Read-only mode and going live

A new organization changes nothing outside Manifold until you go live, so you can try it beside the system you use today.

What read-only mode means

Every new organization starts in read-only mode. A Read-only badge sits at the top of every screen while it lasts. Work comes in as usual, and your team can use Manifold in full. Nothing goes out.

Still happens while read-only:

Orders come in from your connected stores.
Imports, and syncs from the system you are moving from, keep running.
Your team creates and edits products, orders, purchase orders, customers and the rest, unless Manifold is following your old system (see below).
Settings, users, channels and apps can be changed at any time. Locations are the exception while Manifold follows your old system.
Sign-in email, alerts to your own owners, and a test email you send from the notification settings still go out.
Billing is not affected. The trial and subscription run as normal (see Billing).

Held while read-only:

Your stores. No stock, prices, products or fulfilments are sent to them.
Your accounting system. No journals are sent to Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks.
Your customers and suppliers. No email is sent to them. A held email is logged as failed, with the reason, and is not sent later.
Your apps. No webhooks are sent to third-party apps. Manifold's own apps hold what they would send.

This lets Manifold run beside your current system without the two overwriting each other in a store or a ledger.

If Manifold is following your old system

If you imported from another system and asked Manifold to keep following it, the badge reads Read-only · following and that system's name. Manifold re-reads it on a schedule, brings in records it has not seen, and corrects stock to that system's figures.

While it follows, these can be read here but not edited, because the other system is still the one you edit: products, catalogs and prices, stock, receiving, allocations, locations, orders, payments, purchasing, customers and companies. Trying to save a change is refused with a message saying the records follow that system until you go live. You can still count and value stock for your opening stocktake. Going live ends the link and unlocks those records.

Before you go live

Count and value your stock. Going live completes your opening stocktake. Every stock SKU needs a cost: one entered on the stocktake, or the cost Manifold already holds for it. Any SKU you do not count goes in at the quantity Manifold holds now, at its cost.
1. Open Stocktakes from the Screens menu at the top of the admin, and press Start the opening stocktake.
2. On the counting sheet, enter what you counted and a unit cost where Manifold has none.
3. Leave it open. Going live completes it; you cannot complete it yourself before then.
See Stocktake.
Choose your accounting basis under Settings › Tax › Accounting basis. After go-live it changes only at the start of a financial year.
Connect your accounting system. Install the app, sign in and choose the books, then place your accounts on the Your accounts screen of the setup walk's Set up Xero (or MYOB, or QuickBooks) step. The sending settings wait until after go-live. See Connecting Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks.
Check your stores and sender. Make sure stock, prices and catalogs are what you want sent, and that email to customers will go out under the right address.
Plan the switch. Pick the day, and tell the people who use the old system. The switch-over checklist below is what you do that day.

The switch-over checklist

Do this on the day you go live, just before you press Go live. Once you go live, Manifold writes to your stores, ledger and customers, and the old system must stop doing the same. In your old system:

Turn off its stock and price sync to each store.
Turn off its accounting integration.
Turn off its emails to customers and suppliers.
If Manifold follows it, stop editing records there.

Going live

An owner or admin goes live. Other people see the card without the button; it says an owner or admin decides.

Go to Settings › General, or press the Read-only badge.
On the Read-only mode card, press Go live.
Read the list of what will happen, type go live and confirm.

Going live is permanent. There is no way back to read-only mode, for you or anyone else in the organization, and nothing can undo it. Once you go live:

Manifold writes to your connected stores. Stock, prices, products and fulfilments are sent within a few minutes.
Your books open. The opening stocktake completes with the counts entered on it, and every SKU nobody counted at the stock Manifold holds now, each at its cost. Your accounting system takes entries from this moment on.
Manifold emails your customers and suppliers, and sends webhooks to third-party apps.
Anything your old system still feeds becomes editable here. If its import brings order history, one last read turns the orders still open there into live orders here, then the link ends.

Right after you go live

Open each accounting app's Connection page (Apps › Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks), choose the sending settings and press Save. Nothing reaches your accounting system until you do. Then it receives everything since the opening stocktake. See Sending settings.
Clear your old balances in the accounting system. See Your existing balances.

Nothing held while read-only is replayed. Each store and ledger catches up from things as they stand now, not from a queue of old changes.

If going live is refused

SKUs with no cost: The message says how many and names the first few. Give each a cost on your opening stocktake, then go live again. The Read-only mode card links to the stocktake.
The opening stocktake could not be completed just now: Nothing changed. Try again.

Either way, the organization stays read-only until going live succeeds.

Sandboxes

A sandbox is a copy of your organization for trying things out. It is never live and has no Go live button. Nothing it does reaches a real store, accounting system, customer or supplier. The one exception is email to your own team: a message goes out when every recipient is at your company's email domain, never a personal mailbox such as Gmail or Outlook.