Getting started
From "you've been invited" to serving your first customer: about fifteen minutes.
2.1 Your first ten minutes
- 1
Open your business link
Open your business link (shown during onboarding as hi.onlykipas.com/{your-business}) on your phone, tablet, or laptop. No downloads, no app store.
- 2
Set your password
Open the secure Kipas account email and choose your own password. The link can be used once. If you need another email, ask the owner. Kipas limits repeat account emails for ten minutes. The sign-in page then shows your business name, logo, and colour.
- 3
Add to Home Screen
Add to Home Screen (Safari: Share → Add to Home Screen; Chrome: menu ⋮ → Add to Home screen). It now opens like an app, full screen.
- 4
Keep your account secure
Keep your password private. The business owner and Kipas cannot see it. Use Forgot password? on the sign-in page if you need a fresh reset link.
IF YOUR WORKSPACE ISN'T OPEN YET
Your account email can arrive a little before your workspace is switched on. If your business link says setup isn't finished, nothing has gone wrong and nothing is lost: your password is already set and you simply cannot sign in yet. Contact Kipas, then try the same link again once your workspace is open.
The same page also covers the two other times a workspace will not open: one that is temporarily unavailable is expected back, and one that is closed belongs to a business that has left Kipas.
SIMPLE OR FULL: PICK YOUR DESK
Everyone gets a personal Workspace switch: Simple or Full. Simple is the quiet desk: Today for the morning board, counter, today's book or jobs, prepared WhatsApp, and customers (a browsable A-Z list; type to narrow it). A salon day starts on Today; a repair shop starts on Jobs. Drag a repair card by its grip to change its priority in the same column, or drop it in Received, In progress, or Ready to request that stage. A stage drop opens the audited Change stage dialog before anything changes. Diagnosis and approval rules still apply, and a backward move needs a reason. Use the compact priority menu when dragging is inconvenient. Simple and Full save the same priority and stage. Completed and cancelled work stays in Archive. An abandoned item is cancelled with a reason, then remains available as a closed record. Each new repair opens one Repair Job Account for the item identity, received condition, customer report, acknowledgement, diagnosis, estimate, payment plan, receipts, warranty, and history. Repair intake, payment, stage changes, and handover stay on Jobs, never POS. Jobs also carries the prepared WhatsApp messages: the estimate while a decision is awaited, and the collection notice when the work is ready. On the counter, choose a registered customer or Walk-in before adding anything. You can add a new contact, keep the cart on screen, switch the buyer with untouched catalog prices recalculated, and adjust a line price with a reason. A repair shop can also open or add a job from the counter, but a normal product sale stays separate from that job. For a salon, Book opens on a staff schedule. It shows the selected day in staff lanes. Select an available time slot to start a booking with that date, time, and staff. Drag a booking to another time or another staff lane to move it, and a message offers Undo for five seconds. Select Agenda to use the compact hour timeline with free gaps. You can move to tomorrow or any date. Historic schedule days stay available for reference, but their slots cannot create a new booking. Tap a booking to move it along, charge it, change its time, or cancel it. Once a booking is in progress it has nowhere further to move, so charging it is the next step and the move button steps aside. When you change the day or the branch, the board keeps showing what it had until the new day arrives, but its bookings cannot be opened or changed for that moment, and an open booking closes: what is on screen belongs to the day you just left, so Kipas will not act on it under the new one. Charge stays hidden once that customer already has a live receipt for the booking, or once the visit is done; adding an appointment picks the service, staff, and a time slot with taps. Daily closing stays available to the owner or manager from Settings or Today's sales, not on the main dock. Full is the complete view of the configured workspace. In every workspace, Book and Messages appear in Simple only when their modules are on. Full uses the same module configuration. Module visibility shapes the interface; it does not replace role permissions. New accounts start in Simple; switch yourself any time (Simple: Settings; Full: the header or your profile sheet). The switch changes which screens you see, never the numbers, receipts, or what your role may do.
On a phone or desktop, Simple also has a visible Full control in the header. Finish or clear the current counter sale before selecting it. The mode switch keeps you in the current view while a sale is active. Once it is clear, it changes only which screens you see, never data, receipts, or permissions.
A Catering and events workspace opens Simple on Event orders, not Today. Each card shows the customer's original order, event time, fulfilment method, event location, setup time, dietary notes, and an optional guest count. Use Full to create or edit events and record deposits or final balances.
A Professional Services workspace opens Simple on Cases, not Today. Each card shows the case number, the client, who owns the next action, the deadline, and the balance. Simple shows cases in place of the book. Use Full for the appointment book and the online booking request inbox. In Simple, you can use the normal case actions that your role permits.
2.2 Who can see what
| ROLE | WHAT THEY DO | WHAT THEY CAN'T |
|---|---|---|
| Staff | POS sales, walk-ins, bookings, customers, their own day | Money corrections, closing, settings, reports |
| Branch manager | Staff abilities, plus branch-level oversight | Voids, refunds, settings (owner territory) |
| Owner | Everything, including voids, refunds, closing, staff, settings | Nothing |
The owner can further tune which pages staff and managers see, in Settings. When in doubt, keep staff simple: POS and their day.
2.3 Finding your way around
- Sidebar (left, desktop): Today, Work, and Customer Care stay open for daily tasks. Expand Money, Team and catalog, Business setup, or Location when you need management tools. One management section opens at a time, and the section for the current page opens automatically. Guide and, for owners, Settings stay pinned at the bottom. Only pages enabled for your role and workspace appear.
- On phones: one compact header shows the business and current branch. Tap ☰ for the full page map. The four-item dock keeps the daily routes close without covering the phone corners.
- Branch selector: filters almost every screen to one branch, or All Branches for the whole business. Owners can tap the branch chip in the phone header. Managers and staff see the branch or branches assigned to them. In POS, the selected branch is where the sale is recorded, so check it before checkout.
- Profile controls on phones: tap the profile button for language, theme, account details, and sign-out. These choices stay on this browser and device.
- Desktop controls: use the top bar for branch, language, theme, and account actions.
- Guide navigation: use the chapter rail on a larger screen or the chapter picker on a phone. Common tasks and recovery links appear before the full chapters. Every chapter keeps a stable link that you can bookmark or share.
2.4 First-day setup checklist (owner)
A new workspace shows setup progress on Overview and a temporary Setup item near the top of the sidebar. Each status opens the matching wizard step. Both disappear after all required checks are ready. You can still open the wizard from Settings. The wizard orders its steps for your business type and removes optional steps when the related workspace module is off. For a non-salon workspace, the owner can also choose the workday pattern in Settings. The pattern changes the order and labels of existing work. It does not create new permissions or routes. In an Other Service workspace, a schedule-led pattern needs Bookings, a counter-led pattern needs Walk-in queue, and a hybrid pattern needs both modules. Setup shows a review warning until the pattern and modules match. The review step still shows each named readiness check.
- Settings: shop name, receipt footer, SST on/off + rate, receipt logo or emoji
- Online Booking: enable requests, choose bookable services and staff, then copy the public link or QR code from Settings
- Services: set names, durations, prices, member prices, and public booking categories. Create categories from Booking categories, choose a fixed icon, then assign each public service. A service without an active category stays under Other services.
- Schedule: working hours and days off per person
- Customers: add your regulars (name only is fine; phone optional)
- Branches: set the address and phone used on receipts. Edit a saved branch to set each weekday's operating hours in 15-minute steps. Mark a weekday closed, or add a special date with a full closure or custom hours. These effective hours control booking availability and dashboard operating context. The public booking profile stays private until you publish each field. Cover images are center-cropped to 3:1 and converted to WebP in your browser.
- Staff: add each person, pick their role and branch
- Packages / Memberships: if you sell prepaid credit or member plans
- Make one test sale: walk-in, one service, cash. That's it, you're live.
SHARING YOUR BOOKING LINK
Your public booking page follows the format hi.onlykipas.com/{your-business}/book. Copy the exact link from Settings before you put it in your Instagram bio, Google profile, or WhatsApp auto-reply. In Pending requests mode, your team must accept each request. In Auto-book mode, a request inside your booking rules goes onto the calendar at once.
Available times refresh automatically when a customer changes the branch, service, date, or staff. The current tab remembers only those four choices. It does not remember contact details or a selected time. On a larger screen, categorized service choices sit beside a summary that stays visible. On a phone, the same steps stay in one continuous form. No payment is taken on the booking page; the customer pays at your business.
On phones, the appointment choices, available times, and customer details stay in one grouped form. Today, Tomorrow, and Next available help the customer choose a time. A summary and the send button stay visible at the bottom while the customer completes the form.
The selected branch controls its public cover, address, booking hours, and Instagram link. Existing branches show none of these fields until the owner publishes them from Branches.
PUBLIC DEMO
Visitors can open six restricted manager workspaces from onlykipas.com without login details. Salon, wellness, professional services, catering and events, repair counter, and Service Studio each have separate fictional data that resets every day. These workspaces are separate from your business. The guided checklist follows the selected workspace and uses its fictional records. Demo managers can inspect Schedule. Resources appear as a read-only example in the wellness and professional workspaces. Demo staff receive Reminders and do not receive these manager-only pages. Sensitive settings, attendance, commissions, and daily closing stay unavailable.
Prefer everything on one page? Read the whole guide.