How to actually use it

Sign in with your work email and password. A six-digit code is then sent to that address, and you enter it to finish signing in.

1. 1Enter your email and password.
2. 2Open the email and enter the six-digit code. It expires after five minutes.
3. 3If it has not arrived, use Resend — there is a sixty-second wait between sends.

• Accounts are personal and must not be shared. A shared account destroys the attribution the audit trail depends on, which is what makes the records worth anything.
• Forgotten your password? Use the link on the sign-in page. Your administrator cannot see or set your password for you.

Everything you do sits inside your organisation. Its records are separate from every other organisation on the platform, and that separation is checked on every request rather than only when you sign in.

• The name of your organisation, its sector and how many modules are switched on appear at the top of every page.
• If you belong to more than one organisation, you sign in to each separately.

Each module can be run in plain language or at full accounting depth. Plain language calls a trial balance "All accounts at a glance" and a credit "money out"; full depth uses the accounting terms your accountant expects.

1. 1Open Organisation settings.
2. 2Set the depth for each module your team uses.
3. 3Change it whenever the team is ready — it changes the words, never the records underneath.

• This is the same ledger either way. Plain language is a simpler way in, not a lighter database, so nothing is lost by starting there.

The sidebar is grouped into bands — Home, Primary work, Operations, People and finance, Documents and reports, More, and Administration. What sits in Primary work depends on your sector, so a law firm and a farm see different things first.

1. 1Overview is the dashboard for your role.
2. 2My Work is everything waiting on you personally.
3. 3Use the search box at the top to jump straight to a screen or a record.
4. 4The Help button in the corner is always there, on every page.

The chart of accounts is the list of buckets everything is recorded into. Set it up once; almost everything else depends on it.

1. 1Start from the supplied structure or download the template and upload your own.
2. 2Accounts nest, so you can group several accounts under a heading and report on either level.
3. 3Give each account a code and a type — asset, liability, equity, revenue or expense.

• Get this right before loading balances. Changing an account type after transactions exist means restating what has already been reported.

What each account was worth on the day you started using the system. Without these, every report is right about the period and wrong about the totals.

1. 1Choose the date you are starting from.
2. 2Enter or upload the balance for each account as at that date.
3. 3Check that the totals balance before you post them.

Record what happened as it happens. Every entry carries the name of whoever made it and the date it was made, and appears in the ledger immediately.

1. 1Choose the accounts the money moved between and enter the amount.
2. 2Attach the receipt, invoice or supporting document.
3. 3Save it. Depending on your approval rules it may need somebody else to approve it before it posts.

• Posted entries are not deleted. A mistake is corrected with a further entry that reverses it, so the record shows both what was thought at the time and what was concluded later.

Raise a customer invoice and it posts to the books straight away, so what you have billed and what you are owed are the same numbers your reports show.

1. 1Raise the invoice against the customer.
2. 2Record payments against it as they arrive, in full or in part.
3. 3The outstanding amount updates as each payment lands.

Record supplier bills, see what is due, and record payments against them.

1. 1Enter the bill against the supplier, with the account it should be charged to.
2. 2Approve it if your rules require approval before payment.
3. 3Record the payment when it is made.

Hold your bank accounts, import or enter their transactions, and match them against what the books say.

1. 1Add each bank account with its currency.
2. 2Bring in the bank transactions.
3. 3Match them to the entries already recorded, and investigate anything left over on either side.

• What is left unmatched is the useful part. It is either something the bank knows about and you do not, or the other way round.

Closing a month stops anybody posting into it afterwards, which is what makes a reported figure stay reported.

1. 1Reconcile and review before you close.
2. 2Close the period.
3. 3If something genuinely has to be corrected afterwards, reopen it deliberately — that reopening is recorded.

Set what you expect to spend, then see how actual spending compares — including money committed on an order but not yet invoiced.

1. 1Create the budget and add a line per account per period.
2. 2Review variance as the year runs.
3. 3Where the plan has genuinely changed, raise a revision rather than quietly editing the original.

• A line can only appear once per account per month, enforced in both directions — two lines for the same account would make the variance meaningless.
• An adverse line that nobody has explained is reported as unexplained rather than folded into a total that looks fine.

Money held on trust for a particular purpose is tracked separately, so you can show a donor what happened to their money specifically.

1. 1Set up a fund for each restricted pot.
2. 2Attribute income and spending to it as they happen.
3. 3Produce a statement of funds, or a report for one donor.

The register of what you own, who is holding it, where it went, and what it is worth now.

1. 1Record the asset with its cost and useful life.
2. 2Assign custody so the register knows who holds it.
3. 3Run depreciation for the period.
4. 4Verify physically on a schedule, and record what was actually found.

• A transfer is three acts — sent, received, and recorded. The register only moves the asset when it actually arrives, so something lost in transit shows as lost rather than as delivered.
• Disposing of an asset bought with restricted funding checks the restriction first.

Trial balance, income statement, balance sheet and account statements, with a summary view for reading and a detailed view for checking.

1. 1Choose the report and the dates.
2. 2Switch between summary and every line.
3. 3Click a line to see the entries that make it up.
4. 4Export to PDF or spreadsheet, or email it.

• Every exported page carries your organisation, the report name, the currency, when it was generated and the page number — so a printed copy still says what it is months later.

The record of everybody who works for you — their details, their job, which branch and department they sit in, and their employment history.

• Department, branch, cost centre and job title are chosen from lists your organisation maintains, never typed free-hand. Free text means the same department arrives spelled three ways and reporting splits it three ways too.

Requests, approvals and balances, with the approval going to the right person automatically.

1. 1Somebody requests leave against a leave type.
2. 2It routes to their approver.
3. 3Approved leave draws down the balance.

Records of who was present, used for payroll and for spotting patterns worth a conversation.

Set goals, record reviews against them, and keep the history somewhere both sides can see it.

Post a role, track applications against it, and move candidates through the stages.

Programmes, who is enrolled, and who has completed what — including training that is mandatory and has to be evidenced.

Payroll draws on the people data and approvals already recorded — contracts, leave, attendance — and produces a run you can check before anything is paid.

1. 1Create the run for the period.
2. 2Review the lines, which are built from the approved data rather than typed again.
3. 3Post it to the ledger, split by fund where relevant.

Which funder or project paid for whom. Needed the moment somebody is paid partly from a restricted grant.

Who you sell to, the people you deal with there, what has been discussed, and what might come of it.

Quote for work, turn an accepted quote into an order, and let it flow through to invoicing.

Who you buy from, how they have performed, and the evaluations behind that judgement.

Somebody asks for something, it gets approved, and it becomes an order. The order commits budget from the moment it is raised, not when the invoice eventually arrives.

1. 1Raise a requisition with what is needed and the account it should be charged to.
2. 2It is approved according to your thresholds.
3. 3It becomes a purchase order to a supplier.
4. 4Receipt and the supplier bill are matched against it.

• If a line was charged to the wrong account, correct it on the order — the commitment moves with it rather than leaving the budget wrong.

Run a tender with sealed bids: bids cannot be read before the closing date, and the evaluation is scored against criteria set in advance.

• Setting the criteria after the bids are open is how a tender stops being a tender. The system keeps the order.

What you hold, where you hold it, and every movement in and out — so the stock figure and the books agree.

1. 1Set up items and the warehouses that hold them.
2. 2Record movements as they happen.
3. 3Check stock levels and investigate differences while they can still be explained.

Book rooms and shared facilities, with clashes caught rather than discovered on the day.

• A booking is checked again when it is approved, not only when it is requested — otherwise two bookings raised at the same time can both be approved into the same slot.

A logbook per vehicle: trips, distance, fuel and who was driving.

• Fuel figures can be questioned rather than simply accepted, because a logbook nobody can challenge is a logbook nobody should rely on.

The register of what you are committed to, with the notice deadline counted down for you.

• The date that matters is not when the contract ends, it is the last day you can give notice. That is the one the register counts down to.

Who your members are, which category they are in, and whether they are in good standing — which is worked out from their record rather than typed in by hand.

People applying to join, the decision made on each, and who made it.

Agenda, attendance, minutes and resolutions held together, so a decision keeps its link to the meeting that made it and the action it created.

1. 1Set up the meeting body and its members.
2. 2Build the agenda.
3. 3Record attendance — quorum is worked out from it rather than asserted.
4. 4Record minutes and the resolutions passed.

Nominations, candidates, a secret ballot, and results certified against the body being elected to.

From registration and waiting lists to door check-in, with the money attached: budgets, sponsorship income, supplier bills and what the event actually cost.

Campaigns to members, sent only to those who have consented to hear from you — consent is enforced, not left to whoever builds the list.

A directory members can find each other in, with each member controlling what of their own contact details is visible, plus interest groups and the moderation that keeps them usable.

Courses, certification, and evidence of who has completed the training they are required to.

Every document keeps its versions and stays linked to the invoice, employee, order or case it belongs to.

1. 1Upload the file and give it a title and category.
2. 2Link it to the record it relates to.
3. 3Later versions are added to the same document rather than uploaded as new files.

• You can see who opened a document and how far they read — useful when a policy has to be evidenced as circulated.

While you have a document out, nobody else can issue a new version of it. Two people editing the constitution in parallel does not produce two versions — it produces one that silently lost half the changes.

1. 1Check the document out, saying when you will return it.
2. 2Work on it.
3. 3Check it in when you are done. Whether anything changed is read off the register, not claimed by you.

• Reading is never blocked. A lock that stopped people reading would push them into emailing themselves a copy, which is the problem it exists to prevent.
• An administrator can take a checkout from you if you are unavailable, but it is recorded with their name and a reason, and you will see it — you may have unfinished work about to collide with somebody else’s.

Review is a different clock from retention. Retention says when a record may be destroyed; review says when somebody must confirm it still describes what you actually do.

1. 1Put the document on a review cycle.
2. 2When it falls due, read it and record the outcome.
3. 3"Read it, still correct, nothing to change" is a valid result and is recorded as one.

• Withdrawing a policy needs a reason, because it changes what people are expected to follow.

Retention schedules, legal holds and disposal authorisation — what must be kept, for how long, and who authorised destroying it.

• A legal hold overrides a retention schedule. Nothing under hold is disposed of.

What is waiting on you to approve, and what you have raised that is waiting on somebody else.

• The person who raises something can never be the person who approves it, whatever their role.

Approval limits are set per person and per currency, rather than assuming anybody senior can approve anything.

1. 1Set the levels your organisation uses.
2. 2Assign people to them, with the amount and currency each can approve up to.

Hand your approvals to somebody else while you are away.

• Cover expires by itself. Delegation that quietly outlives the holiday it was for is how authority ends up somewhere nobody intended.

A scheduled check of who can reach what, so access granted for a project three years ago is noticed rather than inherited forever.

Access beyond somebody’s normal role is requested, approved deliberately, and recorded.

Who did what, and when. It cannot be quietly rewritten, which is what makes it worth showing an auditor.

Which events send an email, set per organisation so people are told what matters to them and not more.

Invite people, and decide what each can reach. Three separate things: whether somebody is an administrator, which modules they can open, and what their job title is.

• Module access is assigned per person by an administrator. It does not follow automatically from a role or a job title, because in practice those three things do not line up.

The lists that the rest of the system picks from. Maintain them here and everything else chooses from them rather than inventing its own spellings.

Define the kinds of work your organisation handles, the stages each goes through, and how long each stage should take before it is chased.

Your organisation’s name and logo, currency and number formats, the depth each module runs at, and your sector pack.

• The logo you upload here appears on exported reports and on the emails the system sends.

The Help button in the corner of every page opens a search over the published answers. Type the word that is going wrong rather than the word you think we call it.

If it is not answered, raise a ticket. Say what you did, what happened, and what you expected instead — a one-word report costs a round trip before anybody can start.

1. 1Give it a short title you will recognise in a list.
2. 2Say what the problem is doing to your work: minor, blocking, or critical.
3. 3Attach a screenshot if you have one.

• Nothing is closed without being answered, and a ticket marked resolved comes straight back if you reply to say it is not.
• You state the impact; support decides where it sits in the queue. Those are different judgements.

Not broken, just wrong. Send it — and decide separately whether any of it may be published. Feedback we cannot publish is still the most useful kind.