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. Everything here works on the Free plan.

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. Choose how to start

   The first step of sign-up asks for one of two things. Start on Free gives you one user, five invoices a month, 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 lets you pay by card for any tier, or paste a key you already hold. See upgrading below.

3. Set your company details

   Open Settings and fill in the registered name, registration number, VAT number, address and financial year end. Upload your logo here too. 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.

Modules your plan does not include still appear, marked as locked, so you can see what an upgrade would add — except Manufacturing, whose whole section is hidden unless you are on that plan. The top bar has search, notifications and the sync indicator; the floating action button in the corner is the fastest route to a new invoice or expense.

Your first thirty minutes

1. Add a customer

   Contacts → New contact, 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 → 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. Send your first invoice

   Invoicing → New and work through the three steps: client and terms, line items, review. Send by email or WhatsApp. Full walkthrough in the invoicing guide.

4. Capture an expense

   Expenses → New, or photograph a receipt on your phone and let OCR read it. This is where the other side of the ledger starts filling up.

5. Look at the dashboard

   Receivables, revenue month-to-date and the runway ring now have your data behind them. The SARS calendar starts counting down to your next deadline.

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: one user, and five invoices per calendar month. The count covers tax invoices only — quotes, pro-formas, credit notes and delivery notes are unlimited on every plan — and it resets on the first of the month.

Creating a sixth invoice in the same month is refused with a prompt to upgrade. Nothing you have already issued is affected, and nothing is deleted. Settings → Billing shows how many of the five you have used.

Buying a plan

1. Pick the tier

   In Settings → Billing, every plan is listed with its price and seat count. Press Upgrade on the one you want, then choose a billing term: 1, 3 or 12 months. A 12-month term is billed as 10 — two months 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:

• Synced — everything on this device matches the server
• Pending — you have local changes waiting to upload
• Offline — no connection; keep working, it will catch up

Changes made on two devices while offline are merged rather than overwritten, so the last person to reconnect does not silently win.

All the guides

Core

Manufacturing

Finance & statutory

Administration

Working with Ledgr