Beginner's Guide
“I saved it and nothing happened.” If that is where you are, the document is almost certainly still a draft, and the first of the three facts below explains why. This section is for the moment before the manual makes sense, whether you are weighing BigLedger up or have just been given a login: what the product is, what you will be doing in it, and which page to open next, with no procedure to follow.
Setting a tenant up is a different job — companies, default GL codes, e-invoicing and logins belong to Getting Started. When you are ready to do something, the instructions are in the user guide.
The questions people ask first
The three facts worth knowing before anything else
- A draft does nothing. It posts nothing, moves no stock and starts no job until it is FINAL (Getting started).
- Not every document posts. On the sales side the sales invoice and the POS cash bill move stock and touch your accounts (plus a Sales GIN Stock Out raised through the API); quotations, orders and delivery notes are deliberately inert. On the purchasing side the purchase invoice brings stock in, unless the company uses the GRN Stock In pair (Basic business operations, why, and what mixing them does).
- Everything reads the same records, and each document keeps a copy of who it was for. A correction to a customer reaches the next document, never last month’s invoice; the receivable account is the exception, read when the document posts (The generic document).
Almost every early confusion is one of those three, and misreading the second gives stock balances that disagree with the shelves at every branch with no error anywhere.
When the first week surprises you
The questions new users ask in their first week, in their own words. Setup failures (an empty launchpad, a missing default GL code, a blank e-invoice environment) are on Getting Started’s own table.
| Symptom | In short | Read |
|---|---|---|
| “I saved it and nothing happened.” | Still a draft; only Finalise starts the work | What Finalise starts that Save does not |
| “The document is Final but it is not in the general ledger.” | The journal is written by a job after FINAL, and that job can fail | Trace Document in the Financial Report applet |
| “Why can’t I edit this? The field is greyed out.” | Posting values freeze at Finalise; no permission unfreezes them | The generic document |
| A sales order or delivery note did not lower stock | They move nothing; the invoice or cash bill does | Fact 2 above, then Troubleshooting |
| A goods received note did not raise stock | The purchase invoice books it, unless the company uses the GRN Stock In pair | Standard procurement workflow |
| Last month’s invoice still shows a customer’s old address | It kept a copy of the customer as it was | What a document keeps of the customer record |
| “I finalised the invoice and nothing was submitted to LHDN.” | Usually waiting in a pool; if e-invoicing was off at FINAL, it never enters one | E-invoice pools and submission routing, then Understanding e-invoice statuses |
What is still yours to find out
Pricing, certification, tax decisions and who runs the tenant are not the software’s to answer:
- What it costs and whether it satisfies your auditor — ask your BigLedger contact for a written quote and for the document itself (Getting started, Technical concerns).
- Which tax decisions stay with you — registering, deciding what is taxable, filing and paying (Malaysian requirements).
- Who will run the tenant — decide before day one who holds the Owner and Admin ranks (Getting Started).
Where the real instructions are
| You want to… | Go to |
|---|---|
| Find your way around the screen | Finding your way around |
| Understand how the product is put together | Platform overview |
| Set up products | Basic operations |
| Do the daily work | Daily tasks |
| Follow a whole business process end to end | Workflow guides |
| Look up exactly what one field does | Applet reference |
| Fix something that will not work | Troubleshooting |
Read this section alongside the FAQ, whose short answers assume the background given here. Once the three facts make sense, Getting Started and the module hubs (Sales, Purchasing, Inventory, Financial Accounting, POS, E-Invoice) take over.
What success looks like
You are through this section when you can answer, without looking: what saving a draft does (nothing), which sales document moves stock (the sales invoice, and the cash bill at the counter), where a setting is explained (that applet’s reference page), and which invoices show a corrected customer address (only the ones raised from now on).
Your next step
- You are weighing BigLedger up. Read the Platform overview, then take What is still yours to find out to your BigLedger contact.
- You have just been given a login. Read the Introduction, then Finding your way around.
- You are setting the tenant up. Go to Getting Started.
Questions go to Support; your BigLedger contact is faster for anything specific to your own tenant.