Setting up a new customer
A new customer gets two environments: Production, its real books, and Test, a copy of Production to try things out. Its own administrator decides how the books are kept, at the first sign-in. Why it works this way is in ADR-0041; the API is setup.
1. The operator creates the customer
In the operator portal, New customer asks for two things: the organization's name and the first administrator's e-mail. Google e-mails the administrator a link to set their password. Nothing of the books is created yet.
When a customer asks the operator to set up its books, the Books step can instead create the first company right away, from a template and a chart of accounts picked from the list (the country's standard chart is preselected). The administrator then skips the questions below and makes a Test environment under Settings, Test copies.
2. The administrator answers a few questions
At the first sign-in the administrator sees Set up your company, five short steps:
- Company: the legal name and the country. In the United States the state, in Canada the province or territory (sales taxes depend on it).
- Accounting: the accounting standard (the usual one for the country is preselected), the currency of the books and the month the fiscal year starts. The currency cannot be changed later.
- Tax and address: the VAT or GST/HST number, if the company has one, the tax return period and the address. All but the period can be added later in Settings, Company.
- Industry: hospitality, professional services, wholesale, retail, online shop, manufacturing or general. Its screens come first in the menu and on Home; nothing is switched off, and it can be changed later in Settings, Company. See Industries.
- Review, then Create Production and Test.
Anyone else who signs in before then is told that their administrator is setting things up.
3. Production and Test are made
Production gets the company with the chart of accounts of the chosen standard, the periods of the current fiscal year and the tax settings. Test is made right after as a copy of Production, named after the organization with "(Test)". Switch between them with the environment picker in the top bar; Test always shows an orange banner. More copies (Dev, UAT) can be made in Settings, Test copies.
What each country starts with
| Where | Accounting standards | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| Switzerland and Liechtenstein | Swiss Code of Obligations (KMU chart) or IFRS | VAT, quarterly |
| Germany | HGB or IFRS | VAT, monthly or quarterly |
| France | French GAAP (Plan comptable général) or IFRS | VAT (CA3), monthly or quarterly |
| Italy | Italian GAAP (Civil Code and OIC) or IFRS | VAT, quarterly or monthly |
| Spain | Spanish GAAP (PGC PYMES) or IFRS | VAT (Modelo 303), quarterly or monthly |
| Sweden | Swedish GAAP (K2/K3, BAS chart) or IFRS; books in SEK | VAT (momsdeklaration), quarterly, monthly or yearly |
| Finland | Finnish GAAP (Kirjanpitolaki) or IFRS | VAT (kausiveroilmoitus), monthly, quarterly or yearly |
| Denmark | Danish GAAP (Årsregnskabsloven) or IFRS; books in DKK | VAT (momsangivelse), quarterly, half-yearly or monthly |
| Norway | Norwegian GAAP (Regnskapsloven, NS 4102 chart) or IFRS; books in NOK | VAT (MVA-melding), every two months or yearly |
| Other EU countries | IFRS (national charts come later) | VAT, quarterly or monthly |
| United Kingdom | FRS 102 or UK-adopted IFRS | VAT, quarterly or monthly |
| United States | US GAAP | Sales tax, set up per state later |
| Canada | ASPE or IFRS | GST/HST, quarterly, monthly or yearly |
The books can be kept in the country's currency or in EUR, USD, GBP, CHF or CAD.
The VAT number is checked against the country's format: in Sweden SE, the organisationsnummer and 01 (SE556703748501); in Finland FI and the Y-tunnus without its hyphen (FI20774740); in Denmark DK and the CVR-nummer (DK13585628); in Norway the organisasjonsnummer with MVA (NO974760673MVA). Norway is in the EEA but not in the EU: a Norwegian company has no EU one-stop shop and no EC sales list, and sales to and purchases from the EU are exports and imports. The screens show dates and numbers in the reader's language (English, German, French, Italian or Swedish).