Source truth: - Company Identity and Context Contract - Setup Readiness Contract - Financial Periods - Financial Period Contract - Business Time Contract - Starter Chart Installation Contract - Account Role Contract - Journal Entry Contract - Source Documents - Posting and Reversal - Roles and Permissions Contract - ADR 0019: First-Run Production Administrator Bootstrap - ADR 0026: Initial Release Single-Currency Boundary

Company Setup

This page follows the startup-company path currently visible in the BooksPlus desktop. Prepare the external records listed in Getting Organized before beginning.

Current desktop boundary

The desktop supports company creation and selection, initial production- administrator confirmation, safe company reselection, readiness-driven Guided Setup, monthly fiscal-calendar preview and activation, opening the first posting period, starter/current/imported chart acquisition and collision review, chart and account-role review, permission review, and reviewed opening- balance posting or an explicit not required disposition.

The desktop does not yet support final production role administration, QBO replacement, or the Accounting Corrections surface needed to correct a posted opening entry. Those unavailable paths are not setup instructions on this page.

1. Sign on and choose a company

Confirm the desktop operating-system identity shown by BooksPlus.
Select an available company, or choose Create Startup Company.
For a new production company, review the company and explicitly confirm the current desktop account as its initial production administrator.

The bootstrap supplies only the ordinary security authority needed to continue setup. It does not complete permission readiness and does not automatically grant posting, Close, restore, export, or support access.

If you cancel administrator confirmation, the company remains available so the same desktop account can resume. BooksPlus does not delete and recreate it. Retired companies and companies not assigned to the current actor cannot be entered.

2. Enter initial company details

In Setup, enter and apply:

legal name;
display name;
reporting currency;
named IANA accounting time zone;
fiscal year end; and
intended first posting date.

Review these values before applying them. The accounting time zone controls company-local period boundaries. The reporting currency is the only currency used for initial-release posting and formal statements.

3. Follow Guided Setup in order

Guided Setup makes the first incomplete readiness item the primary action. For that item it shows the prerequisite, reviewed subject, prior evidence, any warning or stale reason, and the recovery action. Do not skip ahead or treat an acknowledgement as a way to supply a missing fact.

The current sequence is:

Company identity. Applying valid initial details completes this objective item.
Responsibilities. Enter the approved external reference and version, then name the person responsible for each of the five displayed areas. Review the displayed subject before choosing Acknowledge displayed responsibilities. Unassigned is not accepted.
Policy baseline. Enter the business-approved external reference and version. Confirm that the displayed required coverage exists in that document, then choose Acknowledge displayed policy baseline. BooksPlus does not approve the document.
Reporting currency. Review the displayed company and currency and the single-currency boundary, then choose Acknowledge displayed reporting currency.
Fiscal calendar. Choose Prepare fiscal calendar preview, review the generated months, quarters, and fiscal-year boundary, then choose Activate reviewed fiscal calendar.
First posting period. Choose Open first posting period. This opens the fiscal month containing the intended first posting date.
Chart. In one Guided Setup area, install the starter chart, review the active current chart, or stage and commit a supported CSV chart as described in Chart of Accounts. Review the exact result and resolve every import issue or starter-chart collision before acknowledgement.
Account roles. Inspect every required role, its exact account identity, and eligibility. For a missing or blocked assignment, select the role, an eligible same-company posting account, and a reason, then choose Assign Selected Role. When every required role is valid, choose Acknowledge displayed account roles.
Permissions. Inspect actor-role assignments, role permissions, protected-action coverage, reason and step-up flags, and any bootstrap or development/test labels. Then choose Acknowledge displayed permission review.
Opening balances. Choose one path:
- To post opening balances, enter the posting date, source-document date, unique source identifier, evidence reference, and explanation. Add at least two lines using eligible accounts and the company reporting currency. Choose Review Opening Entry, resolve every displayed blocker, verify the period and balanced totals, then choose Post Reviewed Opening Entry.
- When no opening entry is required, enter the business reason and evidence reference, then choose Mark Not Required. Do not use this path merely to finish setup.

After posting, retain the displayed journal-entry, Source Document, and audit identifiers with the working papers. The source identifier cannot be reused to post a second opening entry. A changed draft must be reviewed again before it can be posted.

Setup shows Onboarding complete and a concise setup summary when every evaluated item is current and complete. Review that summary, then choose Enter Current Period. BooksPlus reevaluates completion immediately before the handoff; if a governed subject changed, it keeps you in Setup and displays the newly incomplete item and recovery action. Setup remains available from workspace navigation for later review.

Blockers, warnings, and recovery

An earlier item is incomplete: complete or recover that item. Guided Setup does not silently reorder the registry.
A reviewed subject changed: read the stale reason, inspect the new subject, and acknowledge it again only after review. Prior evidence remains in history.
Enter Current Period disappeared or keeps you in Setup: a readiness item is no longer current. Review the first incomplete item and its preserved prior evidence; do not treat the earlier completion display as a permanent flag.
The calendar preview is invalid: correct the fiscal year end or intended posting date, prepare a new preview, and review it before activation.
A starter-chart collision is pending: review every collision and choose an available collision action; do not edit the database or renumber silently.
A CSV preview has blocking errors: review the displayed row and field issues, correct the source, and stage a newly named source. Do not acknowledge the chart or use direct database repair.
A valid CSV preview is still staged: choose Commit Displayed Import after reviewing every row. Staging alone does not change the chart and does not make chart acknowledgement available.
A required account role is missing or invalid: select the blocked role, an eligible account, and a reason, then choose Assign Selected Role. An inactive, retired, non-posting, indirect-posting, or other-company account is unavailable or rejected. A duplicate singleton is resolved by selecting the one intended eligible account; BooksPlus preserves the replacement history.
A protected action has no assigned actor: Guided Setup shows this as an explicit permission-review warning. Acknowledgement records what was inspected; it does not grant the missing authority. Production user and permission administration remains unavailable.
The opening-entry preview is blocked: verify that every earlier setup prerequisite is complete, the posting date is in an open routine-posting month, every account is an eligible same-company posting account, every line uses the reporting currency, source evidence is present, and debits equal credits.
The draft changed after review: choose Review Opening Entry again. BooksPlus will not post a draft under an earlier review.
The source identifier is already posted: inspect the durable posted-entry result. Do not change the identifier merely to submit the same opening entry again.
Posting was interrupted: reopen Setup and inspect Posted opening entries before retrying. If the source identifier appears with journal, Source Document, and audit identifiers, do not post it again. If the result is present but an identifier is missing, stop and preserve the displayed state for administrator review rather than inventing another source id.
A posted opening entry is wrong: do not edit balances, replace the entry, or submit an offsetting setup entry. Preserve the displayed identifiers; the error must be handled through Accounting Corrections. That correction surface is not yet exposed in the desktop.

Return to company selection

Choose Return to Company Selection to leave the current company. BooksPlus warns that unfinished values currently displayed in the workspace will be discarded. Confirming does not delete or change saved company data.

After another company is selected, BooksPlus reloads setup, registers, forms, and drilldown state for that company. Verify the company name in the workspace before continuing.

What an acknowledgement means

An acknowledgement records the exact displayed subject, its version or fingerprint, the actor, time, explanation, and evidence reference. It does not grant a permission, open a period, install or alter a chart, assign an account role, or post an opening balance. BooksPlus reevaluates readiness when setup is reopened; a material change can make older evidence visibly stale.