Setting up and hiding what you do not use

This product has a lot in it, and most businesses need about half. A solo plumber who quotes, works and bills should not be looking past Materials, Workers, Transactions and Leads to reach the four things they came for.

So you tell it what your business does, and you start with the tools that fit it and nothing else.

Answer the setup wizard

The first thing a new owner sees asks about their business: first the details that go on your quotes and invoices, then your trade and the tools that fit it, then a few questions — whether anybody else works on your jobs, how you handle the money, whether you track mileage. Your answers are written straight to your settings.

It takes a couple of minutes and you can skip any of it. Skip for now, or Finish later part of the way through, first shows you the general kit: the tools nearly every service business uses, each of them untickable. Start with these adds what you left ticked; Start with nothing leaves with only quoting, jobs, scheduling and billing, the core every business has. If your business already has everything in the general kit, skipping leaves straight away. You can run setup again from Tools, in the main menu, whenever you like.

Start with the tools for your trade

Straight after the details, setup shows your trade and its kit: the tools that fit that kind of work and the starter content that makes them useful on day one — the kinds of work you do, a visit checklist, the readings a visit takes, the kinds of unit you work on. There is a kit for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, pest control, cleaning, landscaping, remodeling, roofing, painting and handyman work, and a general one.

It opens on the trade you told us, or the one read off your website or your description; choose a different trade and the kit changes with it. If your trade is not known yet, or yours has no kit of its own, you see the general kit and the screen says which of the two it is.

Every line can be unticked, and nothing is added until you choose Continue. A tool your plan does not include says so and is not added, and so does one that has to be set up on its own page first — Online Booking, until a service can be booked. Anything you already have is left as it is, so running setup again adds only what is missing. The questions that follow arrive answered from what the kit added, and you can change any of them.

Only the owner takes a kit. The same card is on the Tools page as Start from a kit — see Your tools.

Understand what the wizard actually is

The wizard is just a friendly way of choosing your tools. It sets exactly what the Tools page shows, and if it were deleted tomorrow nothing would break.

That matters because it means nothing the wizard did is trapped in the wizard. Everything it set you can find, read and change later, in one place, without repeating an interview.

Turn parts of the product on and off

Tools, in the main menu, lists every tool the product has — what your business has on first, then the rest in groups — with the state each one is in, and Run setup again at the foot of the page.

Choose Add on a card and a screen says what the tool needs, what will appear and what still has to be set up, before anything changes; choose Remove and it says what stops and promises that nothing you recorded is deleted. Any card that is not on answers Why can’t I see it?. The whole page is explained in Your tools — adding, removing, finishing setting up, and the tools suggested for your trade.

Removing Mileage makes the app smaller. Adding it makes it bigger. Nothing else changes. The menu and every other way into that area follow it, so removing something does not leave a link that goes somewhere you said you did not want.

Change your mind at any time

Nothing here is a one-way door.

Removing a tool never deletes anything. The records stay exactly as they were, and adding it back brings them back into view unchanged. If you remove Mileage in March and add it back in October, every trip you logged is still there.

That is what makes it safe to remove things — you are putting a part of the product away, not throwing away a part of your business.

What to do first

The Get Started checklist on your dashboard is the resume point for setting up without talking to anybody. It leads with bringing in your client list and connecting a payment account, because those are the two that change your week most — see Importing and exporting your data and Getting set up to take payment.