know).
For AR follow-up, the order is: balance → Invoices (unpaid).
For onboarding a new staff member to an account, start with the AI summary, then dive into Notes and Tags.
Use the in-page search/find (browser Ctrl+F) for the customer-specific term you remember if the page is dense — works on whatever's already loaded.

Common mistakes

Editing fields in the header that should be edited on the contact. The phone and email shown come from the primary contact's record; edit the contact, not the Account.
Ignoring the timeline. People miss the timeline because it's chronological and they're searching for a specific event. It's worth scrolling — gives you context the per-tab views don't.
Treating empty panels as broken. No invoices = customer hasn't been billed yet. No agreements = not on a maintenance plan. Empty isn't an error.
Over-relying on the AI summary. It's a primer. Read the notes for anything important.
Reordering Contacts without realizing primary changed. Drag-and-drop on the Contacts list changes who's primary, which changes who gets system emails. Don't do it casually.
Filing job-specific information at the account level. Job notes belong on the job, not on the account.