Get started

The Kelola team creates your company and invites you as its owner. This page takes you from that invitation email to a company that is ready for your team. First you activate your account and sign in. Then you set up your company, one page at a time.

Before you start

• You need the invitation email from Kelola. It is sent to your email address, and its subject starts with "You're invited to".
• You join as the company's Owner. The owner can see and change everything in the company. A company has one owner. To hand the company to someone else, transfer ownership to an admin. See Manage roles and access.
• There is no public sign-up. Every Kelola account starts from an invitation.

Activate your account

1. Open the invitation email and select Activate your account. Kelola opens the Set your password page.
2. Check your First name and Last name. Kelola fills them in from your invitation. Correct them if they are wrong or empty.
3. Enter a Password. It must have at least 10 characters, with at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, and one number.
4. Select Activate account.

Kelola shows You’re all set. Your account is now active, but you are not signed in yet. Kelola also sends you a welcome email.

Sign in

1. On the You’re all set page, select Go to sign in.
2. In Work email, enter the address your invitation was sent to.
3. In Password, enter the password you just set.
4. Select Sign in.

Kelola opens Home. As the owner, you see the full menu, including People, Payroll, and Settings.

If you forget your password, select Forgot password? on the sign-in page and Kelola emails you a link to set a new one. See Sign in to Kelola.

Set up your company in this order

Work through these pages in order. Each one is a short task. You can come back and change any of them later.

1. Set up your company: set your time zone, add office locations and work schedules, and choose the Attendance mode, in Settings → Company.
2. Build your org structure: add departments and positions, and set who reports to whom, in Settings → Org structure.
3. Set your currency and number format: choose how amounts look on payroll and payslips, in Settings → Company.
4. Set up leave types and holidays: add the kinds of leave your team can take and your company holidays, in Settings → Leave.
5. Onboard your team: on People, select Add employee to invite one person, or Import CSV to invite many.
6. Manage roles and access: make people an Admin or a Manager in Settings → Roles & access.
7. Set up payroll: add pay components in Settings → Payroll setup, then set each employee's base pay.

The order matters:

• The employee form takes its department, position, office location, and work schedule options from steps 1 and 2. Set them up first, and adding people is quick.
• Employees cannot request leave until at least one leave type exists.
• Everyone you invite joins as an Employee. You change their role afterwards.
• Base pay is set for each employee, so payroll setup comes after your team is in Kelola.
• An Admin can do every step on this list, so you can share the work.

Track your progress on Home

Owners and admins see a checklist on Home, titled Finish setting up your company. It lists the setup steps and marks each one done from your company's real data:

• Set your time zone: an admin chose a zone. Companies created before this setting existed start on UTC, which does not count. To keep UTC, choose UTC — Coordinated Universal Time (Etc/UTC).
• Add an office location: at least one office location exists.
• Add a work schedule: at least one work schedule exists.
• Add positions: at least one position exists.
• Add a leave type: at least one leave type exists.
• Add your company holidays: at least one holiday exists.
• Invite your team: you invited at least one person besides the owner.
• Set up pay for your team: at least one employee has saved pay details.

Select Open on a step to go to the page where you do it. The checklist hides itself when every step is done.

To hide it sooner, select Dismiss. This hides it only for you. Other owners and admins still see it. To show it again, turn on Setup checklist on Home in your preferences.

Use guided setup

Guided setup takes you through the same steps as the checklist, one at a time. To open it, select Start guided setup on the checklist on Home. Only owners and admins can open it.

• The list of steps shows which steps are done.
• You set your time zone right in guided setup.
• Every other step opens its own settings page. Select Go to this step. When you finish there, select Back to setup at the top of that page. Guided setup opens the same step again and shows if it is done.
• Select Skip for now to move on without doing a step. Nothing is saved, so the step stays on the checklist.
• When a step is done, select Next. Select Back to go to the step before.
• Select Exit setup at any time to go back to Home.

A step you finish in guided setup is also marked done on the checklist on Home. Guided setup never opens by itself, so you still land on Home when you sign in.

Next steps

• Set up your company
• Sign in to Kelola
• Clock in and out