---
title: Parties
description: Customers and vendors, and why contact email is the join from inbound mail.
sidebar:
  order: 9
---

Customers and vendors, with billing, shipping and site addresses (GST
place-of-supply depends on this), credit terms, GSTIN and PAN, and contacts.

## Why email on a contact is load-bearing

Inbound mail is resolved to a customer by **contact email**. The address used
is the **recovered origin**, not the envelope sender (R8a). Most Flowtech
enquiries are forwarded internally; resolving `from` would create leads against
staff.

No match is a **review item**, not a new customer guessed from a signature.
Quotation letterhead then comes from this master, not from "M/S. RE: Enquiry
for Magnetic Level Gauge".

## Addresses

A party can hold several addresses: billing, shipping, site. Place of supply
for GST follows the address on the quotation, not the home office of the
salesperson.

## Who uses it

Office-scoped maintainers (`party:view` / edit). Sales people consume it when
drafting. The catalogue of parties is **office-scoped**; the product catalogue
is not. Mixing those two scoping rules is a common error.

Related: [Collecting mail](/business/workflows/collecting-mail) ·
[Preparing a quotation](/business/workflows/preparing-a-quotation).