Getting started — your setup checklist

The Getting started checklist lists everything needed to run your business on BusinessSensor: company details, accounts and taxes, your staff, your products, customers and suppliers, the balances you start with, how you get paid, and a last check before you start trading. Each step ticks itself once the work is really done — nobody has to remember to tick it.

Many steps have a short training video (Watch (2 min)) and, where you can bring the data in from Excel, a Download template link.

Administrators see a short version at the top of the Home page; the full list is under Setup → Getting Started.

Before you start

• Anyone can read the checklist. Each step opens the screen where you do it; if your role cannot open that screen, the step says so — ask the person who can.
• Only users with Company settings can hide the checklist or mark steps "not needed".

Steps

1. Open Setup → Getting Started (or click See all on the Home page strip).
2. Work down the list. Click Set up → on a step to open its screen.
3. Where you see a purple shortcut — Suggest for my business, Suggest for my country, Import from Excel — use it to do the step in one go:
   • The chart of accounts and taxes can be suggested for your type of business and country.
   • Products, customers, suppliers and opening balances can be imported from a spreadsheet (see Import your data from Excel or CSV).
4. Click Watch (… min) on a step to see it done in a short video. It plays on the same page; close it to carry on. Read the guide in the player opens the written instructions in the Help Center.
5. Click Download template to get the Excel file for that step (items, customers, suppliers, chart of accounts, departments, rooms…). Its dropdowns already list your own categories, departments and accounts. Fill it in, then bring it in under Setup → Import data.
6. Come back to the checklist: finished steps show a green tick and a count (e.g. "48 items").
7. If a step does not apply to you — for example you sell only to walk-in customers and keep no supplier records — click We don't need this. It then counts as complete. We do need this brings it back.
8. Finish with the Go-live check at the bottom. It runs once every other essential step is ticked or marked not needed, and ticks when nothing on Setup → Am I ready to go live? needs attention (your books balance, opening balances are out of the profit and loss, every item has a category…). Click Run the check to see and fix what it found.
9. When every essential step, including the go-live check, is ticked or marked not needed, the checklist says You are all set and the Home page strip disappears. Steps marked optional do not count.

Tips

• Practise first. The violet Practise first in a sample company box at the top opens your practice company: a separate company with a sample business's data, where you can try every step (and every lesson video) without touching your real books.
• The list follows your kind of business: hotels also see Room types & rates and Rooms; pharmacies see Drug catalogue.
• Online card payments (payment gateway) is offered to every business as an optional step: connect your own Paystack or Stripe account under Setup → Gateway Credentials, then choose the payment method that charges through it (and the bank account the money lands in) under Setup → Payment Methods. It ticks once such a payment method exists.
• Tills and printers appears for shops and restaurants that sell at the POS (and for any business once it has opened a till). Add each checkout computer under Setup → POS Tills and your receipt or kitchen printers under Setup → Printers (they print through Business Sensor Bridge). It ticks once you have at least one of each. No printer? Click We don't need this.
• Payments in your online shop (hotels: Payments on your booking pages) appears when your online shop is open, for hotels, and when your QR ordering codes ask customers to pay first. Choose the gateways under Setup → Storefront → Online payments.
• A good order on day one: company details → financial year → chart of accounts → taxes → departments → payment methods → products → customers and suppliers → opening balances → invite staff → go-live check.
• Get notified on your phone is per person — each user sees whether they have turned on push notifications.
• To hide the strip from the Home page before you finish, click the × on it, or untick Show on the home page on the Getting Started page.

Common problems

• A step has no Watch link → There is no video for it yet, or your role cannot open the screen the video teaches. The written guide in the Help Center (? at the top) still covers it.

• No Download template link → That step has no import, or your role cannot import that kind of record.

• The Go-live check says "do this last" → Some essential step above is not ticked or marked not needed yet. Finish those first.

• The Go-live check stays unticked although I fixed things → Open Run the check: the page re-runs every check and the checklist picks up the result. "Your books balance" can lag a minute behind a posting; refresh after a minute.

• A step stays unticked although I did it → The step looks at what the system actually holds. For example Chart of accounts ticks once you add an account beyond those that came with your new workspace, and Invite your staff once there is an active user besides you. Check that the records were saved (and are active).

• "Needs someone with access to this screen" → Your role cannot open that screen. An administrator can do it, or give your role the permission.

• The strip vanished from the Home page → Someone hid it or everything is done. The full list is always at Setup → Getting Started.