Documentation
Documentation
A 319-page user manual, free to download and sent with the installer as well, and every picture in it is a photograph of the running product.
The manual
Written from the code, not around it
Looking for one thing?
The manual is searchable. Type the question and read the answer out of the book, rather than downloading three hundred pages to find a paragraph. Ask the manual.
Two editions, cut from one source so they cannot drift apart: the Practice manual at 319 pages and the Business manual at 261. Searchable text, a full bookmark tree, a contents page carrying real page numbers, and 65 screenshots taken from the running product at capture size.
Every screen in the product is covered. The ones you use every week are set out step by step; the specialist ones most firms will never open are covered more briefly, but none of them is left out.
Where a screen will refuse to do something, the manual says so in the same breath as describing it, and says why.
How to get it
Download it, or let it arrive with the software
It is a PDF and it is here. Nothing to buy, nothing to sign up to and no form in the way: read the whole thing before you decide anything. It is sent with the installer as well, so if you are installing anyway it comes with it.
Practice edition manual
Every screen a firm uses, including the client-by-client work, the compliance board and the filing routes.
319 pages, describing version 2.9.38. PDF, 16,976,378 bytes.
Business edition manual
Every screen in the Business edition, for a company keeping its own books.
261 pages, describing version 2.9.38. PDF, 13,080,653 bytes.
The manual is re-cut at every release, so the one here describes the version printed on its cover rather than whichever version you are running. Where the two differ, the release notes say what moved.
Everything else
What is written down, and where
Documentation for this product is not one file. These are the four things people actually need, and each answers a different question.
The quick guide
Installing it, signing in the first time, the one question it asks, finding your way around, what the badges mean and where your data is kept. About twenty minutes of reading for the first hour of use.
Help on the screen you are on
The last item in the sidebar opens the help written for the screen you are standing on, rather than a search box you have to know the right word for. Ctrl+K searches every screen and every report by name.
Where it stands today
What is in the product, what is being worked on and what is not planned at all, kept current and updated first when anything changes. It is the page to read before you commit, not after.
When something goes wrong
The manual's last part covers backups, taking your data elsewhere and what to do when the application will not start, including where the data folder is and how to restore from a backup without help.
Read it before you install anything
The manual is above, in full, with nothing in the way. The quick guide covers the first hour without any of it.