Initial Configuration

This guide walks you through the essential configuration steps after completing the onboarding wizard.

Available Services

Spark CRM offers several optional services that enhance your business operations. Each service has a per-use fee based on your plan.

Address Verification

What it does: Verifies customer shipping addresses before processing orders.

Benefits:

• Reduces failed deliveries
• Prevents shipping to invalid addresses
• Decreases chargebacks from delivery issues

How to enable:

1. Open the user/profile menu at the bottom of the sidebar and click Billing
2. Click Manage Services, then find Address Verification under “Validation Services”
3. Toggle it on, then click Save Settings

Email Validation

What it does: Verifies customer email addresses are real and deliverable.

Benefits:

• Reduces bounce rates
• Prevents fraud from fake emails
• Improves customer communication

How to enable:

1. Open the user/profile menu at the bottom of the sidebar and click Billing
2. Click Manage Services, then find Email Validation under “Validation Services”
3. Toggle it on, then click Save Settings

Phone Validation

What it does: Verifies customer phone numbers and detects line type (mobile/landline/VOIP/tollfree) and carrier. Formatted and national-format values are stored in the validation metadata; the customer’s saved phone number is not rewritten.

Benefits:

• Ensures phone numbers are valid
• Identifies line type (mobile, landline, VOIP, tollfree) and carrier
• Improves customer contact rates

How to enable:

1. Open the user/profile menu at the bottom of the sidebar and click Billing
2. Click Manage Services, then find Phone Validation under “Validation Services”
3. Toggle it on, then click Save Settings

Enhanced Shipment Tracking

What it does: Provides advanced shipment tracking across multiple carriers.

Benefits:

• Real-time tracking updates
• Multi-carrier support
• Automated customer notifications

How to enable:

1. Open the user/profile menu at the bottom of the sidebar and click Billing
2. Click Manage Services and find Enhanced Shipment Tracking under “Fulfillment Services”
3. Toggle it on, then click Save Settings

Email AI

What it does: AI-powered customer service for email support.

Benefits:

• Automatic email classification by intent
• AI-generated response suggestions
• Spam and threat detection
• Ticket management automation

How to enable:

1. Open the user/profile menu at the bottom of the sidebar and click Billing
2. Click Manage Services and find Email AI Agent under “AI Services”
3. Toggle it on, then click Save Settings

Note: Email AI is charged per resolved ticket.

Note: Enabling Email AI Agent also enables Enhanced Shipment Tracking automatically — both services will be billed.

Dispute.com Integration

What it does: Connects to Dispute.com for chargeback management.

Benefits:

• Centralized dispute tracking
• Automated alert refunds and RDR handling, with representment outcomes (won/lost) recorded back from Dispute.com
• Chargeback analytics

How to enable:

1. Go to Settings > Disputes (under the “Providers” group), or configure it during onboarding
2. Enter your Dispute.com API key
3. Click Connect (the button reads Replace API Key if a key is already stored)

Default Settings

When your account is created, all services start disabled by default. This ensures you only pay for services you actually need.

Note: 3D Secure is an internal, staff-enabled setting with no self-serve toggle and no per-transaction usage metering — 3DS challenges are currently handled by the individual payment gateways.

Billing Settings

Understanding Your Plan

Your account is subscribed to a plan that determines:

• Monthly fee - Base subscription cost
• Service fees - Per-use costs for each service
• Transaction fees - Fees per payment transaction

Viewing Your Billing

1. Open the user/profile menu at the bottom of the sidebar and click Billing
2. View your current plan
3. See usage and upcoming charges
4. Download invoices

Screenshot: Your billing dashboard showing plan details, usage threshold, service consumption, and payment methods

Updating Payment Method

1. Open the user/profile menu at the bottom of the sidebar and click Billing
2. In the Payment Method card, click Add Payment Method (or Update if a card is already saved)
3. Enter the new card details — the new card replaces whatever card is currently on file (only one payment method is kept; the previous one is deleted from Stripe)

The saved card becomes the default automatically, so there is no default-selection step.

Team Settings

Team Information

Configure your team details:

1. Open the user/profile menu and click your name (Profile) — the Team Timezone card is near the bottom of that page, visible to team owners only
2. Set the Team Timezone. Reports use this timezone for their date boundaries
3. Other team-level configuration (SMTP, notifications, webhooks, QA rules) lives on the Settings page

Note: The Team Name field lives on the Jetstream team page at /teams/{id}, which the current sidebar and user menu do not link to.

Managing Team Members

Add and manage your team members:

1. Open the user/profile menu at the bottom of the sidebar and click Team Members (/team/manage)
2. Click Add User — the modal that opens is titled “Invite Team Member”
3. Assign a role: Account Admin, Account Manager, Customer Support Level 1, Customer Support Level 2, or Affiliate. There is no assignable “Owner” role — team ownership is set when the account is created
4. Permissions are determined entirely by the assigned role and cannot be customised per member. The one member-level option is restricting an Affiliate user to specific affiliate IDs

Screenshot: Manage your team members and assign roles with different permission levels

Notification Preferences

Control which notifications you receive:

1. Go to Settings > Notifications
2. Enable/disable notification types
3. Configure email notification settings

Where to Go First

After initial configuration, we recommend this workflow:

Step 1: Payment Gateway

Location: Payments > Gateways

Connect at least one payment processor to accept payments:

• Authorize.net
• Stripe
• Other supported gateways

Step 2: Products

Location: CRM > Products

Create your product catalog:

• Add product name and description
• Set pricing
• Set up inventory if applicable

Step 3: Campaign

Location: CRM > Campaigns

Create your first campaign:

• Name your campaign
• Add products to the campaign
• Configure checkout settings
• Set up affiliate tracking (optional)

Step 4: Test Order

Process a test order to verify:

• Payment gateway works
• Products are configured correctly
• Fulfillment triggers properly
• Customer receives confirmation — only if the campaign has an active Auto Responder with the Order Confirmation trigger (campaign > Auto Responders). No confirmation email is sent otherwise

Quick Reference

Next Steps

Now that your account is configured, learn about the Core Concepts to understand Spark CRM’s features in depth.