Setup Checklist

This checklist walks an admin through setting up a new BranchSite account, roughly in the order things depend on each other. Most of it lives under Setup in the sidebar — the Settings page groups everything into a left rail with Setup, Templates, and Account sections.

1. Company information

Open Settings → Company Info and fill in your company name, contact details, and logo. This information appears on every proposal, invoice, and work order you send, so do it first. Check Culture for locale and formatting preferences.

2. Invite your team and set roles

1. Open Members from the Setup menu.
2. Invite each teammate by email and assign a role — Owner, Admin, Operator, Crew, Supply Manager, or Vendor.
3. Review Settings → Roles & Permissions to see exactly what each role can do, and adjust permissions if the defaults don't fit. Pay attention to financial visibility — it controls who can see costs, margins, and invoice amounts.
4. In Members, configure each person: their calendar role and chip colour, and whether they appear in the Route Planner.

License seats come in two types — Standard (Owner, Admin, Operator, Supply Manager, Vendor) and Limited (crew) — and the Members page shows usage against your seats.

3. Operations

If your business has divisions — tree care vs. lawn care, or multiple branches — set them up on the Operations page (in the Setup menu). Operations segment jobs, items, calendars, and reports, and map to Classes if you use QuickBooks. Even a single-division company should confirm its one operation is named the way you want.

4. Items and sales tax

1. Open the Items page and build your catalog: the services, materials, labor, equipment, and discounts you sell. The page also has tabs for Production Rates, Units of Measure, Groups, and Subcategories.
2. Open Settings → Sales Tax and create your Tax Components (the individual rates) and Tax Locations (the combinations applied to jobs). Jobs pick a tax location, so having these ready keeps pricing accurate from day one.

5. Payments

1. Open Settings → Payment Gateway and click Enable online payments to start Stripe onboarding. Once connected, clients can pay invoices online by card or bank transfer (ACH).
2. Review Settings → Payment Methods — the ways your office records payments (check, cash, card, and any custom methods).
3. Review Settings → Payment Terms — how soon invoices are due (for example, Net 15 or Net 30) and the default terms applied to jobs.

6. Templates

Open Setup → Templates for the hub of everything BranchSite fills in for you:

• Document Templates — branding, columns, terms, and footer for every proposal, invoice, and work order PDF.
• Email Templates and Text Message Templates — the content of the messages you send.
• Job Templates and Group Templates — pre-built line items and settings that turn a lead into a priced proposal in one step.

You can run with the standard templates at first, but at minimum open the default document template and confirm your logo and colors look right.

7. QuickBooks

If you use QuickBooks, open Settings → QuickBooks to connect — BranchSite supports both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop (via the Web Connector). Only Approved jobs sync, so your books stay clean while work is still in flight. This step can wait until the basics above are in place.

8. Fine-tuning (as needed)

• Settings → Jobs and Schedule — job defaults and scheduling behavior.
• Settings → Tasks — task defaults.
• Settings → Labor — labor resources and cost rates for job costing.
• Custom Inputs — define the extra fields your company needs on jobs, visits, or line items.
• Tags — create the labels your team will use to organize jobs and clients.
• Automated Messaging — set up triggered emails and texts (reminders, follow-ups).

Note: Some Setup entries only appear if your role has the matching permission and the feature is enabled on your plan.

Related

• Settings overview
• Invite members
• Sales tax
• Get paid online