# Adding & Managing Contacts

_Contacts_

Contacts are the core of your CRM. Each contact stores personal info, communication history, tags, notes, and deal associations.

## Steps
1. Go to Contacts from the sidebar.
2. Click "+ Add Contact" to create a new contact manually.
3. Fill in the name, email, phone, company, and any custom fields.
4. Use tags to categorize contacts (e.g., "VIP", "Lead", "Partner").
5. Click any contact row to open the full contact detail view.
6. Add a photo: on the contact detail page, hover over the avatar and click the camera icon to upload an image (up to 5 MB). Hover and click the ✕ badge to remove it. The photo shows on the contact list, detail page, and Gallery view.
7. Attach files: the Files card on the contact detail page lists every document linked to the contact — click "Upload file" to add one (up to 25 MB, virus-scanned). Files clients send through the Client Portal appear here too, marked "From client". Files can also be linked to a contact from Documents using the contact search picker.

## Tips
- Use the search bar and filters to quickly find contacts.
- The contact search matches name, email, phone, company, job title — and also any keyword inside a contact's notes or custom-field values (e.g. search "refinance" to find contacts whose notes mention it).
- Find contacts by which CSV they came from: filter on "Source File" in the contact filter bar or Segments, or open Imports history and click "View contacts" on any import.
- Bulk actions let you tag, assign, or delete multiple contacts at once.
- Contacts are automatically enriched with public data when available.
- Contacts list is paginated — default 25 per page, max 100. If a specific contact seems "missing", use search or the filter bar; it's almost always on a later page, not deleted.
- Deleted contacts are soft-deleted — they sit in trash for 30 days, then a nightly cleanup job (5am UTC) hard-deletes them permanently. Ask an admin to restore within that window.
- Lead score (0–100) is built from real contact signal, not activity logging: email +15, phone +10, company +15, job title +10, website/LinkedIn +5, plus a source bonus (booking +20, referral +15, form +10, manual +0). CRMown AI then nudges that base up or down by at most 15 points for company strength, engagement, and source quality — so scores stay realistic; a bare email+phone contact lands around 25, not 90. You can always override the score manually on the contact detail page.

## Example
A networking event ends and Priya, a SaaS founder, has a stack of 14 business cards. She opens Contacts, hits "+ Add Contact" once, then uses the AI command bar (Ctrl+K) to dictate the rest: "add John Mathew at Acme as a lead from yesterday's mixer." Each contact gets enrichment, a "mixer-april-2026" tag, and an automatic follow-up task — all before she leaves the parking lot.

## Troubleshooting
- **Contact disappeared after creating it** — The contact may have been merged with an existing record (duplicate email detected) or accidentally deleted. Fix: Search for the email in the search bar. If merged, it lives under the original record. If deleted, deleted contacts can be recovered within 30 days — check with your admin.
- **A contact I deleted a couple of months ago is gone — not even in trash** — Soft-deleted contacts stay in trash for 30 days, after which a daily 5am UTC cleanup job hard-deletes them. Past that window the record and its activity timeline are unrecoverable from CRMown. Fix: Within 30 days: ask an OWNER/ADMIN to restore from trash. After 30 days: re-create the contact from email/notes or restore from a CSV export if you have one. To avoid this, export a backup CSV before bulk-deletes.
- **Can't edit a contact's email address** — Email field can be locked when the contact was synced from Google or Outlook to prevent sync conflicts. Fix: Edit the email in Google Contacts or Outlook then sync. Or disconnect the sync, edit in CRMown, then reconnect.
- **Lead score is always 0** — Lead score is calculated from the contact's actual data — email, phone, company, job title, website/LinkedIn, and source — not from logged activity. A contact with none of those fields filled in (or one added before scoring last ran) scores 0. Fix: Fill in more contact fields (email, phone, company, job title, website or LinkedIn) and set a source — the score recalculates from that data, with CRMown AI fine-tuning it within a bounded range. You can also set a score manually on the contact detail page.

## Error messages
- `Email already exists in your organization` — A contact with this email already exists. Search for it by email.
- `Failed to save contact` — Network timeout or server error. Refresh and retry. If persistent, check API health.
- `Contact limit reached` — You've hit your plan's contact limit. Upgrade or delete unused contacts. Starter: 10K, Pro: 25K, Max: 100K.

## Plans
Starter: 10,000 contacts; Pro: 25,000; Max: 100,000. Contact Booster add-on available for additional capacity.