The onboarding wizard explained
When you sign in to a brand-new Suprata account for the first time, the onboarding wizard walks you through a guided 10-step setup. It covers the bare minimum you need to start using the system productively. It's not exhaustive (Suprata is too broad to be), but it gets you past that "I just paid for this and I have no idea what to do first" feeling.
This article walks through what each step does, what it intentionally leaves out, and how to revisit a step later if you skipped it or got it wrong.
When you'd care about this
- You're a brand-new tenant running through the wizard for the first time. Read this alongside it.
- You skipped the wizard because someone else set up the account and you're inheriting it. Several of the wizard steps cover settings you should verify.
- You got partway through and abandoned it. You can resume; you can also skip to specific configuration screens.
- You're configuring a fresh tenant for a customer (e.g., as a Suprata partner or implementer) and need to understand what the customer will see.
Where the wizard lives
The first time you land on the platform, you'll see the welcome page:
If you've already passed the wizard once, you can revisit the onboarding screen directly:
The wizard tracks completion. Skipping a step doesn't break the system — it just means the relevant screens are unconfigured.
The 10 steps, in order
Step 1 — Company settings
What it asks: company name, legal address, phone number, timezone, primary email.
Why it's first: every record created from here on is timestamped, addressed, and attributed using these settings. The timezone in particular is hard to change later — historical timestamps don't move with it.
Time required: 5 minutes if you have the info handy.
If you skip it: most of the system still works, but emails go out without your business name set, invoices have no return address, and timestamps may show in the wrong zone. Don't skip this one.
To revisit later: Settings → Company Info (or the company settings screen).
Step 2 — Create a team
What it asks: a team name (often "Field Crew", "Office Staff", or similar) and which staff to assign.
Why teams matter: many businesses use teams to scope visibility (techs see only their team's jobs) and routing (jobs are assigned to a team, not always a specific person).
Time required: 5 minutes for the first team; you can add more later.
If you skip it: everyone is in the default group; team-based filtering is unavailable.
To revisit later: Team Settings → Teams.
Step 3 — Create a staff user
What it asks: name, email, role for one additional staff member.
Why it's here: most businesses have at least two people. Adding the second user during onboarding gets the multi-user setup working immediately.
Time required: 5 minutes per user.
Note: if your license tier is single-user, this step is automatically skipped.
If you skip it: only the original (admin) user can sign in. You can always add more later.
To revisit later: Team Settings → Users or User Manager.
Step 4 — Business unit
What it asks: do you operate one brand or multiple? If multiple, set up the first additional unit.
Why it's here: business units affect how invoices are branded and reported. Setting them up early avoids retrofitting.
Time required: 2 minutes if you skip; 15-30 minutes if you actually configure units.
If you skip it (recommended for most businesses): your account runs as a single brand. You can add units later if needed. See Business units.
To revisit later: Settings → Business Units.
Step 5 — Job terms
What it asks: standard payment terms (Net 30, Due on Receipt, etc.), default invoice terms, late-fee rules.
Why it's here: every invoice you create from here on gets these defaults. Setting them now means the first real invoice you generate has reasonable terms.
Time required: 10 minutes if you have a clear policy; longer if you don't.
If you skip it: invoices use the platform's default terms (usually Net 30 with no late fees). Probably fine for week one but worth revisiting.
To revisit later: the settings area for invoice/payment terms.
Step 6 — Job type
What it asks: what kind of work do you do? Service Call, Installation, Inspection, etc.
Why it's here: jobs need a type. Each type can have specific industry forms attached (HVAC eval, marine inspection, etc.) and specific status flows.
Time required: 10 minutes for one type; you'll add more as needed.
If you skip it: you'll have to create job types before you can create jobs.
To revisit later: the job-types settings screen.
Step 7 — Service agreement template (optional)
What it asks: do you sell maintenance contracts or service agreements? If yes, set up your first template.
Why it's optional: many businesses don't sell agreements. Skip cleanly if so.
Time required: 0 if skipped; 30+ minutes if you set one up properly.
If you skip it: the agreements feature is unconfigured; you can't generate agreements until templates exist. Most businesses do skip this in onboarding and revisit it later.
To revisit later: Service Agreements → Templates.
Step 8 — Product or service
What it asks: add at least one item to your price list — a representative product or service you sell, with a price and tax category.
Why it's here: invoices need line items, and line items reference the price list. One item is enough to get started; you'll add the rest of your catalog as you go (or use the import tool).
Time required: 5 minutes for one item.
If you skip it: you can still create invoices, but each line item has to be typed in by hand without a catalog reference.
To revisit later: Inventory → Price List (and the Import option for bulk).
Step 9 — Cancel and hold reasons
What it asks: define the reasons you'd cancel or put a hold on a job. The defaults often work; you might add ones specific to your business ("Customer not home", "Awaiting parts", "Permit pending").
Why it's here: when techs need to mark a job as canceled or held, they pick a reason from the list. A meaningful list aids reporting later (you can see why jobs aren't completing).
Time required: 10 minutes.
If you skip it: techs use the seed reasons, which are generic.
To revisit later: hold-reasons and cancel-reasons settings.
Step 10 — Goals (optional)
What it asks: set monthly or quarterly revenue / job-count goals. The dashboard then shows progress against them.
Why it's optional: useful for goal-driven teams; ignorable for businesses that don't track this way.
Time required: 0 if skipped; 10 minutes if configured.
If you skip it: the goals dashboard widget is empty. No other functional impact.
To revisit later: the goals/charts settings area.
After the wizard — what's still un-configured
The wizard intentionally doesn't cover:
- Email settings (SMTP/IMAP) — you have to do this separately. See Setting up email SMTP.
- SMS / Twilio — separate setup. See Setting up SMS via Twilio.
- Payment processor (Stripe / USIO) — connect via the integrations area. See Connecting Stripe.
- QuickBooks — see QuickBooks prerequisites and QuickBooks first sync walkthrough.
- Tax categories — the wizard skims; the real configuration deserves its own pass. See Picking the right tax category strategy.
- Branding the customer portal — see Branding your customer portal.
- Time clock setup — see The time clock.
A more thorough first-week plan is laid out in Your first week with Suprata — read that next.
Re-running or jumping into the wizard
You can re-enter the wizard from the onboarding screen even after you've completed it the first time. It won't reset your existing settings; it just takes you back through the steps. Useful if you skipped several and want a guided way back through them.
You can also jump straight to any individual settings screen without going through the wizard at all — the wizard is a guide, not a gate.
Common mistakes
- Speed-running the wizard to "get it over with", filling in placeholder values like "TBD" for company name. Now your invoices say "TBD". Fill in real values or skip the step entirely.
- Skipping Step 1 (Company Settings). Causes the most downstream pain because timezone and address propagate to every record.
- Setting up Business Units when you don't need them. See Business units — most businesses should skip this step.
- Setting up Service Agreements during onboarding. It's a deep feature that deserves dedicated time. Skip in the wizard; revisit when you actually need to sell an agreement.
- Treating "Skip" as failure. It's not. The wizard is a guide; skipping steps you don't need yet is fine.
- Not running the wizard at all — clicking past it to "explore the system first". Then six months later you discover that critical settings were never configured. Run the wizard at least once, even if you skip half of it.
- Forgetting to come back. Set a calendar reminder to revisit any skipped steps within two weeks of going live.
After the wizard — the next reasonable thing to read
Your first week with Suprata — a more comprehensive 7-day setup plan that picks up where the wizard leaves off.