Quick Setup

Quick Setup is the short wizard that gets your account ready right after you sign up. It collects your details, your business information, and the handful of numbers Priscale needs to calculate your burn rate, which is the hourly cost of keeping your business alive and the starting point for every price Priscale recommends.

The wizard is three steps, the same three for everyone. You can move back and forth with the Back and Next buttons, and nothing you enter is lost when you step backwards.

You do not choose how your burn rate is calculated here, and there is no question about it anywhere in the wizard. Your plan decides that, and a brand-new account is on a free trial, which gives you the Growing Business calculation: your payroll plus your expenses for the year, spread across your team's billable hours. That is why the last step asks for expenses and a team and nothing else. Plans & billing covers what each plan calculates, and Burn rate covers the number itself.

Until you finish, Priscale brings you back to Quick Setup whenever you try to open another page, so it is worth setting aside a few minutes to complete it in one sitting.

Step 1: Your Information

The first step confirms who you are.

• Name and Email are carried over from the account you just created.
• Timezone is filled in from your computer's clock when Priscale can recognize it. Check it and change it if it is wrong, because it decides how dates and times appear throughout the app.
• Language sets the language of the app. The rest of the wizard switches over once you continue to the next step.

WARNING

If you change your email address, Priscale marks the new address as unverified and asks you to confirm it before setup can continue. On the Verify your email screen, choose Resend verification email to have the link sent to the new address, open it, and then come back to Quick Setup. If you signed up through a connected account such as Google, the email field is locked and can only be changed after you disconnect that account.

Step 2: Business Information

• Company Name is the name of your business as it appears throughout Priscale.
• Industry is a searchable list. Type a few letters and pick the closest match.

If your industry is not on the list, type its name and pick the Request "…" option at the bottom of the list, which appears once you have typed at least two letters. The Request a New Industry window opens and checks for similar options first, and if none of them fit you can submit anyway. Your industry is selected for your account right away and stays marked as Pending approval while it is reviewed, so it never blocks you from finishing setup.

Your industry matters later: it is what lets Priscale compare your prices against the wider market.

Step 3: Expenses & Team

The last step collects the two things your burn rate is worked out from. It has a Your team section with an Add Employee button and a Your expenses section with an Add Expense button, each opening the same form used on the Employees and Expenses pages, and each showing how many you have added so far right under its heading.

Add at least one employee, counting yourself. An employee record holds the person's pay along with the days and hours they work and how much of that time is genuinely billable, and those billable hours are the number your yearly costs get divided by.

Then add the expenses the business pays: rent, software, tools, insurance, fuel, and anything else that leaves the account whether or not you sell a thing this month. The panel beside the form says the same in one line.

Complete Setup needs at least one employee. Press it with no team added and Priscale answers "Add at least one employee, or skip for now and add your team later." Expenses are worth adding here too, but they are not required, so adding only an expense still holds you up.

Skip for now finishes setup immediately and takes you to the Burn Rate page without either. That is fine when you want to get into the app first: the Burn Rate page shows you what is still missing, and your burn rate calculates as soon as you fill the gap.

TIP

Everyone who does billable work belongs on the team list, starting with you. A one-person business is a team of one, and leaving yourself off means Priscale has no hours to divide your costs by.

Finishing setup

The last step's button reads Complete Setup. Priscale saves everything, calculates your first burn rate, confirms with a message that your account has been set up, and takes you straight to the Burn Rate page so you can see the resulting number and the breakdown behind it.

Changing your answers later

Nothing in Quick Setup is permanent. Once you are in the app:

• Your name, email, and timezone live on the Profile page, and your language on the Appearance page.
• Your company name and industry live on the Organization page.
• Expenses and team members are managed on the Expenses and Employees pages.
• Your burn rate lives on the Burn Rate page. How it is calculated is not a setting there either: the page states the calculation your plan gives you. Move to a different plan and Priscale asks you to review that page before you carry on, which Plans & billing covers.

Changing any of these recalculates your burn rate, so it is normal to revisit them as your business grows or your costs move.

Related pages

• What is Priscale explains what the app does and the ideas behind it.
• Dashboard is where you land once setup is behind you.
• Burn Rate goes deeper into the number Quick Setup calculates for you.
• Plans & billing explains what each plan includes and how each one calculates that number.