Complete Your First-time Business Setup

Who this guide is for

Business Owners and Sole Traders who have just completed sign-up, verified their email, and set up MFA. The guided first-time setup wizard then runs through the minimum information MyApprentice needs to operate your live business correctly.

Overview

Complete the seven mandatory setup steps that unlock the platform, then optionally work through the six recommended steps that improve document quality, branding, and compliance.

Before you start

Sign-up, email verification, and MFA must be complete — see Sign Up and Verify Your Email and Set Up MFA on Your Account. Have your business address, ABN, contact details, and logo file ready if you plan to action the recommended steps in one pass.

Mandatory setup (blocking — 7 steps)

The seven mandatory steps must be completed before you can start using the app. The wizard walks you through them in order:

1. Welcome to MyApprentice — confirms that this business setup must be completed before continuing.
2. Open Business Settings — the wizard opens the Business Settings page automatically.
3. Set the business time zone — aligns the times for jobs you book, schedules, and staff clock-in/clock-out. Defaults to Perth, Western Australia.
4. Set core contact details — enter the contact email and phone number tied to your business. This ensures the default reply-to address on outbound communication is valid.
5. Save Business — select Save Business to store the changes from steps 3–4.
6. Payment terms — choose a default payment term used on quotes and invoices. The system default is 100% upon completion.
7. Save all settings — select Save all settings to store the payment terms change.

Once all seven steps are saved, the mandatory setup is complete and the platform unlocks.

Recommended setup (6 steps — skippable)

The recommended steps improve document quality, branding, and compliance. You can skip them and come back later from Business Settings.

1. Business profile details — add the business address and ABN to the platform so they appear on quotes, invoices, and client-facing communication.
2. Quote & invoice logo — upload a logo so outbound documents match your brand.
3. Quote and invoice reply routing — route all quote and invoice email replies to your business email so client responses don’t get lost.
4. Add payment method — select Add in the payment methods area to add a Bank account, PayID, PayPal, or Other payment instructions clients can use to pay invoices. (This is different from the mandatory step 6, which sets the default payment term.)
5. Save all settings — save the recommended setup changes.
6. Xero and Stripe set up — connect Xero to sync your accounting, or Stripe to take card payments on invoices. Both can also be set up later from Settings → Integrations.

You’re all set

Once you’ve completed the mandatory setup (and any recommended steps you want), the wizard closes and the full platform is available. You can return to the help centre at any time by selecting the ? icon in the top-right toolbar.

What happens next

From here, the next steps are usually:

• Invite a team member — bring your team into MyApprentice.
• Add Your First Client — start your client library.
• Create and send a quote — send your first quote.
• Connect Xero — if you skipped the Xero step in the recommended setup.

Common Issues

• Mandatory step won’t save. Confirm every required field on that step has a value — the Save button stays disabled until they’re all filled.
• Skipped a recommended step and need to come back. All recommended setup areas are reachable from Business Settings — see Configure business settings.
• Wrong timezone after save. Reopen Business Settings → Business and change the timezone. It applies to every date and time across the platform immediately.
• Default payment term doesn’t suit a single record. The default applies across past and future records — override it on the individual record instead of changing the default. See Set payment methods and terms for the available term options.

Related guides

Sign Up and Verify Your Email, Set Up MFA on Your Account, Complete your business profile, Configure business settings, Set payment methods and terms, Upload your quote and invoice logo, Connect Xero, Invite a team member, Add Your First Client, Create and send a quote.