Block a customer

The invoice from March is still open, and the managing director wants the account "blocked". Before you touch anything: there are three ways to stop a customer, and they are not interchangeable. Using the heaviest one for a late invoice is the fastest way to lose a good account.

Which block

The default answer for a payment problem is the delivery block. It is reversible, invisible from the outside until something needs to ship, and it does not punish the workshop for what accounts payable did.

Apply a delivery block

1. Go to CRM › Organizations and open the company.
2. Open the Commercial terms panel.
3. Turn Delivery block on.
4. Select Save terms.

A red banner appears at the top of the company's page, "Delivery blocked — orders are accepted but nothing ships", with the date it was set. The organizations list has a Delivery blocked counter and a filter, so the set of currently blocked companies is one click.

To lift it, turn the same switch off.

Block a whole company

1. Open the company in CRM › Organizations.
2. Select Edit and set Status to blocked.
3. Save.

This is the serious one. The company may not trade, and the sign-in is disabled. Use it for a relationship that is actually over, a fraud case, or a company that has been rejected at registration.

status is not lifecycle_stage. Marking a company churned records that they stopped buying; it does not stop them doing anything. If you want to record the commercial reality and keep them able to browse, set the stage and leave the status alone.

Block one person

1. Open the person in CRM › Contacts.
2. Select Edit and set Status to blocked.
3. Save.

Use this when somebody leaves the customer's company. It is far better than deleting them: the orders they placed keep their attribution, and the timeline stays intact.

A blocked contact keeps their role but may not act on it. What their permission set actually returns while blocked is a store setting: it can keep the role's grants (with the caller gating on the inactive flag), strip everything except catalogue access, or return nothing at all.

Recording why

None of the three fields carries a reason. Log one on the timeline so the next person to open the record does not have to ask around:

1. Open the company or the contact.
2. Select Log activity.
3. Choose a Type (note is right for this), give it a Subject such as Delivery block set — invoice 30 days overdue, and write what happens next.

See Log customer activity.

What to check

• The banner on the record says what you expect. No banner means no block.
• On the organizations list, filter by Delivery block and confirm the company is in the result.
• Ask the customer to try. A delivery block should feel like nothing at all until something ships; a blocked status stops the sign-in immediately.

When it does not work

They say they still cannot order after you lifted the block. Check all three levels: the organization status, the delivery block, and the contact's own status. They are independent, and a customer who hit two of them fixes one and still sees a wall. See When a customer cannot order.

Orders keep arriving from a delivery-blocked company. That is correct behaviour: a delivery block stops shipments and leaves ordering alone. If you want ordering stopped, that is the company status.

An order was already in fulfilment when you set the block. The block governs what ships from now on. Check the order itself. See Stuck orders.

Next

• Payment terms and credit limits — the terms behind the block.
• Customer data hygiene — review blocks that were never lifted.