Set up your organisation basics

These settings are the lists everything else in Flowstate points to, so set them before you load people and projects. Your Finance lead does most of it. Job roles and locations usually come from HR.

Before you start

• Sign-in and access is done.
• You need access to finance and organisation settings. The Administrator role has it, so ask your Flowstate admin.

For the rest of your organisation's settings, such as timezone and sign-in page language, see Organisation settings.

1. Set your reporting currency

What: Choose the one currency every total in Flowstate is shown in. Who: Finance lead. Where: Settings → Finance → Exchange Rates, section Base Reporting Currency. Done when: Reporting Currency shows your currency after you select Update Currency.

Flowstate starts in US dollars. Set your currency before you add exchange rates, because Flowstate only uses rates into the current reporting currency.

2. Add exchange rates

What: Add a rate for every currency you pay salaries or contractors in. Who: Finance lead. Where: Settings → Finance → Exchange Rates, then Add Exchange Rate. Done when: The Exchange Rates table has a rate from each of your pay currencies to your reporting currency.

1. Select Add Exchange Rate.
2. Choose the From Currency (the currency people are paid in) and the To Currency (your reporting currency).
3. Enter the Exchange Rate and the Effective From date.
4. Select Create.

Before you rely on the totals:

• Flowstate uses today's rate for every month, including past months. A rate dated in the future isn't used until that day.
• A currency with no rate isn't converted. Its amounts are counted as if they were already in your reporting currency, so add a rate for every pay currency.

See How costs are calculated. To change or delete a rate later, see Change or delete an exchange rate.

3. Set your fiscal year

What: Tell Flowstate when your financial year starts, so budgets, forecasts and claims line up with your books. Who: Finance lead. Where: Settings → Finance → Frameworks & Fiscal Year, section Fiscal Year. Done when: Current fiscal year shows your current year, and you've selected Save Configuration.

1. Pick a Country preset, or set the fields yourself.
2. Check the Start month, Start day (for example, 6 for a UK tax year starting on 6 April) and Display format.
3. Select Save Configuration. Save it even if your year starts in January.

The same page holds the default CapEx Framework and R&D Framework, covered in Set up capitalisation and Set up R&D tax claims. It also holds Contractor Cost Reporting, covered in Load your people and teams.

4. Add locations

What: Create a location for each place you have employees, contractors or vacancies. Who: HR lead. Where: Settings → Resourcing → Locations (the page is titled Geographies), then Add Geographie. Done when: Every place you have people is listed.

1. Select Add Geographie.
2. Enter a Location Name, such as London Office.
3. Enter the two-letter Country code, such as GB or US.
4. Enter a City if you like. It's optional.
5. Select Create.

Locations record where people are based. They don't change what anyone costs.

5. Create resource types

What: Create the employment categories you use, each with its overhead: the extra employer cost on top of salary, such as taxes, benefits and equipment. Who: Finance lead. Where: Settings → Finance → Resource Types, then Add Resource Type. Done when: Every kind of employee you have (for example full time, part time or fixed term) has a resource type with the overhead your Finance team has agreed.

1. Select Add Resource Type.
2. Enter a Name, such as Full Time, and a Description if you like.
3. Choose Applies To: Employee or Contractor.
4. Enter the Overhead Percentage as a whole number: enter 20 for 20%.
5. Leave Active ticked, and select Create.

• Overhead is added to the cost of employees and vacancies. Contractors never carry overhead.
• You choose a person's resource type in the Work type field when you add them. Their side panel shows it as Employment type.

See How costs are calculated.

6. Create job roles

What: Create one list of job roles for everyone, so you can report by role. Who: HR lead. Where: Settings → Resourcing → Job Roles, then Add Job Role. Done when: Every role title in your HR system matches a role in the list.

1. Select Add Job Role.
2. Enter a Name, such as Software Engineer, and a Description if you like.
3. Leave Active ticked, and select Create.

7. Create cost centres

What: Create the cost centres from your chart of accounts, each with the right category. Who: Finance lead. Where: Settings → Finance → Cost Centres, then Add Cost Centre. Done when: Your cost centres are listed with the right Category, and a Default Cost Centre is chosen.

1. Select Add Cost Centre.
2. Enter a Name, and a Code and Description if you like. Each code must be different from your other cost centres' codes.
3. Choose the Category:
   • CapEx: spend that can be capitalised.
   • OpEx: operational spend.
   • R&D: research and development spend.
   • Untracked: not classified. New cost centres start as Untracked.
4. Pick a Colour.
5. Leave Active ticked, and select Create.
6. Repeat for each cost centre.
7. Under Default Cost Centre, at the top of the page, choose where effort goes when it isn't on a project. That includes work in your project tool that isn't linked to a project, and holiday and leave. Your choice saves straight away.
8. Under After a project ends, just below it, choose where effort goes when it's logged after a project's end date — usually your OpEx cost centre. A project can override this with its own post-completion cost centre. Leave it blank and a finished project keeps its running cost centre.

A project can only be capitalised when its cost centre's category is CapEx. Each project has its own cost centre. See Set up your projects.

8. Optional: add value streams

What: Create the business themes you want to group projects by, such as Customer Growth or Platform. Who: Finance lead or Engineering lead. Where: Settings → Resourcing → Value Streams, then Add Value Stream. Done when: Your value streams are listed and ready to choose on projects.

1. Select Add Value Stream.
2. Enter a Name, and a Description if you like.
3. Leave Active ticked, and select Create.

You choose a value stream in a project's Value Stream field. The forecast and scenario comparisons can then be grouped by value stream. To show how your teams roll up, use parent teams in Load your people and teams, or functional groups.

9. Optional: add custom attributes

What: Add your own fields, such as a legal entity or a hiring priority, to people, teams, projects and other records. Who: HR lead or Finance lead. Where: Settings → Resourcing → Custom Attributes, then Add Custom Attribute. Done when: Each field you need is listed and Active.

1. Select Add Custom Attribute.
2. Enter a Name, such as Legal entity.
3. Leave Attribute Key blank and Flowstate makes one from the name, or type your own. It can't be changed later.
4. Choose the Field Type: Text, Number, Date, Date Range, Dropdown or Currency. It can't be changed later.
5. For a Dropdown, go to Options and select Add option once for each choice. Type the choice's name in each row. The short key beside it fills itself in.
6. Under Applies To, select every kind of record the field belongs on: Employees, Teams, Projects, Initiatives, Vacancies, Contractors, Functional groups or Functional positions.
7. Add a Description if you like.
8. Tick Required if the field must always be filled in. Flowstate checks this when someone fills in a functional group or functional position.
9. Leave Active ticked, and select Create.

• Custom attributes appear in side panels, as columns on the People, Teams, Contractors and Vacancies lists, and in exports. You can filter lists by Text and Dropdown attributes.
• The spreadsheet import doesn't fill custom attributes. Set them in the app, through the REST API, or with a custom integration. The Attribute Key is the name the API uses.

You're set up when

• Your reporting currency is set, with a rate into it from every currency you pay people in.
• Current fiscal year shows your fiscal year, and it's saved.
• Locations, resource types (with overhead) and job roles cover everyone you're about to load.
• Your cost centres have the right categories, and a default cost centre is chosen.

Keep it up to date

Each list works the same way. Select the pencil on a row to change it, or the bin to delete it, then confirm with Delete. Deleting can't be undone.

Where a list has an Active box, untick it instead of deleting something you no longer use. Its Status shows Inactive, and records that already use it keep it.

Change or delete an exchange rate

1. Go to Settings → Finance → Exchange Rates.
2. Select the pencil on the rate's row.
3. Change the Exchange Rate or the Effective From date. From Currency and To Currency can't be changed. To convert a different pair, add a new rate.
4. Select Update.

Because Flowstate uses today's rate for every month, a changed rate changes past months' totals too.

To delete a rate, select the bin on its row and select Delete, then confirm again when your browser asks. If it was the only rate for that currency, amounts in that currency are no longer converted.

Change a resource type's overhead

1. Go to Settings → Finance → Resource Types.
2. Select the pencil on the resource type's row.
3. Change the Overhead Percentage, as a whole number.
4. Select Update.

The new overhead is used for everyone with that resource type.

Switch off or delete a resource type

• Switch it off: select the pencil, untick Active, and select Update.
• Delete it: select the bin, then Delete. Everyone who had it is left with no resource type, so they no longer carry any overhead. Move them to another resource type first.

Edit, switch off or delete a job role

1. Go to Settings → Resourcing → Job Roles.
2. Choose one:
   • Edit it: select the pencil, change the Name or Description, and select Edit.
   • Switch it off: select the pencil, untick Active, and select Edit.
   • Delete it: select the bin, then Delete. Everyone with that role is left without one.

Edit or delete a location

1. Go to Settings → Resourcing → Locations.
2. Choose one:
   • Edit it: select the pencil, change the Location Name, Country or City, and select Edit.
   • Delete it: select the bin, then Delete. Anyone based there is left with no location.

Edit, switch off or delete a cost centre

1. Go to Settings → Finance → Cost Centres.
2. Choose one:
   • Edit it: select the pencil. In Edit Cost Centre, change what you need and select Edit.
   • Switch it off: select the pencil, untick Active, and select Edit.
   • Delete it: select the bin, then Delete.

Changing a cost centre's Category changes how every project on it is reported, so agree it with Finance before you close a period. See Capitalisation settings.

Deleting a cost centre leaves every project on it without a cost centre, and those projects can't be capitalised until they have one. If it was your Default Cost Centre, choose a new default.

Edit, switch off or delete a value stream

1. Go to Settings → Resourcing → Value Streams.
2. Choose one:
   • Edit it: select the pencil, change the Name or Description, and select Update.
   • Switch it off: select the pencil, untick Active, and select Update.
   • Delete it: select the bin, then Delete. Projects on it are left without a value stream.

Edit, switch off or delete a custom attribute

1. Go to Settings → Resourcing → Custom Attributes.
2. Choose one:
   • Edit it: select the pencil. You can change the Name, Options, Applies To, Description and Required. Field Type and Attribute Key are locked. Select Edit.
   • Switch it off: select the pencil, untick Active, and select Edit. It's no longer shown as a column on lists. Values people have already entered are kept.
   • Delete it: select the bin, then Delete. Every value entered for it, on every record, is deleted too.

Deleting removes it everywhere

When you delete a resource type, job role, location, cost centre or value stream, it's removed from every person or project that had it. Switch it off instead if anything still uses it.

If something's not right

Totals are in US dollars. Flowstate starts in US dollars until someone changes it. Set your own currency in 1. Set your reporting currency.

"From and To currencies must be different". A rate converts one currency into another. Choose your pay currency in From Currency and your reporting currency in To Currency.

"Rate must be a positive number". Enter a rate above zero, such as 1.18.

Totals look wrong after you change your reporting currency. Flowstate only uses rates into the current reporting currency. Add a rate from each pay currency into the new one.

Something is still listed after you delete it. You may not have permission to delete settings. Ask your Flowstate admin.

A new cost centre won't save. Its Code may already belong to another cost centre. Use a different code, or leave it blank.