Setting up your company, step by step

This article is the map for setting up a new company in SeroBooks. It lists the jobs in the order that works best, says why each one matters, and links to the article that explains it in full. Most companies can finish the essential steps (1 to 7) in under an hour; the rest can follow as you need them.

SeroBooks keeps its own record of how far you have got: Help ▸ Getting Set Up opens a checklist worked out from your data every time it opens, with a Do this button beside each step that is not finished. See Getting Set Up checklist.

Before you start

• You need a SeroBooks subscription and the email address and password it was set up with. New subscriptions are bought on serobooks.app.
• Install SeroBooks on your computer. See Install SeroBooks and keep it up to date.
• Sign in. See Sign in.
• Coming from QuickBooks Desktop? Read Coming from QuickBooks Desktop first; the importer in step 9 does much of the work below for you.

The steps

1. Company information

Your legal and trading name, address, phone, email and tax registration numbers. These appear on every invoice, statement and report you print.

Open Company ▸ Company Information…. See Company Information.

2. Business details and province

Your location needs a province or state and a country. Canada has four different sales tax systems, and which one applies to a sale is decided by where it is supplied: without a province on your location, sales outside your province are taxed at the wrong rate.

See Business and location settings.

3. Chart of accounts

Every figure in your books lands in one of these accounts. A new company can seed the standard Canadian set with one click and edit it afterwards.

Open Lists ▸ Chart of Accounts (Ctrl+A). See Chart of Accounts and Add, edit, merge or make an account inactive.

4. Preferences

How SeroBooks behaves for your company, gathered by category as in QuickBooks (Accounting, Bills, Checking, Finance Charge, Items & Inventory, Jobs & Estimates, Multiple Currencies, Payments, Reports & Graphs, Sales & Customers, Sales Tax and more). Each category leads to the screen that holds the setting: terms, numbering, Undeposited Funds, price levels and so on. Settings change what new transactions do; they do not rewrite what you have already entered.

Open Edit ▸ Preferences…. See Preferences.

5. Accounting Setup (the posting map)

The posting map tells SeroBooks which account each kind of transaction posts to: accounts receivable, sales, the tax you collect and so on. Three roles are required: Accounts Receivable, Sales revenue and GST/HST payable. Until they are filled in and automatic posting is on, nothing reaches the general ledger.

Open Company ▸ Accounting Setup. See Accounting Setup (posting accounts).

6. Sales tax

Check that the tax rates are the right ones for where you are: GST, HST, PST or QST in Canada, state and local rates in the United States. The checklist can tell that rates exist; only you can tell whether they are right.

See How sales tax works in SeroBooks, Tax rates and tax groups and Sales Tax Code List.

7. Users and roles

Add the people who will work in the books and decide what each role may see and do. Staff can sign in with a short name such as anna@yourcompany, without an email address of their own.

Open Company ▸ Set Up Users and Roles…. See Set Up Users and Roles, Roles and permissions explained and Staff sign-in names.

8. Your lists: customers, vendors and items

• Customers: Customers ▸ Customer Centre. See Add or edit a customer.
• Vendors: Vendors ▸ Vendor Centre. See Add or edit a vendor.
• Items and services: Lists ▸ Item List. See Add or edit an item and Item accounts.
• Many at once: Lists ▸ Add/Edit Multiple List Entries…. See Add/Edit Multiple List Entries.
• Terms, payment methods, customer types and the other small lists: see Lists in SeroBooks.

9. Opening balances

What the business owned and owed on the day it starts in SeroBooks: bank balances, what customers owe you, what you owe vendors, stock on hand, loans and equity.

• Coming from QuickBooks Desktop: File ▸ Import from QuickBooks… brings your lists and balances across. See Import from QuickBooks.
• Coming from anything else: Company ▸ Enter Opening Balances. See Enter Opening Balances.
• A brand-new business with nothing to bring across: on the Getting Set Up checklist, press We are starting from zero. That is recorded as an answer, and the step then reads "Starting from nothing — no opening balances needed."

10. Bank accounts, bank feeds and cheques

Make sure every bank and credit card account is in the chart of accounts, connect a live bank feed where your bank supports one, and set up cheque printing if you print cheques.

See Bank Feeds, Write Cheques and Print Cheques.

11. Forms and printing

Choose how your invoices and other forms look, how they are numbered, and which printer they print on.

See Templates, Document Numbering and Printer Setup.

12. Your first invoice

The last step, and the one that proves the others: an invoice raised with the steps above complete posts to the ledger by itself. Open Customers ▸ Create Invoices (Ctrl+I). See Create Invoices.

Afterwards, open Reports ▸ Accountant & Taxes ▸ Trial Balance and check that the invoice's accounts moved as you expected. See Trial Balance.

Later, when you need them

Common problems

The first invoice is refused with "Your posting map is not finished…". Finish step 5. Open Company ▸ Accounting Setup, fill in the required accounts and make sure automatic posting is on, then save the invoice again.

Sales to another province show the wrong tax. Check step 2 (the province on your location) and the customer's own address, which decides the place of supply. See Tax on invoices, bills and expenses.

A step on the checklist will not tick. The checklist reads your data, not a tick box. Press Refresh on the checklist after finishing the step; if it still shows as not done, open the step's Do this screen and check what the step's line says is still needed.