There are situations where you need to invoice someone who is different than the person living at the property you're servicing. You need to be able to communicate with both parties for the correct things and if something comes up later like a dispute, all the data needs to be in the correct place to review.
One example of this would be a property management company with 50 properties and 50 different tenants on those properties. Another would be a manufacturer or home warranty company paying you to do warranty work on a property you're already servicing. This can be confusing and many companies don't do it correctly which can cause issues down the road. (we've been there and learned the hard way)
5 minute video explains best practices on this
Key Takeaways
The "Customer" is ALWAYS the person who is paying you. No exceptions. This customer account is where the job, invoice and payments should be created.
The person living in the home (if applicable) is the person who needs to give you permission to enter the property but the invoice, payment and job history belong to the Customer. If they are not paying, they are not the customer.
Disputes come up between tenants and landlords or warranty companies and homeowners all the time. It's important for legal reasons that the invoice, payment and job history are correctly placed on the customer account or you could be accused of providing information to a tenant/homeowner that they are not legally entitled to.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Be careful when sharing info with a homeowner/tenant if they aren't the person paying for the job to be performed. In many cases, you will be violating a contract (or at least the wishes) of the actual customer who is paying you.
If a customer such as a warranty company is paying you for the work, do not create the job under an existing customer account for the homeowner. Instead, create a customer for the warranty company (if it doesn't already exist) and then create an address for that customer where the work will be performed. Same goes for invoices and payments after the job is completed.
Do not create a separate customer for every property. Create one customer and then add additional properties as needed on that same customer.
This article explains how to add properties to a customer.