Getting started for a firm

Your firm's first hour in Evenbead: signing in, finding your way around the firm console, inviting your first client, and giving every new client the same setup with a template. Written for the firm's admin; your team sees the same pages, limited to what their role allows. (Checked against the app on 2026-10-18.)

Sign in

Your firm's first sign-in. During the beta, firms join by invitation. The link in the email confirms your address; you choose An accounting firm, enter the firm's name, and you become its firm admin. The firm console is free. A welcome page then walks you through three things:

1. Add a passkey. A passkey signs you in with your device's fingerprint, face or PIN, and it works only on Evenbead's own site, so a phishing page can't use it. You can choose Not now: use email links and add one later in Settings, Security.
2. Who manages your team? You, or someone else you name. A manager invites people and chooses which clients each works on; only the admin handles billing, firm settings and roles.
3. Your clients and team. Shortcuts to add a client, invite your team (no seat fees) and set up billing.

Every sign-in after that starts at app.evenbead.com: Sign in with a passkey, or enter your address and choose Email me a sign-in link. Open the email's link, or type its 6-digit code on the device you're signing in on (handy when the email is on your phone). The link and the code work once, for 15 minutes.

The firm console

The console is everything in the left-hand menu under your firm's name. Start with Clients: one row per client, as of today, with what needs attention, where its month-end close stands, its bank, and its last activity.

• Tabs narrow the list: All, Needs attention, Mine, Proposals, Not closed, Unreconciled, Overdue AR, Bank feeds and Billing. The numbers on the tabs count clients.
• Needs attention gives the reason in words, such as agent proposals waiting for approval, bank lines not yet categorized, or a month waiting for review. Each reason is a link to the page that fixes it.
• Open takes you into that client's books, with the role your firm gave you there. Switch client in the menu brings you back to the list.

The other console pages you'll use first:

Invite a client

1. Go to Onboarding, then Invitations.
2. Under Invite a client, enter the Owner's email and the Business name (the contact name is optional).
3. Under What the firm asks to do, choose a level: See the books, Prepare (draft entries for the client to approve), Keep the books (also post entries and approve what's waiting) or Full access (also settings, periods and the chart of accounts).
4. Choose Who pays for the company file: the client, or your firm (you bill the client).
5. Optionally choose a Setup template (see the next section) and write a Note in the email.
6. Select Send the invitation. It appears under Sent as Waiting.

What your client sees. The email links to a page that names your firm, what you ask to do, who pays, and the date to answer by. The link works once, for 14 days. If the business is new to Evenbead, Create my company sets it up for that address first. Either way, the owner accepts in Settings, Your accountant, and chooses what your firm may do: never more than you asked, and they can change or end it at any time. Only the person at the invited address can accept, and only the owner (or someone the owner allows) can give a firm access.

Changed your mind? Send again emails a new link (the old one stops working). Revoke cancels it, with a reason that goes in your firm's audit log. For many clients at once, paste a CSV (Email, Business name, Contact name; up to 200 rows) and select Check the CSV: nothing is sent until you confirm.

Inviting needs the Create clients permission in your firm role.

Set every client up the same way

A setup template is your firm's standard setup for a new client, so you don't redo it by hand each time. Make one in Onboarding, Setup templates, under New template:

• Name, such as "Monthly bookkeeping".
• The access you ask for, and who pays.
• Your agents to assign, how much they may post on their own up to, and when they ask a person (the confidence floor: below this, an agent's work always waits for a person).
• Who teaches agents a vendor's coding: Only rules people make, or Also one person's approval.
• A Close template, and a note for your people (clients never see it).

A business sees the template's agents and limits before it accepts your invitation. Once it has accepted, apply the template:

1. Go to Onboarding, Progress.
2. Select the clients to set up (the checkbox on each row).
3. Under Apply a setup template to the selected clients, choose the Template and select Preview.
4. The preview says what will change in each client. Select Apply to your clients.

Each client is changed separately, as you, and the change is recorded in the client's audit log and your firm's. Applying the same template again changes nothing. If a client gave your firm less than full access, its own teaching and close settings stay as the client set them, and the preview says so. Editing a template later doesn't change clients until you apply it again.

Changing templates needs the Manage firm settings permission.

Onboarding progress

Onboarding, Progress shows how far each client has come, out of seven steps: Owner signs in, Bank connected, Chart of accounts, History imported, Agents assigned, Setup applied and First close. Nobody checks these off by hand: Evenbead reads them from each client's books, so they're always current.

Next

• Bank feeds and statement imports, Receipts, Reconciliation, Month-end close and Approving agent proposals: the rest of the help guides.
• Bringing clients on: the same features in more depth, including the migrations queue and the API.
• From QuickBooks Desktop: moving a client's history in, tied out to the cent.
• Settings: sign-in, keys and the rest of a company's settings.