Sign up, tell Finocket who you are, and the wizard sets up your books to match — a business gets the full toolkit, a freelancer or individual gets a focused set. Add a client, send a GST invoice, record the payment. Ten minutes and your books are live.
How do I sign up?
Open the sign-up page and create an account with your email and a password, or a social login. If email confirmation is on, verify your email first — anything you'd already entered (say, from a persona doorway or the kit builder) is kept and waiting for you after the round-trip. Then the onboarding wizard starts.
What does the onboarding wizard ask?
First, who you are — business, freelancer / consultant, or salaried / individual — with a second row of refinement chips (like shop, D2C seller, services) you can tap or skip. This choice drives your module set and how the app talks to you. Freelancers and individuals get a shorter, focused wizard.
Then the business steps (each skippable, finishable later from Settings → Business Details):
- Identity — legal name, trade name, business type (proprietor / partnership / LLP / private-limited), industry.
- Tax — GSTIN + PAN, checksum-validated as you type. A valid GSTIN pre-fills your state and derives your PAN. Composition scheme is an option if you qualify.
- Address & contact — postal address, business phone and email.
- Bank — IFSC auto-fills your bank name; account number, UPI VPA, SWIFT for exporters.
- Sales channels — direct B2B/B2C, Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, quick-commerce. What you tick decides which integrations Finocket highlights later.
- Modules — the wizard ends with your recommended module set, pre-selected for your profile. Adjust it now or any time from Settings → Modules & features.
What if I do not know what a step is asking for?
Every step explains itself, in two places, without sending you anywhere:
- The small i beside a field label tells you what to type and what it is used for — what a GSTIN is and what we do with it, whether you need a PAN, the difference between the Regular and Composition schemes.
- Things to know, below the fields, answers the bigger question: why the step is being asked, what happens if you skip it, and where to change it afterwards. Scroll down on any step to read it.
Nothing in setup is permanent. Only your name and account type are required; every other step can be skipped and finished later from Settings → Business Details.
How do I add my first client?
Your dashboard opens with an Add New row — tap Add Client there. On a phone the + button in the bottom bar opens the same list. Only the name is required. Enter a GSTIN and Finocket validates it and auto-fills the client's tax state — that's what makes CGST/SGST vs IGST automatic later.
How do I create my first invoice?
- Open Invoices → New.
- Pick the client and add at least one line item.
- Save. Finocket assigns the next number from your series, computes CGST/SGST/IGST from your state vs the client's, and shows the PDF preview.
- Share the PDF on WhatsApp or email — every INR PDF carries a UPI QR so clients can pay from their phone.
How do I record the payment?
Tap Add Payment on the dashboard (or press ⌥P / Alt+Shift+P). Pick the client — every unpaid invoice appears under Against invoice. Pick one and the amount pre-fills. Save, and the invoice flips to paid. If your client withheld TDS (common for services under section 194J), turn on Client deducted TDS? — Finocket suggests 10% of gross and still marks the invoice fully paid at gross, so your outstanding stays correct.
Finding your way around
On a tablet or computer there are two columns down the left, and they do different jobs. The narrow strip at the very edge is the system dock — Finocket itself, and the same icons whichever business you are in and whichever role you hold. The wider column beside it is the menu — your business screens, and nothing else.
The dock
Thirteen icons, and it does not scroll. Hover one to read its name. Top to bottom:
- The Finocket mark at the very top opens the logo; it is not a way home.
- Home, Search and Ask Mysty — the three you reach for most. Search opens the quick-jump box from anywhere (or press
⌘K/Ctrl+K), and it is there whether or not the menu is folded away, which is the point of putting it here. If you work as an accountant, Home is your client portfolio. - Seven area icons — Books & tax, Personal finance, CRM & pipeline, Outreach, Partners, Platform and AI. These are what change the menu beside them. See below.
- Recent, Help and your account picture, at the foot. Each opens a menu beside itself, not across the screen.
Things that used to have their own icon here — Notifications, Running jobs, Activity, Integrations, Explore modules, AI agents, AI workflows, Automations, What's New and Settings — have not gone anywhere. Notifications is the bell in the top bar, What's New and Settings are in your account menu, and the rest are rows in the Platform and AI areas. Several of them can be opened on a phone now for the first time, because this bar is not drawn on one.
Showing one area at a time
The menu holds everything you have switched on, which on a full workspace is a long list. The area icons in the dock narrow it: tap Books and the menu shows Books and nothing else, in the colour that area uses everywhere in Finocket. Tap the same icon again, or the All areas button at the top of the menu, to see the whole list again.
You do not have to pick. Open a screen and the menu narrows to whichever area that screen belongs to, so you arrive with the ten entries around you rather than the eighty. Home, Settings and your account are never hidden by an area, and if an area has nothing switched on the menu stays whole rather than emptying.
The menu
Grouped by what you are doing — Books & tax, Personal finance, CRM & pipeline, Outreach & compliance and so on — and each group collapses, so you can put away the parts you do not use. A group appears only when something in it is switched on.
- A chevron beside an entry opens and closes its sub-items where it stands. Tapping the name itself still goes to the screen, so you can look without leaving.
- Recents is the dock's clock icon: the last five screens you opened on this device. It is not shared between your phone and your computer, and it never records a specific invoice or client — only screens.
- Settings is one row at the foot, and it stays there whichever area you have picked. It opens the settings page, which carries every section — Team Members, GST returns and the rest — down its own side. Your account menu has the same row.
- Explore modules is everything you have not switched on, and switches it on in place. It lives in the Platform area now, beside Integrations, rather than sitting under every screen.
- Press
⌘B/Ctrl+Bto fold the menu down to icons when you want the room. The dock stays where it is.
Which switcher is which
Depending on how you use Finocket you may see up to three, and they move you between three different things. The first two are rows in your account menu — the picture at the foot of the icon bar — so “which account, which organisation, which company” is one question asked in one place. The third is in the top bar, because it is about the page you are reading rather than the account you are in.
- Organisation — between organisations, or between accounts you are signed in to. Only if you have more than one.
- Company — between legal entities inside this workspace. Only if you have added a second company.
- Client, in the top bar — whose books you are reading. Only if someone has given you access to theirs.
Help
The ? in the top bar always explains the screen you are on. The dock's help icon offers that same guide first, and then the rest: the help centre, the developer guides, the API reference, and how to connect an AI agent to your Finocket data.
On a phone
There is no dock. The bar along the bottom is Home, the one screen you use most, +, More and Profile. More now opens with search and where you have just been, then everything you have switched on and Explore modules; Profile is Settings. Your notifications bell, the ? for this screen's guide, the theme switch and your account picture sit along the top.
Where to go next
- Clients & invoices — every document type, series numbering, credit notes.
- Install Finocket as a real app — on your phone, with a queue for the entries you make with no signal.
- Try Finocket with sample data — explore before entering real work.
- Modules & plans — run only what you need.