How to create a new client

The individual client can have savings accounts and borrow money according to the rules of your MFI. If the client is associated with a group, that client inherits the loan officer, the meeting schedule, and the meeting location of the group.

Follow these instructions to create a client account.

Click Clients & Accounts. In the left navigation panel, click Create New Client.
The following screen appears:
In the Group Name box, type the name of the group that this client is assigned to, and click Proceed. A list of groups by that name appears; click the correct one. If the correct group name is not on this list (perhaps you mistyped it?), type the group name again and click Search to try again. When you see the correct group name, click it.
If group membership is not required for your client, click that link to proceed.
A screen for information about the client appears.
The first section contains personal information. All fields with an asterisk (*) are required.

Enter information using the descriptions in the following table (note that some fields may not appear or may have different choices, depending on how Mifos is configured for your MFI):

Field name	Description	Example
Salutation	Mr, Mrs etc. In Mifos, the system administrator can define more salutations.	Mr.
First Name		Albert
Middle Name
Second Last Name		Smith
Last Name		Anderson
National ID	Can be Government ID, or National ID, or Social Security Number. This is not editable after a client enters Active state. Some external IDs might have characters associated with them.	N-001
Date of Birth		Nov-11, 2005
Gender		Male
Marital Status		Married
Number of Children	The total number of children the client has.	4
Citizenship		Kenyan
Ethnicity		Arab
Education Level	Captures the maximum level of education the client has attained, for example, Graduate	Graduate
Activities	The nature of the client's business	Self-owned business
Handicapped	If this field is present, check whether there is a handicap or not.	No
Poverty Status	If this field is present, click the appropriate status for the client, if known.	Very poor
Income	If this field is present, click the appropriate monthly income for the client, if known.	200
Photograph	User can upload a photo, which will be a part of the client details page. The maximum size allowed is 30KB. Click Choose File, browse your computer for the photograph file, and double-click it so that the filename appears next to the box.	C:\microfin\photos\smith01.gif
Spouse/Father Name Relationship, First Name, Middle Name and Second Last Name and Last Name	Names of the spouse or father.	Jane Smith, Spouse

The next section is for the address of the group.

address

Enter information using the descriptions in the following table:

Field name		Description	Example
Address
Address	Address 1-3, city, state, country, postal code, Telephone		P.O Box 2223, Stanford, California, 94305, +1650-271-2450

The next section is for additional information about the client, if any is required.

Enter information based on the descriptions in the following table:

Field name		Description	Example
Additional Information
Custom Field 1 - 6	Custom data for the MFI.

The next section is for MFI-related information.

Enter information using the descriptions in the following table:

Field name		Description	Example
MFI related information
Recruited by	Select the loan officer to be assigned to the client. This is applicable if you selected to assign the client directly to a branch; otherwise the value is inherited from the group.		Loan Officer 1
Meeting Schedule	Define the meeting schedule. This field appears only if you assign the client directly to the branch; otherwise, the meeting schedule is inherited from the group. A client can be created without a meeting schedule if there is no need for one. Such client's name will not appear in the collection sheets.
External ID	The client's unique identifier in another system that shares client details with Mifos.		E003
Trained	Has the client been trained?		Yes
Trained On	The date when the client was trained.		Dec-12, 2005

The next section is for client fees.

Enter information using the descriptions in the following table:

Field name		Description	Example
Administrative set fees
Any fees, if applicable	Any group or branch fees, such as membership application fees		8.85
Periodicity	The frequency the fee is applicable. Periodicity can be Once, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly		One-time fee
Check to Remove	Check to remove the application fee.
Apply additional fees
Fee Type; Amount	Mifos allows the definition of three custom fee types. Click the applicable fee type from the list and type the amount of the fee in the Amount box.		Processing fee, 3.00

The next section is for savings accounts.

If you want to create a savings account for this client now, click the name of the savings product from the Savings Name list. You can create up to three savings accounts.
When you have finished, click Preview to review your work.
If you want to make changes, click Edit MFI-related Information and make the changes.
When you are satisfied with all the changes, click Submit for Approval. If you want to submit this client later, click Save for Later; the account goes into a Partial Application state, and you can build a custom report to find all client records in this state. (If you decide not to create this client at all at this time, click Cancel.)

A screen appears that might look like this:

Note the system ID number for this client, so that you can use it to search for details about that client later.

The client details (dashboard) page might look like this:

Client Dashboard

From the client dashboard, you can do the following:

View and change client status
Open new savings and loan accounts
View closed accounts
Edit MFI information
Edit or remove group membership
Edit personal information
View summarized historical data
View the change log
View performance history
View and attach surveys
View and add notes

Check the appropriate chapters of this manual for information on each of these.