Business Finance

How to Set Up and Manage Clients in illico Book

July 2026 · 3 min read

If your invoices, payments, and notes about a client all live in different places — a spreadsheet here, a folder of PDFs there — following up on who owes what gets messy fast. Linking every client to their own record fixes that from the start.

Why a Client List Matters More Than It Seems

Once your clients are set up properly, every invoice, payment, and piece of income linked to them rolls up automatically. You can see at a glance who's paid, who's overdue, and how much revenue any single client has brought in over time — without digging through old invoices to piece it together.

Step 1: Add a Client Record

Add a client with their name, contact details, and preferred currency. If you work with clients in different countries or currencies, setting the right currency per client means their invoices and payment history stay accurate without manual conversion.

Step 2: Link Invoices to the Client, Not Just a Project

When you create an invoice, attach it to the client record instead of leaving it as a standalone document. This is what makes it possible to pull up "everything related to this client" in one place later — invoices, payments received, and outstanding balances.

Step 3: Use Notes for Context You'll Forget Later

Payment terms you agreed on verbally, a discount you offered for a specific project, a reminder to follow up in 30 days — these are easy to remember in the moment and easy to forget three months later. Attaching a note to the client record means that context doesn't disappear.

Step 4: Check the Client View Before Following Up

Before sending a payment reminder, pull up the client's record to see their full history — every invoice, what's been paid, and what's still outstanding. It turns "have they actually paid me?" into a five-second check instead of a search through your inbox.

The Bottom Line

A few minutes spent setting up a client properly saves hours of searching later. Once your clients are linked to their invoices and payments, chasing down who owes what stops being guesswork.

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