Answers
Setup questions, answered
The questions people ask most while they set up — answered in a few lines, with the full guide one click away.
Getting set up
- How do I enter opening balances?Type each opening balance on the customer, supplier or account itself, with the date it was true (As Of). The one thing to watch is the sign: on a customer a positive number means they owe you; on a supplier it means you owe them.
- How do I change my base currency?Go to Setup → Preferences, General tab, pick the currency in Base Currency and Save. You can only do this before anything is recorded — once the company has a sale, purchase, receipt, journal, opening balance or stock, the currency is locked.
- How do I bring in my customers, suppliers and items from Excel?Use the import: pick what you are importing, use the template or your own spreadsheet, and match the columns. Every row is checked first and nothing is saved until you have seen what will happen and clicked Import. Opening balances and stock come in at the same time.
- What is the practice company?A separate company filled with a sample business — customers, suppliers, stock, sales and payments already in place — for learning, following the lessons and training staff. Nothing you do there touches your real books, and nothing moves between the two.
- How do I know I am ready to go live?Run Setup → Go-live Check. It makes the checks an accountant would make on a new set of books — company details, time zone, books in balance, opening balances, items without a category, roles that see no items, negative stock — and tells you where to fix each one.
Your team
- How do I add a user and control what they can do?Each person gets their own user in Setup → Users. Their security group decides which screens they can open; their own Rights tab sets their price and discount limits. Never share one sign-in between people — the audit trail records who did what.
- What does “You don’t have the … permission” mean?The screen or action is protected by a permission your user group does not have. Nothing was saved or changed. Pass the permission name in quotes to your administrator, who adds it to your group.
Selling
- Why can’t my cashier see any items?Almost always it is the cashier’s security group or the till’s department. A group must have at least one item category ticked — with none, its users see no items at the till or on invoices. And if the till sells from a department that holds no stock, no products show.
- How do I close a till shift and balance the drawer?Choose Close shift / Z-report, count the cash in the drawer and enter it. The Z-report shows the cash you should have (float plus cash sales, minus refunds and paid-outs), what you counted, and the difference.
- How do I refund a sale?At the till choose Refund last sale (or find the receipt), pick the lines and quantities coming back, choose where the money goes, and confirm. Stock and the books correct themselves.
- How do I connect a receipt or kitchen printer?The web app cannot reach a printer on your premises directly, so a PC there runs Business Sensor Bridge and passes print jobs on. Install and pair Bridge once, then add each printer in Setup → Printers.
Money and the books
- How do I set up the taxes for my country?Set your country and business type in Setup → Organization, then let BusinessSensor draft your taxes: sales tax such as VAT or GST at the local rate, withholding tax and payroll deductions. You check the list; nothing is created until you click Import.
- How do I record a payment from a customer who owes me?Record a receipt in Sales → Receipts. Pick the customer, enter the amount and how they paid, and it is shared out over their unpaid invoices, oldest first. Anything left over stays on their account as credit.
- How do I reconcile my bank account?Once a month, upload the bank statement (CSV, Excel or OFX) in Accounting → Bank Reconciliation and match each statement line to a receipt, payment, transfer or journal. When every line is matched, your books have everything the bank did.
Not here? Search the product guides or watch the video courses.
Try it yourself
Start a free trial and practise on sample data before you set up your own business.