Getting Started
Set up your organization, invite your team, and run your first complete operational loop — from deal closed to invoice sent — in under an hour.
Quick-Start Checklist
Create your organization
Sign up and ACOS auto-creates your org. You become the Owner.
Configure your settings
Add your company name, timezone, and logo. Set up your service rate card.
Invite your team
Add team members with the right roles (Member, Manager, Admin).
Set up your pipeline
Customize pipeline stages to match how your team closes deals.
Add your first contact and deal
Create a contact for a client and open a deal in the pipeline.
Convert a won deal to a project
Mark the deal won and convert it — ACOS creates the project automatically.
Assign tasks and start tracking time
Add tasks to the project and start the timer when work begins.
Generate your first invoice
Pull billable hours into an invoice, review, and send to the client.
Step 1 — Account & Organization Setup
When you sign up for ACOS, the system creates your organization automatically and assigns you the Owner role. There is exactly one Owner per organization — this is the account responsible for billing and ultimate access control.
What to configure first
- Organization name — appears on invoices and in the client portal. Use your legal company name.
- Timezone — used for daily Celery tasks (smart alerts run at your midnight, not UTC). Set this before inviting anyone.
- Logo — appears on PDF invoices and the client portal header. PNG or SVG, recommended 200×200px minimum.
- Service rate card — go to Settings → Services and create the services your agency delivers (e.g., "Frontend Development", "Strategy", "Design"). Each service has a billing rate and an internal cost rate. These become the foundation of your deal line items and profitability calculations.
Your invoice currency defaults to USD and can be changed at any time in Settings → General under "Invoice currency." This currency is used across all invoices and reports.
Step 2 — Invite Your Team
Go to Settings → Team and invite members by email. ACOS sends an invitation email with a secure link. The invitee creates their password when accepting — they do not need a pre-existing account.
Choosing the right role
| Role | Best for | Key capability |
|---|---|---|
| Member | Individual contributors | Log their own time, complete tasks |
| Manager | Project leads, account managers | Create deals, manage projects, send invoices |
| Admin | Operations managers | Full access except billing |
| Owner | Company founder / director | Everything including billing and plan changes |
See Roles & Permissions for the complete permission matrix.
Seat limits
Your plan determines how many active team members you can have (Starter: 15, Growth: 50, Scale: 100). The system blocks new invitations when you reach the limit — you'll need to upgrade your plan or deactivate an existing member first.
Step 3 — Configure Your Pipeline
Go to Settings → Pipeline. ACOS seeds every new organization with a default set of stages:
You can rename stages, reorder them by dragging, add new stages, and set custom colors. Two rules that cannot be changed: every pipeline must have exactly one Won stage and one Lost stage. These stages trigger automatic status changes on deals.
The Won and Lost stages cannot be deleted. If you rename them, make sure your team knows which stage represents a closed deal — this is the trigger for the deal-to-project conversion.
Step 4 — Run Your First Operational Loop
This is the core workflow ACOS is built around. Follow these steps end-to-end the first time so you understand how each module connects to the next.
- 1.Go to CRM → Deals and click New Deal.
- 2.Set the title (this becomes the project name if you convert), attach the client contact, set a deal value, and assign a probability.
- 3.Optionally add line items from your service rate card — this builds the initial scope.
- 4.Move the deal through pipeline stages as you progress with the client.
- 1.When the deal is won, drag it to the Closed Won stage on the Kanban board.
- 2.ACOS sets deal status to Won. Click Convert to Project on the deal detail.
- 3.Review the project preview: name (from deal title), client (from contact), and budget (from deal value) are pre-filled.
- 4.Confirm — ACOS creates the project in one transaction and redirects you to it.
- 1.Go to the project's Tasks tab. The Kanban board has four columns: Todo, In Progress, In Review, Done.
- 2.Create tasks for each unit of work. Set the assignee, priority, due date, and estimated hours.
- 3.Team members see their assigned tasks on the My Tasks page (/tasks/) — sorted by project and due date.
- 1.Click the timer widget in the top navigation bar. Select a project (and optionally a task). Click Start.
- 2.The timer runs across page navigation — it persists until you stop it.
- 3.Click Stop. Review the time entry (date, hours, billable toggle). Save.
- 4.Alternatively, log time manually: click Log Time anywhere and fill in the form.
- 1.Go to the project's Finance tab. You'll see budget consumed, total cost, and unbilled hours.
- 2.Click Generate Invoice. ACOS pulls all unbilled billable time entries and groups them into line items.
- 3.Set the due date, review line items (you can add manual items too), and save as Draft.
- 4.When ready to send: click Send Invoice. The invoice is marked Sent. When payment arrives, click Mark Paid — ACOS records the revenue and marks those time entries as invoiced.
Verify Your Setup
After your first loop, check these to confirm everything is connected:
- Dashboard shows active project count and pipeline value
- The deal has a project_id linked (visible in deal detail)
- The project shows budget consumed and margin %
- Time entries appear in the project's Time tab
- The invoice lists the correct billable hours as line items
- After marking paid, the project's revenue and gross profit update