The Business Type field on the Organization Profile tells BusinessSensor what kind of business you run — Pharmacy, Restaurant, Hotel, Retail Store, Construction Firm, Clinic, Import/Export, and so on.
It is a labelling / tailoring hint. Setting it doesn't change your books on its own. What it does change:
- The AI-suggested Chart of Accounts picker (Accounting → Chart of Accounts → Suggest from AI) uses it, together with your country, to propose accounts a bookkeeper in your sector typically needs.
- The AI-suggested Item Categories and Common Inventory starters use the same signal, so a Pharmacy tenant in Nigeria gets a different starter list from a Restaurant tenant in Kenya.
Before you start
- You need Company Settings access — the same permission that lets you edit the rest of the Organization page.
- You will get better AI suggestions if you have already picked your Country on the same page. If Country is blank, suggestions fall back to a generic global list.
What the picker already shows
When you open the Organization page for the first time, BusinessSensor pre-fills a sensible Business Type default from your license:
| Your license | Default Business Type |
|---|---|
| Any edition with Version = Gold | Hospitality |
| App Mode = Pharmacy | Pharmacy |
| App Mode = POS ERP | Retail |
| App Mode = Reservation ERP | Hospitality |
| Anything else | (blank — please pick) |
The default only appears the first time — once you save (or pick something else), BusinessSensor never overwrites your choice from the license again.
Steps
- Go to Setup → Organization.
- In the Company group, find the Business Type dropdown.
- Click the dropdown. If AI suggestions are switched on for your site, you will see a short list of sectors that are common in your country (25 – 40 items). Type to narrow the list.
- Pick the label that best fits your business. If nothing on the list fits, just type your own — the picker accepts free text, and your typed value is saved exactly as you entered it.
- Click Save at the top of the page.
You can change the Business Type later at any time. Changing it does not retroactively rewrite your existing chart of accounts, item categories or inventory — it only affects the next AI-suggested list you ask for.
Tips
- The dropdown lists both broad labels (Retail, Hospitality, Restaurant, Pharmacy) and narrow sub-sectors (Phone Retail, Electronics Retail, Clothing, Cafe, Fast Food, Auto Repair, Bureau De Change …). Prefer the narrower label when it fits your business — a phone retailer gets better AI-suggested accounts and inventory as "Phone Retail" than as plain "Retail". Fall back to the umbrella only if nothing narrower fits.
- The list is sorted alphabetically, so type the first few letters to jump to the right area (e.g. "cl" → Cleaning Services, Clinic, Clothing).
- Title-case, singular: Phone Retail, not "phone retails".
- If nothing on the list fits, type your own — the picker accepts free text and saves exactly what you enter.
- If you run more than one line of business under one tenant, pick the one that best describes your books (usually the one that generates most of the revenue).
Common problems
The dropdown is empty and the placeholder says "AI suggestions off". Your site is running without an OpenAI key configured. You can still type your own Business Type freely and save — the AI-suggested pickers in Accounting / Item Categories / Inventory will simply be unavailable on this site until the key is set. Ask your systems administrator.
The dropdown shows "Loading…" and never finishes. The site couldn't reach the AI service. Type your Business Type by hand and save — you can retry the AI-backed lists later without losing your saved value.
I don't see labels specific to my country. Make sure the Country field on the same page is set. If it is, the AI list is cached for seven days per (country) pair; if you recently changed country, wait a moment and re-open the dropdown to refresh.
I picked the wrong one — can I fix it? Yes. Change the value, click Save, and use the Suggest from AI button on the Chart of Accounts / Item Categories / Inventory pages to draw a fresh list against the new sector. Existing accounts / categories / inventory items you have already created stay put.