Ledgr/Documentation

Getting started with Ledgr

This page takes you from a brand-new account to a sent invoice and a dashboard with real numbers on it. Budget about thirty minutes. Setting up, adding customers and invoicing all work on the Free plan; where a step needs a paid plan, it says which.

Before you start

Have these to hand — you will be asked for them once and they end up on every document you issue:

• Your registered business name and company registration number
• Your VAT number, if you are registered for VAT
• Your financial year end
• Your banking details, for the payment instructions on invoices
• A logo, ideally PNG or SVG with a transparent background

Create your account

1. Open the app and register

   Go to the sign-in page and choose to create an account. You give an email address, a password and your business name. That business becomes your first company and you become its Owner.

2. Confirm your email address

   Ledgr emails a link to the address you gave. Open it to confirm the address is yours — until you do, your reminders, backups and billing notices wait, and the dashboard says so with a button to send the link again. If someone else's account is holding your address because it was never confirmed, signing up with it emails you a link that releases it.

3. Choose how to start

   The first step of sign-up asks for one of two things. Start on Free gives you 1 user and a monthly allowance of invoices, plus the dashboard, contacts, roles and settings — no card, no trial clock. I have a licence key takes the key you were sent and activates that plan on the spot.

   Either way you can change your mind later: Settings → Billing & Plan lets you pay by card for any tier, or paste a key you already hold. See upgrading below.

4. Set your company details

   Open Settings → Company and fill in the registered name, registration number, VAT number, address and financial year end. Upload your logo under Settings → Branding. If you are registered for VAT, switch on VAT-registered vendor and choose your VAT period under Settings → Tax & VAT. These fields feed the invoice header, the statements and the tax returns.

Finding your way around

The dark sidebar on the left is the whole application, grouped into four sections:

Contacts and Sales CRM sit next to each other on purpose: Contacts is money you have already invoiced, the CRM is the enquiry and the deal before that, and they are two views of the same customer. Time Tracking is beside Job Cards rather than under Finance, because the hours and the job that bills them belong together.

You only see what you can open. A module your plan does not include is not in the sidebar at all, and neither is one your role has no permission for — so a section heading disappears with the last item under it, which is why a business that is not on the Manufacturing plan has no Manufacturing heading. Settings → Billing & Plan is where to see what each tier adds. Every screen carries the sync indicator at the top; search across your contacts, documents and products is on the Dashboard, alongside notifications. The bell there is your own inbox: every notice sent to you — a payment received, an approval waiting, work assigned to you, a daily digest — is kept there for 90 days, whether or not your phone took the push, and reading it on one device marks it read on all of them. In Settings → My notifications you can add My alerts of your own — an invoice over an amount overdue a number of days, a bank balance under a floor, a bill due soon, stock under its reorder level, a deal nobody has touched — and each one reaches you once every time it is crossed. At the foot of the sidebar, Help & guides opens the guide for whichever screen you are on, and Watch the lesson beneath it plays that screen's video lesson.

Want to look around before entering your own figures? While your setup checklist is showing, the dashboard offers a sample company on plans that include API access: one tap creates a separate company filled with sample customers, products and invoices on its own ledger. Your own books are untouched — switch company to open it, and switch back whenever you like.

Your first thirty minutes

1. Add a customer

   Contacts → New, type Customer. Name, email and payment terms are the fields that matter; the credit limit is optional but drives the credit position bar later. See the contacts guide.

2. Set your invoice defaults

   Invoicing & Quotes → Settings. Set the numbering prefix and starting number so your first Ledgr invoice continues from wherever your old system stopped. While you are there, paste in your default terms and banking details — they pre-fill every document after this.

3. Raise your first invoice

   Invoicing & Quotes → New Document → Tax Invoice and work through the three steps: Client & Terms, Line Items, Review. Send by email or WhatsApp. Full walkthrough in the invoicing guide. The checklist ticks this step for a tax invoice only — a quote or a delivery note does not count.

4. Capture an expense (Starter and up)

   In Expenses & Bills, add one by hand or photograph a receipt on your phone and let Ledgr read it. This is where the other side of the ledger starts filling up.

5. Look at the dashboard

   Outstanding Receivables now has your invoice behind it, on every plan. The rest follows your plan: the cash runway ring needs Banking (Starter and up), the Revenue (12 mo) figure needs Reports (Business and up), and the SARS calendar, which counts down to your next deadline, comes with the SARS returns centre (Professional and up). See the dashboard guide.

Free, and upgrading when you outgrow it

Free is a real plan, not a trial. It never expires. What it limits is volume and reach: 1 user, and 5 documents per calendar month. Every kind of document counts — a tax invoice, a quote, a pro-forma, a credit note or a delivery note is one each, and a quote turned into an invoice is two — and the count resets on the first of the month. A draft you delete gives its place back; a document you issued keeps counting after it is deleted.

Creating one more document than the allowance in the same month is refused with a prompt to upgrade, and the refusal says what the allowance is. Nothing you have already issued is affected, and nothing is deleted. Settings → Billing & Plan shows how many of the month's invoices you have used.

Buying a plan

1. Pick the tier

   In Settings → Billing & Plan, every plan is listed with its price and seat count. Press Upgrade on the one you want, then choose a billing term: 1, 3, 6 or 12 months. A 12-month term is billed as 11 — one month free.

2. Pay by card

   Ledgr hands you to Yoco's secure checkout in a browser tab. Ledgr never sees or stores your card details.

3. Get your key

   Once the payment clears, a licence key is generated and emailed to you, and the plan is applied to your business immediately — the newly included modules unlock without a sign out. Keep the key: it is your proof of purchase and what you would use to activate the plan on a different account.

Downgrading is the mirror image: the modules go back to locked and their screens stop opening, but no data is removed. Upgrade again and it is all still there. Export is available from Settings on every plan, Free included.

Working offline

Ledgr keeps a local copy of your data and keeps working when the connection drops — during load shedding, on a bad mobile signal, in a basement. The sync indicator in the top bar shows the current state:

• Checking… — just opened; Ledgr has not yet confirmed the connection
• Synced — nothing on this device is waiting to upload
• Pending and a number — changes waiting to upload, on their way
• Offline · N saved — no connection; keep working, the saved changes go when it returns
• Attention and a number — changes the server refused. Tap the indicator to see which and why, and to try again

A change to a customer's, supplier's or lead's details made on two devices while offline is merged rather than overwritten: a detail only one device changed is kept, and a detail both changed to different things is held — nothing of either saved over the other — until you choose Keep mine or Keep theirs from the indicator. So the last person to reconnect does not silently win. Working offline has the detail.

All the guides

Core

Manufacturing

Finance & statutory

Administration

Working with Ledgr

Common problems