You do not have to do everything at once. This is the order that gets a firm from a fresh workspace to live in about a week, one step at a time.
How to use this
Work top to bottom. Each day builds on the last, so core settings are in place before you invite the whole team or work with a real client. If you finish a day early, move ahead; if a day runs long, that is fine too.
Day 1: Foundation
- Set your timezone, date format, and business hours.
- Confirm the firm name, address, and any required registration numbers.
- Upload your logo and favicon, then check them on an invoice preview and in the portal.
Day 2: Email and templates
- Configure outgoing mail and send yourself a test message.
- Set the from name and a monitored from address.
- Tidy the invoice and portal invitation templates so they sound like your firm.
Day 3: Money settings
- Confirm your base currency.
- Enter your tax rates and set the usual default.
- Set your invoice prefix and next number.
Day 4: People and access
- Create your roles, named for the job rather than the person.
- Add each staff member and set their hourly rate.
- Review own versus all visibility for each role, starting narrow and loosening as needed.
Day 5: Bring in your data
- Use Data Import to bring clients, matters, and any historical invoices in from a spreadsheet.
- Spot check a handful of imported records so you trust the rest.
- Connect cloud storage if your files live in Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox.
Day 6: A full dry run
- Create a test client and matter. Walk the intake exactly as you would for a real file.
- Log some time and raise an invoice from it. This proves rates, currency, tax, and numbering all line up.
- Send that invoice to yourself. Confirm the branding, the totals, and that it actually arrives by email.
- Preview the client portal. Look at what a client would see, so nothing surprises you later.
Do the whole dry run with test data before inviting the team. Finding a wrong tax rate on a pretend invoice is a five minute fix; finding it on a client's invoice is a phone call.
Day 7: Go live
- Remove or clearly mark any test records so real data starts clean.
- Invite your team and point them to the Knowledge base for how each area works.
- Create your first real matter and let the everyday flow take over.
The onboarding checklist under Onboarding tracks much of this for you and ticks steps automatically as you do the real thing. Use this week plan as the running order and let the checklist confirm your progress.