General Setup

  

Shared setup for Solace: installation requirements, creating and configuring a company, company branches, year-end processing, and user/role administration used by both Accounting and POS.

This guide covers everything that is configured once per installation or per company, independently of whether you are using the Accounting or the POS side of Solace. Complete the steps here before working through the accounting-specific modules in Accounting or the point-of-sale modules in POS.

Scope. This guide follows the menus of the Solace Control Panel as they exist in the current version of the application. Screen and button names quoted below (e.g. “Company Parameters”, “Multi-Currencies”) are the exact menu captions, so you can follow along inside the application.

Purpose and Scope

This guide walks a new installation through everything that needs to be in place before day-to-day work begins in either Accounting or POS: confirming the machine meets the minimum requirements, creating the company data file, setting company-wide parameters, and setting up the users, roles and salespersons who will use the system.

The setup order matters: a company must exist before its parameters can be set, and at least one user role should be defined before other staff start using the system, since adding the first user immediately turns on login security for everyone.

System Requirements

	Minimum	Recommended
Processor	Pentium III 1.0GHz	Pentium IV 2.0GHz
Operating System	Windows XP	Windows 7 and up, Linux (Debian-based), macOS 10 and up
Screen Resolution	800x600	1024x768
RAM	1GB (XP), 4GB (Windows 7)	4GB or more

If the machine will also run POS, plan for the extra peripherals it needs beside the standard keyboard, mouse and screen — till slip printer, barcode scanner, biometric fingerprint reader, card reader, pole display, touch screen, cash drawer and dish/weight scale. Device interface setup for each is covered in POS.

Creating a Company

Solace opens on a Select Company screen that lists every company it knows about — those on the local machine under “My Computer”, and networked companies under “Network Places”. You can search this list by typing the company name.

Method	What it does	When to use it
Create Company by Using Existing	Copies an entire existing company, letting you choose what to keep while reading the existing data.	Setting up a second company that should start from a validated configuration.
Start New Company	Creates a completely empty data file, with nothing pre-configured.	Reserved for Solace consultants, accountants and advanced users who have already mastered Solace's settings and bookkeeping principles.
New Company Assistant	Walks you through company creation step by step.	The recommended route for most new companies.
Converter Assistant	Migrates data from another accounting package into Solace.	Moving from an existing non-Solace system.
Restore From Backup	Creates the company by restoring a Solace backup file. If a company of the same name already exists and isn't in use, it is overwritten.	Recovering a company, or cloning one from a backup.

Setting up a network connection

If the company's data lives on another machine, register that connection before creating or opening the company:

1. From the Select Company screen, click Data Servers.
2. Click the green cross button and select New Connection.
3. Fill in the Server Address, User Name and PostgreSQL Password. Tick On this Computer if the connection is actually local.
4. Click Save, then Done.

Company Parameters Overview

Once a company is open, go to Control Panel → Company Parameters for the company-wide settings, organised in tabs:

Tab	What you set here
Company Info	Company name, address, country, contact details; Business Registration number (for a registered company, close corporation or non-profit) and Tax Registration number (for a VAT/GST/sales tax vendor). Prints on invoices and reports.
Multi-Currencies	Home currency, and foreign currency setup if trading internationally (§5).
Financial Categories	Classification of accounts for the balance sheet and related reports (§6) — full chart-of-accounts detail is in Accounting.
General Processing	Loan module settings, if the company tracks interest-bearing loans to customers (§6).
Tax Processing	Tax types and the tax control account (§6).
Internet Settings	Outgoing email configuration (§7).
Logos	Screen logo and report logo (§7).
System Parameters	Amount and date display formats, system language, customer card lookup (§7).
Interfaces	Serial/USB device ports — mainly used by POS.

Do this first. Set Company Info and the currency/amount format under Multi-Currencies before capturing any accounts or transactions — the format chosen affects how every screen afterwards displays and accepts numbers.

Multi-Currency Setup

From Company Parameters → Multi-Currencies:

Field	Meaning
Home Currency Symbol	Your home currency symbol, used throughout reporting.
Use Multi-Currency	Tick if the company trades with foreign suppliers or customers; enables the currency section below.
Currency Variance Entry Type	The journal that records any variance in currency valuation.

Add each foreign currency with the green + button, select its revaluation account, then Save. For each currency, set its amount format:

Field	Meaning
Currency Symbol	As for the home currency.
Decimal Symbol	Defaults to the operating system's setting; change to match the currency's own convention.
Decimal Digits	Usually 2; any positive value is allowed.
Debit/Credit Symbol	Usually +/-.
Grouping Symbol	Thousands separator — usually a space.
Symbol Position	Leading (before the amount) or trailing (after it).
Sample Number	A read-only preview reflecting the current selections.

Financial Categories, Loans and Tax Processing

Financial Categories classify accounts for the balance sheet and related reports (e.g. the Revenue Statement). Categories are predefined by the system — you can only relabel them to match your business and financial institution's wording. Codes 100–250 are balance-sheet categories; 300–370 are income/expense categories. See Accounting for full chart-of-accounts detail.

Loan Module (General Processing tab) — if the business lends money to customers with interest, Solace tracks the installment and repayment schedule:

Field	Meaning
Next Number	The next loan reference number, assigned automatically to each new loan.
Loan Account	Registers all loan transactions; used to evaluate and control the loan value.
Interest Account	Registers all interest paid by customers.
Installment Entry Type	The journal that records loan transactions, for tracing them later.

Tax Processing — Solace uses a single Tax Control Account attached to tax types (not sub-accounts of it). Type 00 is reserved for non-taxable transactions and is always left blank. You generally need only one standard-rate VAT type; Solace detects output (sales) vs. input (purchase) tax automatically by transaction type when printing the tax report.

Internet, Logos and System Parameters

Internet Settings — Solace can send email via your default mail client, or via its own internal email module. The internal module is recommended: some mail clients block or require confirmation for automated sending, which is impractical for bulk email. To use it, select Send Directly to Mail Server and fill in your SMTP server/ISP parameters. The email signature can be plain text or HTML, and is appended to every outgoing email.

Logos — Solace supports a screen logo (shown at the bottom right of the main screen) and a report logo (printed on statements and customer/supplier account documents). Use Load to set a logo and Clear to remove it.

System Parameters — controls how numbers and dates display and print (the amount format follows the same rules as Multi-Currencies, §5), plus the system language. If the company uses customer loyalty/ID cards, enable card lookup here so a card can be swiped to find a customer account, e.g. when invoicing.

Interfaces — serial and USB port configuration for connected devices. This is mostly relevant to POS hardware; see POS for device-by-device setup.

Company Branches

Solace is a multi-branch, multi-user system that works over a LAN or WAN, and can also run as a Distributed Data Network (DDN / peer-to-peer), where each branch hosts its own data and Solace replicates it to the other branches (nodes). DDN setup is technical and is normally handled by an installer or technician.

Create every branch to consolidate data and keep proper financial control across the company. Each branch's Info tab mirrors Company Parameters → Company Info, and reports print their page-header details from the branch screen. Solace holds two sets of bank details per branch; the first is the one that prints on invoices to tell customers where to pay.

Year-End Processing

Solace keeps history indefinitely and works in financial periods. At the end of a financial period, run the Year-End Assistant (Control Panel → Tools) to create the next period and roll balances forward: it transfers balance-sheet closing balances to the new financial year and updates the revenue account with the net profit or loss.

Running year-end does not close the old year for posting — transactions can still be processed against it afterwards, and Solace continues to report correctly across both years.

Back up first. Always take a backup before running Year-End, and before any other bulk change to company data.

Users and Roles

Solace controls access through roles: each user is assigned exactly one role, and changing a role's access rights changes it for every user assigned to that role.

From Control Panel → User Access (in the Assistants group):

1. On the Roles tab, click the green + to add a role, type its Description, tick Administrator if it should have full access, and tick Active. Click the diskette button to save.
2. Tick each permission the role should have in the Access Rights list, then click Apply.
3. Switch to the User List tab to manage individual users — green + to add, red cross to remove, diskette to save. Each user must be assigned a role; their access rights follow that role.

Field	Meaning
Access Expire	Optional — the last date this user may access the company, for a time-limited account.

Login security. The moment the first user is added, the company is secured: every future open of the company requires a valid user name and password, and any attempt to reach a restricted resource shows “Access Denied”. The last administrator role cannot be deleted (though it can be renamed) — there is always at least one way in.

Salespersons and Commissions

Every salesperson is a user (with the extra sales-related permissions that implies), though not every user is a salesperson. Add, edit or delete them from Control Panel → Salespersons — pick the user role the salesperson will log in with, then fill in their details.

Solace evaluates commission by one of two methods, set per salesperson on the Commissions tab:

Method	How it's calculated
Commission on (Net) Sales	Percentage applied to the full sale amount.
Commission on Gross Profit	Percentage applied to the sale's gross profit (sale value less average cost).

Enter a percentage table per salesperson: type the low limit of each range and press Enter — Solace fills in that range's upper limit (the Target) automatically — then enter the rate for that range. Commission is calculated at the point the sales invoice is posted, using cost data as of that moment; reporting afterwards is done from the historical figures already saved (Reports → Sales Reports → Sales Commissions).

Worked example. A salesperson sells 2 units at 8,618.40 each (cost 7,200.00 each) on gross-profit commission, with a range table of 4.25% up to 1,000 and 3.50% above it. Gross profit is (2 × 8,618.40) − (2 × 7,200.00) = 2,836.80. Commission = (1,000 × 4.25%) + (1,836.80 × 3.50%) = 42.50 + 64.29 = 106.79. A commission-on-sales table works the same way, but applies its ranges to the sale value instead of the gross profit.

Cost and price detail ahead of invoicing is available from Reports → Inventory → Inventory Costs.

First-Time Setup Checklist

1. Confirm the machine meets the minimum requirements, and identify any extra POS peripherals needed (§2).
2. Register a network data-server connection, if the company's data isn't local (§3).
3. Create the company — existing copy, new company assistant, converter, or restore from backup (§3).
4. Set Company Info, then the currency and amount format under Multi-Currencies (§4–5).
5. Review Financial Categories, and configure the Loan module and Tax Processing if needed (§6).
6. Configure Internet Settings, logos and System Parameters (§7).
7. Create any additional branches (§8).
8. Create at least one administrator role and user before rolling the system out to other staff (§10).
9. Add salespersons and their commission tables, if applicable (§11).
10. Take a backup once initial setup is complete.

Glossary

Term	Meaning
Role	A named set of access rights; every user is assigned exactly one role.
Financial Category	A predefined grouping (100–250 balance sheet, 300–370 income/expense) used to classify accounts on financial reports.
DDN (Distributed Data Network)	Solace's peer-to-peer replication mode, where each branch hosts its own data and replicates changes to the others.
Target	The automatically calculated upper limit of a commission range, derived from the next range's starting value.
Year-End Assistant	The tool that rolls balance-sheet balances and net profit/loss into a new financial period without closing the old one to posting.

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