Front office

What it means

The front office is the part of the company in direct contact with customers: sales, support, reception, the shop floor. It brings in the revenue and creates the data the whole back office later lives on.

The boundary between them is not a wall but a handover point. An order, a contract or a complaint starts at the front and is processed at the back - and that interface is where most errors are made.

The front office is not the same as the sales department. It includes every point where the customer meets the company: the technician at installation, the courier collecting a return, and also the webshop or customer portal where customers serve themselves. Data that the back office later processes is created there too.

How it works in practice

It shows up in billing: if the salesperson does not record the agreed price, terms and billing details in the CRM, accounting collects them by phone and the invoice goes out late. So the handover needs a defined workflow, not a habit.

To the customer the front office is the company. A promise made at the front - delivery date, price, response time - has to match what the SLA says and what operations can actually deliver.

In an accounting firm the front office is whoever deals with the client about documents and deadlines; the back office is the accountants who turn documents into entries and returns. Each of our clients has one contact person who collects and sorts requests, and what the client sends and when is agreed at client onboarding.

What to watch out for

Measuring the front office purely on leads or revenue produces deals that cannot be delivered or billed. It is more useful to track completed deals with complete paperwork, and satisfaction after delivery.

When the front office verbally promises a discount, a bonus or longer payment terms, accounting does not know and the invoice goes out for a different amount. The customer then asks for a credit note, the balance drifts and VAT is corrected in a later period. Every commercial exception must therefore reach the system before invoicing, not after it.