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Getting started

Sign up, let the setup walk bring your data in, run Manifold beside the system you use today, and go live when you are ready. Nothing leaves Manifold until you do.

1. Sign up

Choose one:

  • From the website. Press Start free and create your account. Manifold makes your organization.
  • From Shopify. Install Manifold from the Shopify App Store. Sign in or create an account when asked, and your store is connected to the new organization.

Either way, you land in the setup walk.

2. Walk through setup

The setup walk asks a few questions at a time, in four parts. Each step is done when what it asks for exists, however it got there: an import that brings your products in finishes the products step for you. You can skip most steps and come back. Reopen the walk at any time from Settings › Setup.

Your business
Name, country, currency and timezone, and who you sell to.
Bring your data
Where do your products and orders live today? Pick the system you are leaving and the channels you sell through, such as Shopify. Each one you pick sets itself up in the steps that follow. Then Add your products and stock brings in whatever those did not: a CSV (see Import & export), a migration from Cin7 (see Moving from Cin7), or nothing, to start empty.
How you work
Check what came across: your locations, the catalogs each channel sells, suppliers and customers, purchasing settings and your order pipeline (which steps are manual and which are automatic). Then Do your opening stocktake: count your stock and give every SKU a cost. See Stocktake.
Go live
Which accounting software do you use? Pick Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks, or keep Manifold's own chart of accounts. See Connecting Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks. Start your free trial cannot be skipped: 60 days free, on a card or on your Shopify bill (see Billing). Invite your team comes last, and is where you finish setup (see People and roles).

Finishing setup does not go live. Your organization stays read-only until an owner or admin decides.

3. Run Manifold beside your old system

Every new organization starts in read-only mode. Orders come in, imports run and your team can work in Manifold in full. Nothing goes out: no stock or prices to your stores, no journals to your accounting system, no email to customers or suppliers. So your old system keeps running the business while you check Manifold against it.

If you imported from another system and chose to keep following it, Manifold re-reads that system on a schedule, and the records it feeds can be read here but not edited. You keep editing them in the old system until you go live.

See Read-only mode and going live.

4. Go live

  1. Finish your opening stocktake's counts and costs. Going live completes it, and your books begin there.
  2. Just before you go live, work through the switch-over checklist in your old system.
  3. An owner or admin opens Settings › General, presses Go live on the Read-only mode card, types go live and confirms.
  4. Open each accounting app's Connection page, choose its sending settings and press Save. Nothing reaches your accounting system until you do.

Going live is permanent. Read Read-only mode and going live first.

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