Setup Guide

You want a picture of the whole before you choose anything. DesKilo groups its features into nine processes; the Features screen shows one card per process with its state.

The nine processes, in plain words

Good to know

• A new space starts with a sensible set of features on; you do not have to decide on them one by one. Switching a feature off stops new business only and deletes nothing.
• A feature that needs another one switches it on with it, and the screen names what came on. See A feature switch.
• Features marked alpha or beta ask for your consent when you switch them on.

See also: Switch features on and off

You want to try things without consequences, then run the real space. A space can be a test, a real one, or a linked pair with the same name.

Good to know

• The selector starts on the test option.
• The environment is a statement by the owner; anyone with the configuration permission (the owner always) can change it later, and invoices already issued keep the watermark they carried, so start with a test space if you are unsure.
• To practise with no space of your own, use the demo workspace.

See also: A space has two sides · Create a workspace · A test space

You want a head start without being locked into someone else's choices. When you create a space, Start from offers Empty space or a ready-made template, and is preselected on A tiny space; choose Empty space if you want a blank canvas.

The two built-in templates

Good to know

• A template never carries your legal identity, bank details, sites, invitations or document links: those are yours, and the readiness list names them (the legal identity, with Invoices on, as an area of its own).
• A template-created space can have invoicing on and nothing to issue with until you add the identity.
• Applying a template to a space that already has tariffs replaces its fee bands: use it on a new space.

See also: Create a workspace

You want the space to know where it lives. These four choices drive more than they seem to.

What each choice drives

Steps

1. Open Workspace and go to General details.
2. Pick the Country; the Currency and Time zone follow, and you can correct them. For Atelier du Marché: France, EUR, Europe/Paris.
3. Pick the Workspace language, then tap Save.

Careful Choose country and currency right on day one. Amounts are stored as plain numbers, so once the space has issued a document or recorded money, the server refuses to change either: "The currency and the country are fixed once this space has issued a document or recorded money. Nothing was saved."

Good to know

• The app lists many countries, but issuing invoices inside DesKilo works for France and Germany only today. Elsewhere you keep statements and issue invoices outside the app.
• The workspace language is not your own app language, which is in your personal settings.

See also: Country · Currency and time zone · Workspace language

You want the plan on screen to look like the real place. It is built in four layers: levels, then offices (rooms), then desks, then seats. A member books a seat; a seat is what the readiness list counts.

Steps

1. Sketch on paper: floors, rooms, desks, seats.
2. Open Workspace editor and add the floors with Add level.
3. Open a floor and draw each room with Office, then Desk and Seat inside it.
4. If a team may take a room or a floor for a day, switch on whole-room booking in its properties.

Good to know

• Start small: a first floor, one room, a few seats. Everything can be added afterwards.
• A whole floor, office or desk can be booked only if Desk, office & level reservations is on and the member has the permission.
• The built-in template A tiny space gives you two levels, four desks and eight seats to adjust.
• Deleting a floor removes everything on it, and a plan import is refused once reservations exist.

See also: Add, rename and delete floors · Draw rooms, desks and seats · Let members book a whole floor

You want bookings to follow the rhythm of your place. One screen, Availability, holds the days, the shape of a booking, the working hours and the rules. The server applies them everywhere: plan, booking sheet, scanned codes and kiosk.

Steps

1. Open Availability.
2. Choose the Open weekdays (at least one) and the Booking granularity.
3. Set the Working hours: Day starts, Half-day boundary, Day ends.
4. Under Booking policies, decide on Allow past bookings, Outside the opening hours and the Booking limits.

Recommended starting points (suggestions, not rules; the default for Outside the opening hours is Charged, and the association template does not change it)

Good to know

• Outside the opening hours, Off refuses everything, Spontaneous only allows walk-ups, Free allows without counting, Charged counts like ordinary usage except on a day the member already holds a regular booking.
• The day must run in order: start, then boundary, then end; the minimum duration cannot exceed the maximum.
• A booking ends on the day it starts. Past bookings are off by default; booking an earlier window on the same day is always allowed.
• Half-day and full-day windows also drive check-in and invoicing, so settle the hours before you set prices.

See also: Open weekdays · Granularity · Working hours · Outside the opening hours · Booking limits

You want the space to be shut on holidays without anyone booking them by mistake.

Steps

1. In Availability, go to Closure days.
2. Tap Add public holidays (if you do not see it, switch on the feature Public holidays first; it is off by default) to create a whole year in one go, or Add closure day for a single date such as an inventory day.
3. Check the list and remove any day you actually work.

Good to know

• Built-in holiday lists exist for France and Germany. For other countries switch on Public holidays and Import public holidays (open data, needs a connection). Nothing is created before you confirm.
• A booking on a closure day is refused, and the plan shows the day as closed with its reason.
• Months that are already invoiced are skipped, so add closure days before the month closes.

See also: Closure days · Public holidays

You want proof that the space is ready, before you invite anyone. Two cards say so.

Steps

1. Open Workspace: the card Setting up this space lists each area with its state, and the next step.
2. Open Reserve. Owners and administrators with the configuration permission see the card Get started in your space. If something is missing it says Before anyone can book here, with Finish setting up.
3. Book one seat yourself as a test, then cancel it.

Good to know

• Ready means ready for a first booking: opening days, time zone, currency, at least one seat, members who may book, and enough validators.
• Anything optional, such as tariffs or payments, can be set aside with Later and does not block opening.
• Both cards depend on the feature Get started card.
• Not now hides the card on this device; the view menu on the plan brings it back with Get started.

Result A space that members can book. Next: invite the first people, then the roles and tariffs of the second level.

See also: The Get started card and the tips · Invite people with the workspace ID · Roles

You want to know what you are switching when you open Features. Everything DesKilo can do beyond the basics is a feature with its own switch. To keep a hundred switches readable, the screen groups them by what they are for.

How it is organised

• A process is a business job: for example Billing & payments or Calendar & coordination. There are nine.
• A subprocess is a step of that job: Invoicing, Payment collection and VAT management are three of the five steps of Billing & payments.
• A feature is one switch inside a subprocess: Invoices, Payment reminders, VAT declarations.

The nine processes and their subprocesses

Good to know

• A feature belongs to exactly one process, even when it needs a feature of another. The card says so: "Switching it all on also needs: Money tab (Billing & payments)".
• Membership plans and the floor plan editor are not features: they are always there. Their settings sit in Workspace and Billing, not on this screen. Prepaid carnets are a feature: see Carnets.
• Switching a feature off hides it from every screen where it appeared; it is not a permission. Who may do what is decided in Roles.

See also: What DesKilo can do · Switch whole processes on or off

You want to know what members find on the first day, before you have switched anything.

Every feature belongs to one of two tiers, and a new space is created from them:

A new space starts with 45 features on, all of them Core (46 if you create the test twin at the same time: Environment pairs is then on as well). In plain words:

• Booking: reserve a seat on the plan, repeat a booking (Series booking), book for someone else (Book for others), see a half-booked seat as part-filled (Seat day timeline), save a booking to a personal calendar (Calendar file of a booking), booking rules such as past bookings and outside hours (Booking policies, Booking gate), request the deletion of a past booking (Booking deletion requests), print QR cards for places (Space QR codes), configurable working hours (Working hours).
• People: the community tab (Members directory), one page per member (Member page), the central role matrix (Role management and Giving roles), personal details for letters and invoices (Personal information), distinct initials on avatars (Distinct avatar initials).
• Calendar and messages: the calendar in several views (Calendar tab, Calendar hub, Calendar views), the activity feed and confirmations (Events tab), private and group conversations (Member notifications, Messages, reworked) with references, forwarding, mentions, swipe gestures and screen-capture protection, the grouping of the notification feed (Notification feed grouping), and the button to write to the hosts of a published page (Write to the hosts).
• Money: the Finances tab with its four faces (Money tab, Finances in four faces), invoices (Invoices), a service catalogue (Services), a PDF of the monthly bill (PDF export).
• Documents and data: the document library (Document library), data export for the owner (Data export (Excel)), and each member's own export and erasure (Export & erasure).
• Comfort: help hints, the Get started card, favourites and ratings for places, animations, regional formats and the choice of navigation style.
• Delivery: Push notifications, which only reach phones once whoever runs the installation has set up the push service (see How members are told).
• Plan tidying: Delete spaces with history and Name a single-room level by the level.

Everything else is Platform and off: kiosk and badges, several sites, accessory supplements, online payments, VAT management, the invoice journey, report design, deployments, WhatsApp, the assistant interface and the rest.

Good to know

• The invoices feature is on from the start, but nothing can be issued until your legal identity is complete; Setting up this space marks it Needed before invoicing. See Avoid features that contradict each other.
• A space that already exists never changes when DesKilo changes what a new space gets.
• If you start from a template, the template can switch a few features on or off on top of this set. See Three starting points.

See also: A feature switch

You see a small word under a feature's name and you want to know what to do with it.

Each row of Switches carries a maturity badge, which says how far the feature has been reviewed against evidence:

At the time of writing most features read Unreviewed, eighteen read Beta, and none has reached Stable yet.

What the app asks

1. Flip the switch of an Alpha or Beta feature.
2. The app asks Switch on an experimental feature? and says: "Not yet reviewed as stable: … It may change and has known limits. Switch on only if this space accepts that."
3. It names the stage of each feature and the features that would come on with it because they are needed.
4. Tap Switch on to accept, or Cancel: nothing is written.

Good to know

• Unreviewed features do not ask. Only Alpha and Beta ask.
• The question is asked on a single switch. A whole-process Switch on shows what it will switch on, but does not ask this question: switch Beta features one by one.
• Beta features at the time of writing include Invoices, Online payments, VAT management, Carnets, Shared expenses, Usage records, Booking policies, Series booking, Booking gate, Booking deletion requests, Finances in four faces, Supplies from expenses, Validators by role or person, Chained validations, Auto check-in/out at day end, Data export (Excel), E-invoice delivery to customers and Demo workspace. Read each feature's limits with More before you rely on it for money.
• Several of these are Core and already on in a new space. They start on without the question; it appears only when you switch one back on.
• Maturity narrows the list to one stage, which is a quick way to see everything experimental that your space already uses.

See also: A feature switch

You want to avoid the day on which everything is on and nothing works. Go one process at a time, and look at each from a member's side before you move on.

Steps

1. Keep the Core set and make the basics work: the places, the opening hours, one tariff. See Your place.
2. Open Features and open one process card. Choose the process that matches your next need, not the one that looks most complete.
3. Tap Switch on for a subprocess, or open a single feature among Switches.
4. Read the preview: what is Also needed, what is already on.
5. Look at it as a member: sign in as one (a second account, or the test side of your space) and do what a member would do.
6. Only then move on to the next process.

A sensible order

Good to know

• Switching on is cheap and switching off deletes nothing, so a wrong step costs time, not data. The exception is anything that issues an invoice: see Decisions that are hard to undo.
• A test space is the right place to try a process. See A test space or a real one and A test space.
• Invite members last, after the roles, the validation rules and the tariffs they will meet.

See also: Switch whole processes on or off

You are about to change a feature and you want to see the effect before it exists.

Steps

1. Open Features. The Processes view is shown.
2. Tap Needs attention. Only the processes holding something that is on but waiting remain.
3. Open a card. A feature On, waiting for a named parent is the thing to fix.
4. Fix it by switching the parent on, or by switching the feature off.
5. To change one feature, tap Switches, find it with Search features and flip its switch.
6. Read the question or the "Also switched on" line, and confirm.

What "held back" means

A feature is held back when you chose it but something it needs is off. Its own switch stays on, which is why it is easy to miss: the screen says the feature is on, and the app does not offer it. The card says how many features are held back ("… on but wait for a switched-off prerequisite") and which prerequisite they wait for, and you fix it in Features itself. What needs you shows the same thing as one line per switched-off prerequisite.

Other things a feature can wait for are not on this screen. A feature can be on and fully allowed while its details are missing: your legal identity, a site, a payment provider. Those appear in Setting up this space, at the top of the workspace settings: the legal identity, with Invoices on, as The space's legal identity and address, the rest under Details your features need (identity, bank, platforms).

Good to know

• If somebody else changed the features while you were looking, the app writes nothing and says so: "The features changed meanwhile, so nothing was written." Look at the list again and switch again.
• Changed counts the switches that differ from the registry default. On a new space it already shows a number (the Platform features that start off), so it is not a count of your own changes.
• Nobody but an owner or co-owner can write features. The server checks again at the moment of writing.

See also: Switch whole processes on or off · A feature switch

You want to map the people of your organisation onto the roles DesKilo has, so that nobody holds more than their job needs.

The four base roles

Everyone has exactly one base role. A role the space defines, such as Host or Accountant, is added on top of it and never takes anything away.

A treasurer without being an administrator

Bruno keeps the books but should not edit the floor plan or approve new members. Give him the base role User and add a role of your own, for instance Accountant, with four permissions: View workspace finances, Issue invoices & match payments, Export accounting and data and Read the workspace figures. Nothing more. No such role is built in; you create it with the steps below.

Steps

1. Open Roles this space defines and tap Add a role. See Roles this space defines.
2. Name the role, choose What it adds, tap Save the role.
3. Open the person in Members & plans, find Roles and tap Add a role.

Good to know

• Roles this space defines is a feature of its own and is off in a new space. Switch it on in Features.
• Nobody can give a role to themselves. Giving a role needs Manage roles & permissions, and only an owner can give a role that carries it.
• A role the space defines takes effect at once and is recorded. Only making someone an administrator, or taking it away, follows the Role change validation rule.

Result Each person of the board holds the permissions of their job, and the owner remains the only one who can change that.

See also: The role matrix

You want each role to hold what it needs and nothing else. That is the principle of least privilege: start small, add when someone asks, because a permission given is rarely taken back with grace.

Steps

1. Open Roles. There is one card per role: Owner, Co-owner, Administrator (the owner can rename it) and User.
2. Read the card of the Administrator first. It shows what an administrator holds in your space today.
3. Untick what you do not want to delegate. Tick the everyday permissions the User card needs (see below).

What an administrator holds by default

An administrator does not hold Manage roles & permissions, Configure validation policies, Edit workspace settings, Manage tariffs and billing rules, Design the documents, Manage integrations, Manage the configuration or Deploy to production. A co-owner holds all of them until you untick some. The owner always holds all of them.

Careful In a new space the User card is empty. The six everyday permissions (Use the messenger, Book and use reservations, See the calendar, See the member directory, See their own account and invoices, See the shared documents) are held only through the matrix or a role. Until you tick them, a member who joins cannot open the plan. The demo shows them already ticked, which hides this. Setting up this space shows What members may do as Needed for a first booking until the User card holds Book and use reservations; it does not check the five others. Tick them for the User card, and for the Administrator card if administrators also book, then test with a second account.

Good to know

• By default an administrator can read all finances and the personal data of every member. If your administrators are volunteers, think about whether they should.
• Admins issue invoices (a feature, off by default, under Invoices) gives administrators Issue invoices & match payments whatever the matrix says. Prefer the tick in the matrix, or a role of your own, which is more precise.
• Unticking a permission removes it everywhere at once; the server checks it, not only the menu.
• Every change of the matrix is recorded as an event. The Role management feature only shows the screen; switched off, the matrix you saved still applies, you just cannot edit it.

Result A matrix you can explain in one sentence per role.

See also: The role matrix · Who does what

You want the space to keep working when you are ill, away or gone. Every space needs more than one person who can act. By default only owners and co-owners hold the permissions that change features, roles, validation rules and the workspace ID, and only an owner can make another owner.

The two kinds

Steps

1. Switch on the Co-owners feature in Features. It is off in a new space.
2. Open the person in Members & plans, go to Manage and tap Co-ownership.
3. Choose Active co-owner or Successor. To hand over now, choose Promote to owner now.

Good to know

• If the last owner leaves, the best co-owner becomes owner on their own, an active one before a successor.
• Two administrators are not the same thing: an administrator holds only what the matrix gives and can never hand ownership on.
• A rule that says Owner must always validate asks for an owner. Check on your test side that your co-owner can still decide what you expect.

Result The space has a second person who can act.

See also: Co-owners · Co-ownership

You want to choose how people reach your space and who lets them in. Four ways exist, and every one of them ends in the same place: a person asking to join, and someone deciding.

Steps

1. Open Workspace ID & QR. Choose an ID people can remember with Change workspace ID: 4 to 20 letters or digits, unique across DesKilo.
2. For a named person, tap Invite someone. Fill in the name, tick Roles on arrival if they should receive a role, pick the Message language and send.
3. When someone asks to join, their row in Members & plans says Pending. Open it and choose Approve membership or Reject membership.

Good to know

• Nobody gets in without a decision. Until it is taken, the newcomer sees a waiting screen and nothing else.
• The decision follows the rule of New member in Validation rules: by default one owner or administrator suffices; if you require two, the first approval leaves the person pending.
• If you change the workspace ID, the old one stops working. Print the QR code again.
• There is no owner invite. Ownership is given in Members & plans.

Result People can find you, and you decide who stays.

See also: The workspace ID · Join a workspace · Pending and paused members

You want an invitation that sounds like your space, in the language of the person who gets it. Each language has its own text; the one you do not write falls back to the built-in message.

Steps

1. Open Workspace and go to Community & invitations.
2. Under Message language choose the language you write for. The row opens on your workspace language.
3. Write the text. Tap a tag to insert it where the cursor is. The limit is 2000 characters.
4. Repeat for each language your members use, then tap Save.

The tags

Good to know

• Leave the box empty and the app writes its own message in that language. It explains the steps: download, create an account, join with the code.
• Do not paste a code or a link yourself. Each send creates its own code, valid for one person.
• A tag you misspell stays visible in the sent text: read the preview before you send.
• The built-in message tells the person the code is single-use and valid for 14 days.

Result An invitation your members can follow without asking you.

See also: Invitation message · Invite someone by message

You want to choose, act by act, whether a second person must agree. A validation domain is one kind of act with its own rule: a payment, an expense, a new member, a booking deletion. In Validation rules the domains sit in three groups.

Every domain starts with Inherits default: one validation by any administrator or owner. Default policy is the rule all the others inherit. A domain you open and save becomes Customized.

The knobs of a rule

Steps

1. Open Validation rules. Tap Default policy and decide what everything else inherits.
2. Tap a domain, set the knobs, tap Save.
3. Keep few exceptions. Each exception is one more thing you must remember when someone says "why is this waiting?".

Good to know

• Nobody validates their own act. It waits for someone else, unless the owner exception is switched on.
• Every decision is recorded: who, when, on what.
• A request nobody answers expires after seven days, swept the next time anyone opens Events. An act an administrator did for a member is confirmed automatically instead.

See also: Validation rules, domain by domain · Who may validate · Auto-validate

You choose how far DesKilo goes in your money. Everything else in this chapter follows from this one choice, and it is easy to change upwards later, hard to change downwards once invoices exist.

Before you start

Answer two questions: do members pay you for the space, and do you want the legal invoices to come out of DesKilo?

Steps

1. Pick your path from the table.
2. For path 2 or 3, switch on the money features you need in Features: Invoices is the base of everything that is issued, and the features below it (Subscription invoices, End-of-month invoices, Payment reminders, VAT management) come on one by one.
3. For path 3, continue with your legal identity before the first booking, not after.

Good to know

• In-app invoice issuing exists today for a workspace in France or Germany. In any other country, use path 2: statements stay available.
• The server refuses to issue, and the list Complete these details before issuing says why, when a detail is missing or when the treatment is one DesKilo does not handle: cross-border sales, reverse charge, export and VAT-exempt invoices must be reviewed and issued outside the app with your accountant.
• A seller on the small-business exemption scheme (franchise en base, Kleinunternehmer) cannot issue invoices in the app: the server refuses the exempt VAT category. Keep path 2, and issue those invoices elsewhere.
• Switching a feature off stops new business of that kind; it deletes nothing.
• You can stay on path 2 forever. Many associations do.

Result

You know which of the three paths is yours, and which features it needs.

See also: Invoicing at a glance · Switch whole processes on or off

You turn "what is a place worth?" into numbers DesKilo can apply every month without you.

Before you start

Keep the model in mind. It reads from left to right, and each step feeds the next:

1. Subscription percentage: A member holds a percentage of the month: 25, 50, 75 or 100 %, or a value you allow.
2. Half-day allowance: The percentage becomes a number of half-days for the month: the number of open days, times two, times the percentage, rounded up.
3. Fee band: The percentage falls into one band, which gives the monthly fee and the price of an extra half-day. A band covers "above its start, up to and including its end", and the bands together must cover 0 to 100 % without a gap.
4. Overage policy: When the allowance is used up, each member is either blocked, charged the overage price, or asked to buy a package.
5. Packages and services: A day package sells extra half-days in advance at a price you set; services (a coffee, a locker, printing) are sold on top.

Steps

1. Decide the percentages you want to offer under Subscription levels, and whether an owner may type a negotiated value (see Subscription levels).
2. Set one row per range in Fee bands: its upper limit, the monthly fee and the overage price (see Fee bands).
3. Decide the default for members who run out: When days run out.
4. Add the Day packages and services you sell.

Good to know

• The arithmetic is frozen on every issued document. Changing a price changes next month, never a month already invoiced.
• Opening hours and closure days decide how many open days a month has, and so the size of the allowance. Set them first.
• A member with no subscription is for visitors who buy carnets; they cannot be on pay-as-you-go.

See also: Billing · A member's subscription

You follow one member through one month with the figures of Atelier du Marché, so you can check your own numbers the same way.

Before you start

The demo space has three fee bands, in euros and VAT included. The figures are the demo's own, not a recommendation.

Steps

1. A member holds 50 %. In a month with 22 open days the allowance is 22 × 2 × 50 / 100 = 22 half-days.
2. 50 % falls in the second band (above 25, up to 50): the fee is 150.00, whatever the member uses.
3. The member books 24 half-days. Two are over the allowance, at 8.00 each: 16.00.
4. The month costs 150.00 + 16.00 = 166.00, before any service. In the demo the prices are gross: the 20 % VAT is inside them, and the screen shows it under each price.
5. Compare with a package: the demo's 5-day pack costs 40.00 and adds 10 half-days (5 days, two half-days each), that is 4.00 a half-day. Against 8.00 of overage it pays off from the sixth extra half-day in a month.

Good to know

• An overage price of 0.00 means extra half-days cost nothing under pay-as-you-go.
• The statement a member sees shows the same lines: fee, included, used, extra, overage.
• Prices are shown including VAT when VAT is on; the tax is extracted from them.
• If a member and you agree on other conditions, see price negotiation.

Result

You can predict a member's bill from three numbers: their percentage, the open days, the bookings.

See also: Read your statement · What each booking cost

You choose where a member's money goes, and how much of the work DesKilo does for you.

Steps

1. Start with the free route: fill the payment instructions: your IBAN and bank details, and any of PayPal.me, Wero, Lydia or Wise you accept, plus a reference hint.
2. Members see these details on an unpaid statement. When a payment reaches your account, you or a billing administrator record it.
3. Only if you want members to pay inside the app, connect a provider in Online payments: PayPal, Stripe or Mollie. It needs the Online payments feature and your own account at the provider.

Good to know

• DesKilo records payments; with the manual route it never moves money.
• A provider charges its own fees, takes the keys of your account (the credentials sheet explains how they are entered).
• With Online payments off, a new online payment is refused; one already open can still settle.
• A space built from a template does not carry payment details: enter them in each space. A configuration export does carry them.

See also: Pay what you owe · Provider credentials

You tell DesKilo who is selling, so every invoice names you correctly. This is the part to settle with a professional.

Before you start

The screen is Legal identity & e-invoicing. Have these ready:

• your organisation type: a business, or a non-profit association;
• your VAT regime: outside the scope of VAT, VAT-exempt (small-business scheme), or VAT-registered. The app can issue invoices for the first and the last only; with the small-business exemption, the screen records your status but invoices must be issued elsewhere (path 2);
• your registration number, and your VAT number if you have one;
• your postal address, as it appears on your registration;
• the reason no VAT is charged, if you charge none.

Careful Choosing the regime is a tax decision, not a software setting. An association with no trading activity is normally outside VAT, and the screen warns you if you pick "exempt" for one. Confirm the choice before you issue the first invoice.

Steps

1. Open Legal identity & e-invoicing and work from the top: the VAT regime first, then the identifiers, the address and the Invoice mentions.
2. Fill the payment terms, the late-payment mentions and the other mentions your country requires (see Your legal identity).
3. Tap Save, then read the invoice template once with your accountant (see The invoice PDF template).

Tip Questions to bring to your accountant:

1. Which organisation type and which VAT regime am I in?
2. What are my registration number and my VAT number, and how do I write them?
3. If I charge no VAT, which legal wording justifies it?
4. Which mentions must appear on my invoices (payment term, late-payment penalty, recovery indemnity, early-payment discount, insurance)?
5. How should invoices be numbered, and does the number restart each year or each month?
6. When does VAT on my services fall due under my country's rule (payment, service month, invoice), and should I opt for another basis?
7. Must I send e-invoices to a government platform, and which one?
8. Do I need periodic VAT returns, and how often?

Good to know

• Invoices already issued keep the identity they were signed with; a change applies to the next ones.
• Only an owner or an active co-owner can open this screen, and the Invoices feature must be on.
• A space made from a template does not carry your identity: enter it again. A deployment between the two sides of a pair does carry it.

See also: VAT regime · The e-invoicing platform · Organisation type

You decide how late is late, and who does the chasing.

Steps

1. Switch on Payment reminders in Features. It sits under Invoices.
2. Set the number of levels and the delays in Reminder rules: days until the first reminder, days between reminders.
3. Decide whether reminders leave on their own: switch Automatic reminders on in the same dialog (see Automatic reminders); the feature Automatic payment reminders must be on too.

Good to know

• The delay before the first reminder is also read as your payment term. Set it with Payment terms.
• Automatic reminders run once a day on the server when the database has its scheduler enabled. They also run when someone who may issue invoices (an owner, a co-owner, or an administrator if Admins issue invoices is on) opens Finances, so a space without the scheduler still gets them, on the days someone looks. The switch and the feature description say this too; your server operator knows which applies.
• The Payment reminders feature only makes the rules available. A reminder leaves on its own only when Automatic reminders is switched on in the reminder rules, which is off until you choose it.
• They skip an invoice with a payment pending or on hold, and an invoice without a recorded payment term.
• The member gets an alert in their feed and, if push is set up, a generic notification; see Tell people.

See also: Payment terms

You want to know what VAT will ask of you before you switch it on.

Steps

1. Only if you are VAT-registered, switch on VAT management in Features.
2. Set the rates in VAT: Use the usual rates for your country, then mark exactly one as the default (see Setting the rates).
3. Give each rate its group, and an exemption reason where it applies (see VAT groups).
4. When the law changes a rate, use Change by law so older invoices keep their rate (see Change a rate by law).
5. If you must file returns, switch on VAT declarations and prepare each period in VAT declaration.

Good to know

• A catalogue of rates ships for the EU member states, Switzerland, Norway and Canada. Keeping it current when a government changes a rate is your job.
• Registered without a default rate in force, the server refuses to issue. The description of VAT management and the warning on the legal identity screen say so.
• The server computes each return from your invoices, payments and tax points. File it yourself with the tax authority, then mark it filed with the receipt reference it gave you: the app transmits nothing.
• Choose how often you file under VAT return period on the legal identity. A filed period is locked: what changes in it later is declared as a correction in the next return.
• The declaration journal has its own number series.

See also: VAT regime · When VAT falls due

You want to know, before the first invoice, what you will not be able to change afterwards.

Careful From the first issued invoice, the items below are permanent. Decide them with your accountant first.

Steps

1. Open Number sequences and set the prefix, the suffix, the date part, the digits and the restart for each journal (invoices, credit notes, VAT declarations, members, payments). The screen needs the Number sequences feature.
2. Show the result to your accountant before the first invoice.
3. Choose the country, currency and time zone in Workspace settings before anybody books.

Good to know

• Numbers are not wasted: a document that fails to issue takes none.
• The two states of a space, test and production, exist so that nothing here is tried for real; see a safe dry run.

See also: The invoice register · Currency and time zone

You want a clear picture of the ways DesKilo can reach a person, before you promise anything to your members.

Before you start

There are six ways, and they are not equal. Most of the work is done inside the app.

Good to know

• DesKilo sends no e-mail of its own beyond the account e-mails (sign-up confirmation, password reset). Invitations are texts you share from your own phone.
• There is no per-event subscription: a member cannot pick "tell me about expenses but not about bookings".
• A notification may be delayed or lost like any push; the feed and the message list are the record.

See also: Notifications · Events & confirmations

You want to know, event by event, who hears about it and how.

Before you start

Push is sent only for the five lines marked "push" below. Every other event (a booking made, a payment recorded, a member joining) appears in the feed and nowhere else.

Good to know

• When the app is open, a removed-booking push is replaced by a notification in the member's language. For messages, mentions, confirmations and payment reminders the open app currently shows its generic text ("Someone needs your confirmation."). The generic English texts of the table appear when the app is in the background or closed.
• An administrator is told only about what they act on or what a rule gives them; there is no "everything" digest.
• Members see their own events; administrators and owners see everyone's.

See also: Validation rules · Messages

You decide which of these channels exist in your space and who is asked to decide what.

Steps

1. Open Features and check the notification switches: Push notifications, Member notifications, Events tab, Notification feed grouping, Payment reminders, Automatic payment reminders and WhatsApp integration.
2. Set the validation rules: for each kind of request, how many validations are required and who may give them. This decides who is asked, and so who sees a decision waiting.
3. Decide whether an administrator's or an owner's own request settles itself; see Auto-validate an administrator's own request and Auto-validate an owner's own request. A request that is settled already never pings anyone.
4. Write the invitation message members receive, and paste the community group link; see Invitation message and WhatsApp group.
5. Switch on Booking deletion requests if members may ask to delete a past or checked-in booking: someone then has to answer.

Good to know

• Defaults for a new space: the events tab, member notifications and grouping are on; Payment reminders and Automatic payment reminders are on as features, but no reminder is sent until you switch Automatic reminders on in the reminder rules.
• Push notifications is on by default, but it delivers nothing until the operator has set it up.
• Switching a feature off stops new activity of that kind. It does not delete what exists.
• Roles decide who can see and answer what; see The role matrix.

See also: Who may validate · Required validations

You want to tell your members honestly what they can switch off.

Steps

1. A member opens Privacy & data and uses Push notifications on this device to stop or resume push on that device.
2. In Messages, a member presses and holds a conversation to Pin to top, Mute notifications, Mark as unread or Archive.
3. In the system settings of the phone, a member can refuse notifications altogether, check-in reminders included.
4. In their profile, a member decides whether to share a WhatsApp number.

Good to know

• A muted conversation stays silent but is still counted; a mention overrides a mute.
• A member who turns push off on one device is not affected on another.
• There are no per-category switches. If a member needs less noise, mute conversations; if they need none, switch push off.

See also: Notifications · Your data, your rights

You want to know what exists before you design anything, and who receives each document.

Every document is one kind. Each kind has its own design, so changing the invoice never changes the statement.

Good to know

• The Reports screen groups them under Financial reports, Workspace documents, Business analytics and Templates, depending on your permissions.
• A few reports (chart of accounts, badges, QR cards) have one shipped layout. The others can be redesigned.
• Documents drawn from a test space carry a watermark that says so. See What a test space is for.

See also: Reports · The invoice PDF template

You want a letter that looks like yours without learning a language of markup.

A document is a page made of bands. The header carries your letterhead and the recipient. The body carries the lines. The continuation strip starts on page two, and the footer repeats on every page with your payment terms and legal mentions. You edit them in Design and check them in Preview; Markup shows the same bands as text for the day you need it.

Two facts keep you from surprises. The letter standard prints a recipient in the window on the right for a French space and on the left for a German one, unless you override it. And a design that fails to render never blocks a document: the built-in layout takes over.

Careful The wording in a design is not legal advice. Appearance and translation alone do not establish legal compliance or satisfy an electronic-invoicing obligation. What an invoice must say is decided under Your legal identity, and confirmed by your accountant.

See also: The report editor · Ready-made templates · One design per language

You are about to design documents and want to do it once, in the right order.

Steps

1. Fix your legal identity first: organisation type, address, registration, VAT regime and the special mentions. A design prints only what you entered there. See Your legal identity.
2. Open Report editor, pick the document and start from Professional under Templates.
3. Add a language version for each language your members read. Choose EN, FR, DE, ES or IT under the document. See One design per language.
4. Check each one with Quick preview. It uses your newest invoice, or sample data when there is none.
5. Rehearse on a test space: enter it, issue a trial invoice, print it and send it to your accountant. See What a test space is for.
6. Freeze the design before the first invoice. Write down what you decided, then change a design only when a rule changes.

Good to know

• Replacing a layout can be undone with Undo until you leave the editor.
• An issued invoice is a frozen document. Changing the design later changes new documents, never the ones already issued.
• With the same wording in two languages, ask someone who reads the second language to read the preview.

Careful The invoice number and the legal mentions printed on an invoice become permanent with the first issued invoice. Settle them before it, not after.

Result: every document you will send looks like yours, in each language, and has been read once by someone other than you.

See also: Your legal identity · The invoice PDF template

You want your accountant to have what they need, and to know what the app does not claim.

Start from the Invoice register, which lists every invoice with its status, and tap Accounting export. Each format says in the sheet what it claims.

The list of formats depends on your country. FEC and DATEV ask for your account numbers, and FEC also for your registration number: have them ready. The VAT figures for the period are in The periodic VAT declaration.

What the app does not do

• It keeps invoices, payments and a running account per member. It does not keep a double-entry ledger over a chart of accounts, so it cannot replace accounting software.
• Some obligations remain with you and your accountant: complete books, certified software where your country demands it, and the target authority's acceptance.
• A file is blocked until the problems in the source are fixed.

Good to know

• Exporting is a read. You can repeat it for any period.
• Prepare a short brief for your accountant before the first invoice: your VAT regime, when VAT falls due, the numbering you chose and the exports you will want. See AI help.

See also: Accounting exports · The invoice register · VAT account

You want to see how the space performs once it runs, without a spreadsheet.

Business analytics shows figures by area: invoiced and collected, occupancy and capacity. You choose a period (month, quarter or year), compare it with another, save a view and export it as a PDF. You see only the analyses your role may read.

Collected is payments matched to invoices. It is not a profit, because no costs are in the figure, and the current period is partial.

For a document about the whole space, the Workspace documents tab holds the Workspace report, Space QR codes (PDF), Export data (Excel) and Export configuration (PDF). Use the last two as a recovery copy before a big change.

See also: Business analytics · Exports

An AI chat tool can save you hours on the words around your setup. It cannot be the one who decides what is legally or fiscally right. This section is about the tools you use outside DesKilo; the assistant connection inside the app is described at the end.

What an outside tool is good for

• Drafting the invitation message you send to your first members. See The invitation message. The placeholders such as the first name or the invite link stay as they are.
• Wording the special mentions you will submit to your accountant, as a draft to check, never as a final text.
• Translating a design's wording into another language, so that you only have to review it.
• Explaining a report or a statement to a member in plain words.
• Preparing the brief of your choices for your accountant: country, organisation type, VAT regime, numbering, exports.
• Drafting the picture behind your floor plan, from photographs, in an image tool.

What it must not decide

• The legal mentions of an invoice, the VAT treatment of an activity, the reason no VAT is charged, and the VAT rates.
• Anything that becomes permanent: an invoice number format, a VAT regime, the currency, an issued invoice.
• Whether something is compliant. A confident answer is not a verified one, and your accountant is.

The safe workflow

1. Ask the tool for a draft. Give it a scenario, not your members' names or any personal data.
2. Paste the draft into the field, in the Report editor or in the settings.
3. Look at it in Preview with sample data.
4. Send the text that has legal weight to your accountant and wait for the answer.
5. Try the whole flow on a test space before the real one.

Careful Do not paste a token, a password, a bank number or a member's personal data into an outside tool.

DesKilo's own assistant connection

The app lets an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT act for a member through a protocol called MCP. It is off by default and is a feature you switch on (MCP interface, see A feature switch). It is made in layers, so no one person can open everything.

A member's assistant works on that member's own records: find and describe free places, favourites and ratings, book, change or cancel one's own reservation, ask to delete a started booking, check in and out, read one's statement and invoices, and list and answer the validations one is asked for. A few requests (invoice issue, invoice void, refund, member status change, subscription share) are for staff only: they need staff rights, the person's confirmation in the app, and then your validation rules. It has no operation that configures a space: it cannot switch a feature on, set a tariff, change a role or build a plan. It cannot set your space up for you, and it acts only within what you expose.

Good to know

• Switching assistants on grants nobody anything by itself.
• Each approval expires; the screen tells how many days remain.
• Read the steps in Approvals and confirmations for assistants.

See also: Assistants: what they are · Connect an assistant

You want to know which of your mistakes the app will point out, and where it will do it, so that you look in the right place.

Good to know

• Setting up this space is a list, not a lock. It never stops you from switching something on.
• Most guards act when you try to issue, pay or book, not when you choose a setting. That is why the audit below exists.
• The owner inbox (What needs you) raises only the required areas and the features held back. The optional areas stay in the readiness list: read it yourself.

See also: Avoid features that contradict each other · Check your space

You want to know what to try, in what order, and whom to ask.

Steps

1. Read the message on the screen. Most say what to do.
2. Check the side. Look at the test-space banner and the side shown in Me. Documents printed on the test side carry a watermark and nothing there is owed; the real side issues invoices that are.
3. Check Features and Roles: a missing function is a feature that is off or a permission nobody ticked.
4. Open Setting up this space and read the area that matches the symptom.
5. Prepare Support details under Help: choose Last hour or Last 24 hours, Prepare preview, read it, Save, and send the file. It holds counts and checks only, not identities, credentials or business records.
6. Before you change anything big, take the data export (below).

Who to ask

The recovery export

1. Open Reports and choose Workspace documents.
2. Tap Export data (Excel). It needs the Data export (Excel) feature and the permission Export accounting and data. You get one ZIP: a workbook with a tab per dataset, a manifest counting the rows, and the stored files.
3. Tap Export configuration (PDF) for a record of the parameters and, in Workspace, Export workspace (XML) for the plan and settings.

Good to know

• A completed data export is recorded; the readiness area Export and recovery says so for 90 days, then reads that the export is older.
• The PDF is a record, not a backup. Only the XML can be imported back, and it never holds members or money.
• Keep the file somewhere only you can open: it contains your members.

See also: Support details · When something does not work · Export the data (Excel)

You decide who may do what, what each member pays, and who is told what. You do it with a second person, because rules only show themselves when someone else meets them.

Steps

1. Role-play a validation with a second person. Make them an administrator, set one required validation for bookings, then book as a member and let the administrator confirm. See Validation rules and Roles.
2. Raise the required number to two and watch the request wait. Then reduce it again. A rule that needs more validators than exist leaves requests waiting for ever.
3. Write the tariffs on paper first: subscription levels in per cent, the fee band of each level, the price beyond the allowance. Then enter them in Billing, and give the level to the member in Members & plans. See Members & plans.
4. Give the second person a level and let them book beyond their allowance. Read the statement.
5. Test the notifications: a message, a pending request, a cancelled booking. See Notifications.
6. Open Roles and check what an administrator may do. Remove one permission and see what disappears for them.

Good to know

• In-app notifications work at once. Push notifications also need the operator's setup, so a test may show nothing on a phone. Ask your operator.
• Automatic payment reminders run once a day on the server when the installation has its scheduler, and also when an authorised person opens Finances.

You are done when

• You watched a request pass through the validation you configured, and one stay waiting.
• Your tariffs fit on one sheet and the statement of the test member matches your arithmetic.
• You know who is told what.

See also: Validation rules · Roles and permissions