Starting The Software

1. Double click on the Prelude Icon on your Desktop, or;
2. Click Start > All Programs > Prelude or;
3. Click on the Prelude icon on the Start Menu.
4. Then you are requested to choose a company by selecting from a list displayed on a form – see Change Companies.

1. If running for the first time the list of companies will show 00 – ‘Enter your company name here’. Click on this and enter the company’s details. See Create New companies
2. Company Password – if the company has been assigned a password you will be asked to enter it here – see General Parameters form.
3. The program typically installs with two companies already created:
   1. Company 00 – the main company from which all others can be created – see Create New Companies;
   1. Company 99 – contains dummy data which once copied, can be used to experiment or for training other users.
4. Note that as you create more companies you will be able to select any one of them when you open the program.
5. Enter Accounting Date – this is the Default Transaction date used for all parts of the system.  This form is  pre-populated with the computer’s system date but you can override this and enter any other date now or any time later. Date fields in many transaction and report forms will be pre-populated with this date by default, for example when creating an invoice – see Change Default Accounting Date.
6. Click OK to open the Workspace.

Menus

The Toolbar at the top of Workspace contains the Main Menu…

see Menus for further details

Buttons

…and the Control Buttons for some pages are below the configurable toolbar –  see Control Buttons for a detailed description of each.