---
title: "Contacts in Elorus"
slug: "about-contacts"
description: "Find out more information regarding contacts in Elorus how to add and manage them as well as their role in reports"
updated: 2023-07-14T11:09:15Z
published: 2023-07-14T11:09:15Z
canonical: "help.elorus.com/about-contacts"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.elorus.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# About Contacts

In a business context, contacts are individuals or businesses whom you transact with; typically your clients, leads, suppliers and partners. Since Elorus will let you manage your sales as well as your expenses, **a contact may represent either a client or a supplier** (or even both).

Contacts are a key entity in Elorus. Each invoice, estimate, expense, payment or even project created within the application is always associated to a particular contact. Contacts work as connecting dots between transactions: a client payment, for example, pays off [invoices](/docs/add-invoices) issued to the same client. The time spent working on a [client project](/docs/about-projects) can be invoiced to the client and so on.

## Create & manage contacts

Elorus will let you [add contacts](/docs/add-contacts) manually, import contacts in bulk via Excel and CSV files, or even use the VIES system to import European businesses based on their tax ID.

The application provides a set of tools to edit, delete, archive and merge contacts in order to help you effectively [manage your contacts](/docs/manage-contacts).

![import contacts 1](https://cdn.document360.io/9493d4a2-f3a8-4344-ad47-a4f5aeb61ce6/Images/Documentation/import%20contacts%20%281%29.png)

## Reporting

The transaction history of a particular contact may include several invoices, credit notes and payments, especially if your business model relies on recurring customers. The [client statement](/docs/client-supplier-statement) is a document that outlines the transactions between a client and your business and contains information such as the outstanding balance or the remaining credit. Client statements can be shared to clients via email or through the client portal.

![12reporting](https://cdn.document360.io/9493d4a2-f3a8-4344-ad47-a4f5aeb61ce6/Images/Documentation/12reporting.png)

To help you better understand your business, Elorus comes with several reports based around the concept of contacts. For example, you may track your **Sales by client**, monitor **Outstanding client balances** or see your business **Expenses & purchases by supplier**. You may also use [tracking categories](/docs/tracking-categories) to segment your contacts and calculate segment revenues or expenses. Last but not least, you gain access to graphical insights such as the top clients, **the clients that you spend the most time working for**, the top suppliers and so on.

## Client portal

**Clients may log into Elorus themselves** via the [client portal](/docs/client-portal) to access their invoices, credit notes and estimates, as well as make online payments towards your business. The client portal is a secure area and is **not** available to your clients by default. You must explicitly set the contacts able to access the client portal by following the instructions on the [related article](/docs/client-portal).

## Related

- [Add Contacts](/add-contacts.md)
- [Client / Supplier Statement](/client-supplier-statement.md)
- [Add Invoices](/add-invoices.md)