Getting started with Nexto — login, menu and dashboard

This is the first part of the complete training course for Nexto, the exchange office software. If you have never studied accounting and never used software like this before, you are exactly the person this course was made for. By the end of this part you will be inside the software, you will know where everything lives, and you will know what to do whenever you get stuck.

What you will learn

• What Nexto actually does, and why everything in it is connected
• How to log in, and when to use «Remember me» — and when not to
• The seven menu groups and what each one is for
• The menu search box, starred pages and collapsing the menu
• How to read the dashboard cards and charts
• Where the page guide, the handbook and your personal settings are

Step by step

What Nexto does

An exchange office's day is full of different jobs: it buys and sells currency, takes money in and pays money out, sends remittances, receives cheques, talks to customers on WhatsApp, and at the end of the month it needs to know how much profit it made.

Nexto brings all of that into one place — and more importantly, all of it is connected. So when you record a trade, you don't have to write it down anywhere else; it shows up by itself in the customer's balance, in the cash box, and in the profit report.

Logging in

Your software's address is a dedicated web address given to you when your account is set up. At the top of the login page you will see your own exchange's name, so you can be sure you are on the right installation. Enter your username and your password.

If you are on your own personal computer, tick «Remember me» so you don't have to type your password every time — but don't do that on a shared office computer.

The layout and the seven menu groups

The first page you see after logging in is the dashboard. On the left is the main menu, in the middle is the page content, and along the top are a few small buttons that turn out to be very useful.

The menu has seven groups, and each group is one part of running an exchange:

• «Trading and Rates» — buying and selling currency, and the board rate
• «Receipts and Payments» — moving money: transfers, cheques, commitments, expenses
• «Nexto Services» — the bank and identity look-ups
• «Customers and Accounts» — the file on each person and their statement
• «Reports» — the biggest group of all
• «Personal» — your own settings
• «Management» — only the system administrator can reach it

You don't need to memorise all of this now; the parts that follow take them one at a time.

Search, stars and collapsing the menu

At the top of the menu there is a search box. If you can't remember where a page lives, just type its name there — type «cheque», for example, and you land straight on the cheques page. Use this until you know where everything is by heart.

Next to every menu item there is a star. Star the pages you use often and they move to the top of the menu, right under your hand. Every user has their own stars; yours have no effect on your colleague's menu. There is also a button at the top of the menu that collapses the whole thing, which buys you noticeably more room on crowded pages such as long tables. Press it again whenever you want the menu back.

Reading the dashboard

The cards along the top are a summary of where the exchange stands today. «Today's profit» and «This month's profit» are both shown in the reference currency. «My trades profit» covers only the trades you made yourself, not the whole office. Then come «Active customers», «Open currency positions», and «Open items» — meaning commitments and requests that aren't finished yet.

Further down there are two charts: daily profit and trading volume over the last thirty days. One glance tells you whether the business is trending up or down. At the bottom of the page are the jobs waiting for you, such as receipts whose collection you still need to confirm. Set your dashboard up so that when you walk in each morning, one look tells you what kind of day it is.

The page guide and the handbook

This is the single most useful thing in this part. At the top of every page there is a small question mark: «Guide for this page». Whenever you get stuck anywhere in the software, instead of going to find someone, press that. The in-app page help (the ? icon at the top of the page) has more detail — it tells you what the page does, what each field means, and when you'd actually use it. Make this a habit from the very first day.

If you're after a fuller explanation, at the bottom of the menu there's the «Handbook». It has sixteen chapters and covers the whole software, from getting started all the way to frequently asked questions. The difference is simple: the page guide tells you how to fill in this particular form, while the handbook tells you where that job fits in the bigger picture.

Two more buttons, and your own profile

One is «Toggle theme», which switches the page between light and dark — easier on your eyes at night. The other is «Share or copy this page's link», which copies the address of the page you're on, filters and all, so a colleague sees exactly what you're seeing.

Finally, in the «Personal» group there is the «My Profile» page. This is where you set your display language, your calendar and your number format. These settings are personal: if you choose a different calendar, your colleague still sees theirs.

Tips

• Never tick «Remember me» on a shared office computer.
• «My trades profit» is not the same as «Today's profit» — the first is only your own trades, the second is the whole office.
• Profile settings change what you see, not your colleagues' screens and not the data itself.
• Watch the course in order, because each part builds on the one before it.

FAQ

What is the address of my software?

Your Nexto address is a dedicated web address given to you when your account is set up. Your own exchange's name appears at the top of the login page so you can confirm you are on the right installation. If you don't have an installation yet, start with the demo.

I can't find a page — what should I do?

Use the search box at the top of the menu and type the page name, for example «cheque». Then star the pages you open every day so they sit at the top of the menu, one click away.

What if I don't understand a field in the middle of a job?

Press the small question mark at the top of the page — «Guide for this page» — and the guide for that exact page opens, explaining each field and when to use it. For the bigger picture, the «Handbook» is at the bottom of the menu.

What comes next?

In part two you won't fill in a single form. Instead you'll learn the four ideas the entire software is built on — and it is made exactly for people with no accounting background.