First steps after install

Set up your business

After you create your account, onboarding asks for your business details, country and tax, currency, financial year and document numbering. Skip anything you’re not sure of: Set up Spine (from the dashboard’s checklist, or your account menu) shows what’s left, and each card opens the right setting.

Explore first

Not ready to enter your own data? Load a demo business from onboarding, or later in Settings › Data › Load demo data, and delete it when you’re done. Your own records are never touched.

Issue your first invoice

1. Contacts › Add contact. Add a customer with their email address.
2. Invoices › New invoice. Pick the customer, add a line (from your catalogue, or typed in), and Save draft.
3. Issue invoice. Spine asks first, because an issued invoice can’t be edited: it gets its permanent number and posts to your books.
4. Email sends it to the customer as a PDF. When they pay, Record payment on the invoice.

Then

• Invite your team: Team › Users › Invite people. Office staff get rights through Teams; field crew use the phone app.
• Set up email and backups on the server: see Email and Backups.
• Read the user guide for each part of Spine.