Getting a new system ready for your team is easier in small steps. This checklist spreads the setup over a week, with a link to the guide for each task. Tick things off in any order that suits you; a few steps depend on earlier ones, and we’ve said where.

Most of the setup tasks need an administrator: someone with account:admin:team for team and billing work, and relationships:admin:settings for Relationships configuration. Some organisation settings can only be changed by a ThirdSectorBee platform administrator; the linked guides say when. If you aren’t an administrator, the “Everyone” items still apply to you.

Day 1: Get in and get oriented

Everyone

• Sign in and take the tour in Find your way around.
• Set your display name and payment alerts in Update your profile.
• Add a passkey so you can sign in without a password: Sign in with a passkey.
• Choose your language from the account menu, if you’d rather not use English.

Administrator

• Check your organisation’s home country, currency, registration number and email domain: Configure organisation settings. The home country decides which tax screens your team sees, so check it before anyone starts on Gift Aid or another tax scheme.
• If you’re on a free trial, set up billing before it ends: Set up and manage subscription billing.

Day 2: Bring your team in

Administrator

• Read Permissions and roles and decide what each person needs.
• Invite your colleagues and give them only the permissions they need. Check the permission catalogue before granting access to sensitive records.
• Set a session idle timeout that suits how your team works: Manage passkeys and session settings.

Day 3: Shape your records

Administrator

• Review the Relationships lookup lists, consent purposes, payment methods and custom fields in Relationships → Configuration. See Relationships settings.
• If you’ll track restricted income, set up your restricted funds.

Everyone

• Read How ThirdSectorBee is organised and the Relationships data model.
• Add a contact and log a touchpoint against it.

Day 4: Bring your data across

Configuration should come first (Day 3), so imported records land against the right lists and fields.

• Work through Your first import with a small test file.
• Prepare a CSV of your real data and run the import.
• Moving from Donorfy? See Import from Donorfy.
• Connect the services you already use, such as JustGiving, Ticket Tailor, Mailchimp or Dotdigital.

Day 5: Put it to work

Pick the items that match your organisation’s work:

• Fundraising: record a payment, manage a fundraising activity and read the giving dashboard.
• Gift Aid (UK): Run your first Gift Aid claim.
• Danish gift deductions: Report Danish gifts to SKAT.
• Forms: build and publish an Engage form.
• Automation: create a Worker Bee.
• Day-to-day work: assign and follow tasks.
• Service delivery: start with Case Management or Programmes.

When you get stuck

Use Share feedback in the account menu to tell the ThirdSectorBee team what happened. Replies appear under My Feedback. See Share feedback.