Store Setup, Users & Security

This guide is for the owner (the admin account that created the store) and anyone they trust to run the back office. It covers everything under ACCOUNT → Settings in the left menu, the Profile Settings page, and the sign-up and sign-in screens every user meets.

1. Creating a store

Go to the MAT Smart Shop website and choose Create a Store on the sign-in page. Registration has two short pages.

1.1 Page 1 — Company & Contact Details

When you continue, the system checks the email in the background:

1.2 Page 2 — Personal & Security Details

• First Name, Last Name, and an optional Phone Number.
• Country, then State / Region. The Currency fills itself in from the country (Nigeria → NGN). It is the currency every amount in your store is shown in.
• Password (at least 6 characters) and Repeat Password.
• Agent code (optional) — if a MAT Smart Shop agent signed you up, enter their code so they're credited. If you arrived through an agent's link, it's filled in already and a banner names the agent; Not me clears it.

Press Create My Store. After a few seconds you'll see 🎉 Your shop is ready! — the store is created with sensible defaults (a Cash payment type, a walk-in Cash customer, a Cash vendor for small expenses, and the WEB sales point). Continue asks how you want to work: Continue With Web Version, Continue On Mobile (Android), or Download the desktop version.

A new store starts on the Freemium plan. See the Usage, Billing & Help guide for what's included and how to upgrade. If a friend invited you, open their invite link before registering so both of you receive the invite reward.

2. Confirming your email

A verification email is sent as soon as you register. Click the button in it. Until you do:

• A yellow banner across the top of the website reads "Your email is not verified, Please click HERE to verify your email" — clicking HERE resends the link.
• You can't add a second store to the account, and you can't take the online storefront live.

3. Signing in — the two steps

3.1 Step 1: who you are

Enter your email (or username) and password, then Sign in. Possible messages:

3.2 Step 2: where you are — Select Sales Point

Every website sign-in is made at a sales point. Pick yours and press Continue. Each entry is labelled:

• If every till is in use you're placed on WEB, with a note that an admin can free a till under Settings → Sales Points.
• If a till is grabbed in the moment between your choosing and continuing, you'll be asked to pick another.
• Use a different account takes you back to step 1.

Every successful sign-in is recorded in the Login Audit (section 14).

4. Forgotten and changed passwords

5. More than one store: adding and switching

One email can own several stores — a second branch, a new line of business.

5.1 Adding a store

1. Start Create a Store with the same email (or choose I already own a Store).
2. At Account Found, choose Create a New Store Under This Account.
3. Page 2 becomes Add New Store — Confirm Your Identity: enter your existing account password instead of choosing a new one, and press Add New Store.

5.2 Switching

When your account has access to two or more stores, the store card at the top of the left menu (logo and store name) becomes a switcher: click the name and choose another store. You stay signed in. Staff see only the stores the owner has given them access to.

To see several stores' figures side by side, or move stock between them, use the Consolidator (see the Consolidator guide).

6. Profile Settings — your store's identity

Open it from the top-right name menu → Profile Settings, or the Shop Details button under your store name in the left menu.

6.1 Store Details

Shows your Store ID (quote it when you contact support), name, email, address, phone, state and country. Edit Details changes them (section 7).

6.2 Change Logo

Choose a PNG or JPEG image up to 5 MB and press upload. The logo appears on your invoices, receipts and statements, and at the top of the left menu. A square image with a plain background prints best.

6.3 Other Settings

Press Save this Setting after changing any of these — nothing here saves on its own.

6.4 Subscriptions

The table lists your subscription history (date, reference, promo code, status, duration, amount). Renew Subscription goes to the plans page. Both are covered in the Usage, Billing & Help guide.

7. Edit Details — address, currency and tax

Profile Settings → Edit Details.

Every field must be filled — the form refuses with "Empty fields not allowed" otherwise. Press SAVE.

8. Payment Types

Settings → Payment Types lists the ways customers pay you and you pay others — each cash drawer, POS terminal and bank account. Every sale, receipt, expense and vendor payment is tagged with one, which is what makes the Dashboard's Cash Collections split possible.

8.1 Adding payment types

1. New Payment Type → type a Name → ADD TO LIST. Repeat for others.
2. SAVE. Duplicate names are refused ("Already exists!").

8.2 Bank / wallet details

The edit button opens Edit Payment Type, with a Bank / Wallet Details box. Type what a customer needs to pay you, one item per line:

These details appear on invoices where that payment type is chosen, so a customer paying later knows where to send the money. Cash never shows bank details.

Below it, Online payment link (optional) takes your own Paystack, Flutterwave or other payment page (it must start with https://, e.g. https://paystack.com/pay/yourshop). Customers then get a Pay online button beside the bank details: on the page opened by the {paylink} link in your text messages (see the Customer Follow-Up guide, section 12), and as the Pay button on the invoice link you share (Sales & Customers guide, 5.1). The Payment Types list shows the link's web address under the bank details.

8.3 Deleting

The bin deletes a payment type that has no transactions; otherwise you'll see "Payment Type Has Transactions". The built-in Cash type can't be deleted. To retire an old account, rename it (e.g. "OLD – Diamond Bank") so staff stop choosing it.

9. Transaction Classes

Transaction Classes let a single store label its sales and expenses by branch, department or line of business — "Pharmacy" vs "Supermarket", "Ikeja" vs "Yaba", "Retail" vs "Wholesale". They are optional; most single-counter shops never need them.

9.1 Switching them on

Settings → Transaction Class → tick Activate Transaction Class (the label then reads Deactivate Transaction Class). The same switch is on Profile Settings (remember Save this Setting there). While switched off, New Class is disabled and the class boxes on New Sale and New Expense are greyed out.

9.2 Managing classes

• New Class → Class Name and Description → ADD TO LIST → SAVE. A name already in use is refused.
• The pencil edits a class; the bin deletes one that has no transactions ("Transaction Exists" otherwise).
• GENERAL CLASS is built in and can't be edited or deleted — it's the catch-all.

The Transaction Class Report gives a profit and loss for each class; sales with no class appear under General Class (see the Dashboards & Reports guide, section 12).

10. Sales Points (tills)

A sales point is a till: a named place where sales are recorded, each with its own code (e.g. 2020-sp-3942). The website has a shared WEB point; each phone running the Android app and each desktop till claims a sales point of its own. Sales points are what let you see which till sold what, and what stop two devices from overwriting each other's records.

Open Settings → Sales Points.

10.1 Adding a sales point

1. NEW SALES POINT → Name (e.g. "Front Counter", "Warehouse Phone") and an optional Description → ADD.
2. Your plan includes a number of sales points. At the limit, the dialog says so and shows the price of an extra one; choose Monthly or Annual and pay through the checkout that opens. A paid extra sales point shows when it renews, with a Pay now link when it's due.

10.2 Releasing a till from a device

A till held by a device stays with that device — even while it's offline — so that sales stored on it are never lost. If the device is lost, broken or replaced, the owner can release it:

1. Manage → Release from device…
2. Check the details: which device, when it was last seen, when it last synced. The dialog warns how long the device has been offline.
3. Enter a Reason (e.g. "phone stolen 12 Sept") — it's kept in the release log.
4. Tick the confirmation and press RELEASE TILL.

11. Staff accounts: New User and User List

11.1 Creating a staff account

Settings → User Management → New User.

1. First Name, Last Name.
2. Username — the staff member's email address. It's what they sign in with and must not already be registered ("That username is already taken").
3. Password — a starting password. Give it to them privately and ask them to change it (Change Password).
4. User Permissions — the page opens with the Cashier role already ticked. Pick the role closest to the person's job under Start from a role, then add or remove individual permissions (section 12).
5. Save. You're taken to the User List.

11.2 The User List

Settings → User Management → User List shows every account with its Status:

De-activate stops the person signing in anywhere, immediately, while keeping every sale they recorded attributed to them. Use it the day someone leaves. There is no delete — history must stay traceable.

11.3 Editing a staff account

Edit opens the user's details and their permissions, ticked as they are now.

1. Change the name or username if needed. To set a new password, type it; leave the box blank to keep the current one.
2. Adjust permissions — tick and untick, or click a role to start again from it. The line above the groups counts your changes, e.g. "18 of 75 selected · +3 / −1 unsaved".
3. Press Save. A box lists exactly what will be Added and Removed. Press Save to confirm, or Go back to change it. (Cancel at the bottom of the page leaves without saving.)

The bottom of the page shows Recent permission changes — the last 20, newest first: when, who made the change, what was added and removed, and which role they started from. Changes made before this screen was introduced are not listed.

A user sees changed permissions the next time they sign in (or when their session renews, within the day). On the phone and the desktop till they arrive at the next sync.

12. Permissions, one by one

Permissions are the same everywhere: the website, the Android app and the desktop till read the same list. On the website they decide three things:

• Which pages open. A page the person can't use shows "no access" — and its link is removed from the left menu, the buttons at the top of the screen, the Reports page and the Upload Data page, so staff only see what they can use.
• Which buttons appear on a page (Add, Edit, Delete and the like).
• Where they land after signing in. Someone without the Dashboard goes straight to the first page they can use — usually New Sale.

12.1 Start from a role

The top of New User and Edit User offers five ready-made roles. Clicking one ticks its permissions (and unticks the rest); you then adjust. A role is only a starting point — nothing about it is stored on the user except in the change history.

Below the roles: a Find a permission box (try "price", "delete", "report"), the count of what's ticked, and the permissions in groups. Each group has All and None buttons. Every permission has a one-line description of what it allows; ones marked App only affect the Android app. The Mobile app group starts folded — click its name to open it.

12.2 The permissions

12.3 What staff see without a permission

13. Admin User — the owner's own account

Settings → User Management → Admin User (owner only, unless a user is given the Admin User permission) edits the owner account: First Name, Last Name, Email (the owner's sign-in username), and a new Password with Confirm Password. Press Save — "Admin user edited successfully".

14. Login Audit

Settings → Login Audit is the record of every sign-in to your store — who, when, at which till, and from which device. Only the owner sees it, unless a staff member is given Login Audit – View.

Filter with From/To dates, a Sales Point, or part of a Username, then Apply. Reset clears the filters.

15. A security checklist

1. Owner email is one you'll keep, and it's verified.
2. Owner password is long, unique, and known only to the owner.
3. Every staff member has their own account — no shared logins.
4. Staff have only the permissions their job needs — start from the nearest role and remove what they don't use; Delete, Report – Profit & Loss and Payment Types – Edit are rare.
5. Only the owner (or one trusted manager) has User Permissions; check a user's Recent permission changes when something looks odd.
6. Leavers are de-activated the same day.
7. Tills are named so you know which device is which; lost devices are released promptly (after syncing if at all possible).
8. Login Audit is glanced at weekly.
9. Payment types match real accounts, so collections can be reconciled daily.

16. Quick reference and troubleshooting

Open the full illustrated guide on matsmartshop.com