Customer Classes

Customer Classes group customers by legal type and data-protection profile. The class you pick decides whether the platform treats the customer as a legal individual, whether it runs a Companies House check, and whether the account is marked as a reseller. Every customer sits in exactly one class.

Consent for emailing itemised bills, unencrypted CDR ZIPs and usage files is recorded separately on each customer record through the GDPR & PECR Consent Given flag. See GDPR and PECR Consent on the Customers page.

Overview

The platform ships with a ready-made set of classes covering the customer types most resellers deal with, from residential consumers and sole traders through to limited companies, public sector bodies, charities and other resellers. You can add your own classes if your business needs extra categories, but the shipped classes cover the common cases and should not normally be edited, because billing, reporting and delivery rules rely on them.

Where Customer Classes Are Used

• Set on each customer account and shown in the Account Details section. See Customers.
• Trigger a Companies House check for UK Limited and UK PLC variants when the customer is saved.
• Mark personal customers, sole traders and resellers so the platform can apply the right defaults and labels.

Personal Customers, Sole Traders and Companies

The legal status behind each class sets the data-protection expectation for the account.

• Residential / Consumer covers private individuals. UK data-protection law applies to them directly.
• Self-Employed / Sole Trader customers are treated as legal individuals too, even though they trade as a business. Sole traders are not a separate legal entity from the person running the business, so the same protections apply. This is a common place to get classification wrong.
• Company (UK Limited, UK PLC, International), Public Sector and Charity customers are legal entities in their own right. Individual-level data-protection rules do not apply to the organisation itself in the same way, but PECR still covers their call records (see below). The UK Limited and UK PLC classes also trigger a Companies House check when the customer is saved, pulling back the registered address, incorporation date and similar profile details.
• Reseller classes mark accounts that sell services on to their own customers. Resellers usually need the itemised bill, unencrypted CDRs and usage files to bill their own customers accurately, but only once the consent is in place. Companies House checks apply to the UK Limited / PLC reseller class.

Whatever the class, the user entering the customer has the option to record that GDPR and PECR consent has been given. The GDPR & PECR Consent Given flag defaults to No and is what unlocks full email delivery of itemised bills, unencrypted CDR ZIPs and usage files.

Call Records, Itemised Bills and PECR

Call records need a separate mention because the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR) treat them differently from ordinary personal data.

PECR protects the confidentiality of communications traffic data and gives subscribers specific rights around itemised billing. PECR applies to both individual and corporate subscribers, so detailed call records (itemised bills, unencrypted CDR ZIPs and usage files) carry a duty of confidentiality regardless of whether the customer is a person, a sole trader or a limited company.

You should therefore only release itemised bills and unencrypted call data once the customer has given consent. In most setups, that consent comes through the customer accepting your Terms and Conditions or Privacy Policy at sign-up, where those documents cover sending itemised bills and call records by email. An explicit written opt-in works just as well.

Setting the GDPR & PECR Consent Given flag on a customer is not itself a lawful basis. It is the platform’s record that a lawful basis (T&Cs acceptance, Privacy Policy consent, or written opt-in) already exists for that account. The paper trail described under GDPR and PECR Consent applies just as much to corporate customers as to individuals.

For the current authoritative position, see the ICO guidance on Traffic Data under PECR and Itemised Bills under PECR.

Bill and Call Record Delivery Defaults

Where consent has not been recorded, either at account level or for a specific contact, the platform adjusts what goes out by email rather than blocking delivery altogether. The customer still gets what they need to pay the bill; only the sensitive detail is held back.

• Bills go out as a short version, without call itemisation. Summary totals, line rentals, recurring charges and features still appear, but the list of individual calls does not.
• CDR ZIPs are still sent, but password-protected. The customer needs the password, shared separately out of band, to open them.
• Usage files are not sent. These contain the raw call and usage data and are only released where consent has been recorded.

When the GDPR & PECR Consent Given flag is set on the customer, or a contact has confirmed their attachment preference, the same documents go out in full: itemised bills, unencrypted CDR ZIPs and usage files.

Regardless of class or opt-in status, fully itemised bills, unencrypted CDRs and usage files are always available to the customer through MyAccount. The customer signs in to their own portal, so access is authenticated and there is no unsolicited transmission of sensitive data. This keeps the platform compliant with the Ofcom General Conditions, which require communications providers to make itemised billing available to customers who want it, without forcing you to email itemisation where consent for email delivery has not been given.

Per-Contact Opt-In Without Account-Wide Consent

The GDPR & PECR Consent Given flag sets the default for the whole account, but it is not the only way to release itemised detail.

A customer without account-wide consent can still receive itemised bills and unencrypted CDRs where an individual contact has asked for them through the email attachment-preference confirmation process. Use this route when only one recipient on the account wants the detail. Reserve the account-wide flag for whole-account consent, where every address on the customer’s bill distribution list can receive the detailed versions.

See Emailing Customers for how to verify email addresses and capture the per-contact attachment preference.

Key Fields

Customer Class Name

This section contains the basic information for the customer class, including its name, display settings, and positioning.

Customer Class Data Protection Settings

Data protection and compliance settings that determine how customers in this class are handled with respect to personal data and business classification.

System Information

A few fields deserve extra notes:

• Personal Customer marks the class as covering private individuals. Sole traders are flagged separately through the Sole Trader field but should be treated as personal for data-protection purposes.
• Reseller marks accounts that sell services on. It affects invoice wording and downstream reporting.
• Check Companies House runs the UK Companies House lookup when you save a customer in this class. When enabled, the platform also attempts to populate useful profile fields on the customer from the Companies House record, such as the registered address, incorporation date, employee count and asset totals. These save re-keying and give a useful picture of the business at a glance. Only set this flag for UK Limited or UK PLC variants.

Managing Customer Classes

Listing Customer Classes

Go to Main Menu > Settings tab > Customer Classes. The list shows active classes sorted by display position and name.

Adding a New Customer Class

1. Open the Customer Classes list.
2. Click Add Customer Class.
3. Fill in the name, display position and any styling.
4. Set the data-protection flags (Personal Customer, Sole Trader, Reseller, Check Companies House) to match the new class.
5. Save.

Editing a Customer Class

Open the class from the list and change the fields you need. Avoid renaming or changing the flags on the shipped classes, because reporting and billing rules recognise them by their name and settings. Add a new class instead if you need a variation.

Retiring a Customer Class

Once a class has been used on customers, the platform won’t let you delete it, because the audit trail still refers to it. To retire one:

1. Move any remaining customers to a replacement class, recording the change reason on each.
2. Remove the class from any defaults or templates that reference it.

The class stays in the list for history but should not be picked for new customers.

Deleting an Unused Customer Class

If a class has never been used, you can delete it outright from its Actions menu. The platform blocks deletion if any customer has ever sat in the class.

Access

Users need the Customer Classes permission to view or edit the classes themselves. Assign it through the usual user or user group permissions.

Related

• Customers — where the Customer Class is set on each account, and where the GDPR & PECR Consent Given flag lives.
• Emailing Customers — per-contact attachment preferences and address verification.
• Contacts — manage who on the account receives bills and correspondence.