How to use the Setup Assistant in VOGSY

Embarking on your VOGSY journey requires a structured and well-planned setup to unlock its full potential. The VOGSY Setup Assistant is your dedicated guide through this crucial process, breaking it down into six manageable steps. A successful implementation hinges on careful preparation, a dedicated project team, and unwavering management support.

Before using the Setup Assistant, it is vital to clearly understand your business processes and gather the necessary information. This proactive approach will ensure a seamless and efficient setup.

• Company and Department Structure: Define your organizational hierarchy. This includes all legal entities, departments, and teams. This structure is fundamental for accurate reporting, resource allocation, and financial roll-ups within VOGSY.

• Insight into Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): VOGSY projects are built on a hierarchical work breakdown structure. Before you begin, you need a clear understanding of how you will break down your projects into smaller, manageable components. This involves:

  • Deliverables: The tangible or intangible outputs of a project.

  • Activities: The specific tasks required to produce a deliverable. Defining which roles within your organization are responsible for performing specific activities. This is crucial for accurate resource planning and costing.

• List of Employees and Users: Compile a comprehensive list of all employees and contractors using VOGSY. For each user, you will need to define their role, department, and cost/rate information.

• Different Revenue Streams: Identify and categorize your various sources of revenue. In VOGSY, these are configured as "revenue types." This is essential for detailed financial reporting, profitability analysis, and connecting project activities to the correct general ledger accounts.

The Setup Assistant is designed to guide you through the configuration of your VOGSY environment. It is a structured process that ensures all critical areas are addressed.

1. Basic Setup

This initial step lays the groundwork for your entire VOGSY instance. Key activities in this stage include:

• Company and Department Configuration: Entering your company's details and defining the departmental structure you outlined in the prerequisites.

• Branding: Uploading your company logo and customizing document templates (e.g., for quotes and invoices) to maintain brand consistency.

• General Settings: Configuring default settings for aspects like currency, time zones, and language.

• Working Hours and Holidays: Defining your standard workweeks and company-wide holidays, which is crucial for accurate resource utilization calculations.

2. Resources Setup

This step focuses on populating your VOGSY environment with your most valuable asset: your people.

• Creating Employees and Users: Adding your employees and contractors to the system, assigning them to the correct departments and defining their roles.

• Defining Roles and Activities: Establishing the different job roles within your organization and linking them to the specific activities they can perform. This ensures that the right people can be assigned to the right tasks.

• Setting Cost and Billable Rates: Inputting the cost rates for each employee and defining their standard billable rates. This is fundamental for project budgeting, margin calculations, and invoicing.

3. CRM Setup

If you use an external Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, this step allows you to seamlessly integrate it with VOGSY. This ensures a smooth flow of information from your sales process to project delivery.

• CRM Integration: VOGSY offers integrations with popular CRM platforms such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and others. The setup involves authorizing the connection and mapping fields between the two systems.

• Opportunity Synchronization: The primary goal of this integration is to synchronize your sales opportunities from your CRM into VOGSY. This allows for early visibility into the project pipeline and facilitates resource forecasting.

• Data Mapping: You will map opportunity stages, customer information, and other relevant data to ensure consistency between your CRM and VOGSY.

4. Accounting Integration Setup

This step connects VOGSY to your accounting software, automating the flow of financial data and reducing manual entry.

• Choosing Your Accounting System: VOGSY integrates with leading accounting platforms like QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Exact.

• Defining Synchronization Levels: You can typically choose the depth of the integration, from simply pushing sales invoices to a full, two-way synchronization of accounts payable and receivable.

• Mapping Ledger Accounts: You will map VOGSY's revenue types and other financial data points to the corresponding general ledger accounts in your accounting system. This ensures that all financial transactions are recorded accurately.

5. Project Setup

This is where you define the building blocks of your service delivery. This step includes:

• Defining project costs: Setting up all non-activity-based costs for your projects.

• Project Settings: Configure the project settings so the required workflows are in place.

6. Accounting Setup

This final step ensures that all your project-related financial data is correctly categorized and ready for reporting and analysis.

• Configuring Revenue Types: Based on the revenue streams you identified as a prerequisite, you will configure these as "revenue types" in VOGSY. Each deliverable in a project will be associated with a revenue type.

• Setting Up Ledger Accounts: For each revenue type, you will specify the corresponding ledger accounts for revenue, cost of goods sold, work in progress, and other financial postings. This detailed mapping is crucial for generating accurate profit and loss statements for your projects and your business as a whole.

A smooth technical setup is only part of the equation. True success with VOGSY requires a supportive environment and the right people at the helm.

• The Right Project Team: Your implementation team should be a cross-functional group with representatives from sales, project management, finance, and operations. This ensures that the configuration of VOGSY aligns with the needs of all departments. The team members should have the experience and insight to make informed decisions about how to best map your business processes to the platform's capabilities.

• Management Support: Strong and visible support from senior management is critical. This includes allocating the necessary resources (both time and personnel) for the setup process and championing the adoption of the new system across the organization.