Settings & Configuration

Company Profile

The company profile is the foundation of your Vendra installation. Every document Vendra generates — invoices, receipts, purchase orders, payslips — pulls data from this profile. Go to Settings → General Settings → Companies and click on your company name to edit it.

Complete all fields carefully:

• Company name — Your legal trading name as it should appear on all documents.
• Address — Full physical and postal address. This appears on invoices and purchase orders.
• Phone and email — These appear in the footer of customer-facing documents.
• Company logo — Upload a square PNG with a transparent background (recommended: 512×512 pixels or larger). The logo appears on all printed and PDF documents.
• VAT / Tax ID — Your KRA PIN or equivalent tax registration number. Required for VAT receipts and tax compliance.
• Currency — Your base operating currency (KES for Kenya). This cannot be changed after transactions have been recorded.
• Fiscal year start — The month your financial year begins. Most Kenyan businesses use January.

Use the Document Layout settings (also in General Settings → Companies → Configure Document Layout) to choose an invoice template style (Classic, Clean, or Boxed), set a font, apply a brand color for headers, and add footer text such as bank account details or payment instructions. Preview a sample invoice before saving to confirm the layout looks correct.

Users and Access Rights

Go to Settings → Users & Companies → Users to manage all system users. To invite a new user, enter their email address in the General Settings Users section and click Invite. They receive an email to set their password and activate their account.

Once activated, open the user's record in Users & Companies → Users to assign access rights. Each installed module has its own permission level setting:

• No access (blank) — The user cannot see this module at all.
• User — Standard operational access. Can create records, process transactions, and view reports relevant to their role.
• Manager / Administrator — Full access including configuration menus, deletion of records, and access to all data regardless of assignment.

Common role configurations: A cashier needs Point of Sale access only (User level). A sales rep needs Sales access (User) and possibly Inventory (User) to check stock. An accountant needs Accounting (Accountant or Adviser level) but no POS or HR access. The HR manager needs Employees (Manager) and Payroll (Manager). The system administrator has Settings access and all modules at Manager level.

Multi-Company and Multi-Branch

Vendra supports multiple legal entities (companies) under a single subscription using the base_multi_company framework. This is used when a business group operates multiple registered companies, or when you want to keep financials strictly separate for different branches.

To add a new company, go to Settings → Users & Companies → Companies → New. Configure the company's name, address, currency, and chart of accounts. Users can be granted access to multiple companies simultaneously — they switch between them using the company selector in the top-right corner of the screen.

When a user has multiple companies active, records they create are tagged with the active company. Certain data (contacts, products) can be shared across companies; financial data (invoices, journal entries, inventory) is always company-specific. Inter-company transactions (selling between your own companies) can be configured to automatically create mirrored documents in the receiving company.

Email Configuration

To send invoices, purchase orders, and notifications directly from Vendra, configure an outgoing mail server. Go to Settings → General Settings → Discuss → Custom Email Servers or Settings → Technical → Outgoing Mail Servers. Enter your SMTP server details (host, port, TLS/SSL, username, and password). Use your business email provider's SMTP settings (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or any SMTP-capable mail service).

After saving, click Test Connection to verify the settings. Once confirmed, all emails sent by Vendra — invoices, payment confirmations, quotations, payslips — will be delivered from your business email address rather than a generic system address, which improves deliverability and looks professional to customers.

Email templates for common documents (invoice sent, quotation sent, payment received) can be customized from Settings → Technical → Email → Templates. Adjust the subject line, body text, and signature to match your brand voice.

Tax Configuration

Taxes are configured in Accounting → Configuration → Taxes. The Kenya localization pre-installs VAT at 16% standard rate, 0% for zero-rated goods, and an exempt category. For each tax, review:

• Tax computation — Percentage of price (most common), fixed amount, or percentage of other taxes.
• Price included — Whether the product's displayed price already includes tax (tax-inclusive) or whether tax is added on top at checkout (tax-exclusive). Retailers typically use tax-inclusive pricing so shelf prices reflect what the customer pays.
• Tax account — The chart of accounts code where collected VAT is posted (typically 2200 — VAT Payable for output VAT).
• Tax group — Which group this tax belongs to for consolidated display on invoices and VAT returns.

POS Terminal Settings

Go to Point of Sale → Configuration → Point of Sales to configure each terminal. Key settings to review after initial setup include: the linked warehouse (which stock is deducted on sales), the sales journal (where POS revenue posts), payment methods enabled on this terminal, and the fiscal position if applicable.

Under the Receipt/Bills tab, enable VAT receipts to print the KRA PIN and tax breakdown on every receipt. This is a legal requirement for VAT-registered businesses in Kenya. Configure the receipt header (company name, address, phone) and footer (WiFi password, loyalty program message, or any promotional text). Enable automatic printing if a receipt printer is connected via IoT box.

Accounting Settings

Go to Accounting → Configuration → Settings to configure accounting behavior. The most important settings to verify are:

• Default payment terms — Set the default terms applied to new invoices and bills when no terms are specified on the customer or vendor record.
• Lock date — Set a lock date at the end of each accounting period to prevent modification of past entries. Once a period is locked, no journal entries can be created or modified with a date in that period.
• Fiscal years — Confirm the fiscal year start and end dates match your company's financial year.
• Account types — Review that each account in your chart of accounts has the correct type assigned. Incorrect types cause accounts to appear in the wrong section of financial statements.

Integrations

M-Pesa Daraja API: To enable M-Pesa STK Push payments at the POS, go to Settings → Integrations → M-Pesa. Enter your Safaricom API credentials: Consumer Key, Consumer Secret, Business Short Code (Paybill or Till number), and Passkey. These are obtained from the Safaricom Developer Portal (developer.safaricom.co.ke) after registering as a Daraja API user. Set the environment to Production (not Sandbox) for live transactions. Test with a small payment before going live.

WhatsApp Notifications: Go to Settings → General Settings → WhatsApp Notification. Enter the WhatsApp Business API token and phone number ID from your Meta Business Manager account. Configure message templates for each notification type. See the WhatsApp Notifications guide chapter for full setup instructions.

Data Import

Vendra supports CSV imports for most record types. The most common imports during initial setup are:

• Products — Go to Inventory → Products → Products → Import. Download the template, populate with your product catalog (name, reference, sales price, cost, tax, category, barcode), and upload. Map the columns if needed.
• Customers and vendors — Go to Contacts → Import. Include name, email, phone, address, and VAT number.
• Opening balances — After setting up your chart of accounts, import opening account balances via Accounting → Accounting → Journal Entries → Import or create a manual opening journal entry with the date of the migration.

Backup and Security

Vendra's cloud infrastructure performs automated daily backups. Your data is replicated across redundant storage locations. Backup retention follows a rolling policy — daily backups are kept for 30 days and weekly backups are retained for 6 months.

The audit trail (accessible from Settings → Technical → Logging) records every change to every record — who made it, when, and what changed. This provides a complete history for compliance and investigation purposes. Configure the Auto Logout feature in Settings → General Settings → Users to automatically log out inactive sessions after a defined period (recommended: 30 minutes for shared terminals), reducing the risk of unauthorized access when a user forgets to sign out.