Getting started

This guide takes you from signup to a live event, in the order most people set 1pm up. Each step links to the screen you do it on and to the full help article.

Two kinds of link in this guide. A plain link opens another help article. A link with the orange underline and the ↗ icon opens that screen in 1pm, in a new tab, so this guide stays open beside it. If you are signed out, you sign in first and then land on the same screen.

The essentials take about ten minutes. Leads, quotes, payments, menus and the rest can wait until you need them.

Which parts apply to you?

• Venues (hotels, restaurants with function space, event venues): do the essentials, then getting booked and getting paid. Each room is a Space.
• Event professionals (planners, AV, celebrants, photographers): do the essentials, then getting paid. If you have no fixed rooms, add Spaces (opens in 1pm in a new tab) as locations come up, or skip them.
• Caterers and kitchens: also see menus and costing.

Part 1: The essentials

Step 1. Create your account

Go to 1pm.app and click Create account. You need an email address and a password of at least 12 characters. No credit card is needed, and your 30-day free trial starts straight away.

We email you a six-digit code to verify your address. Until you enter it, 1pm sends no email from your account, and your share links, forms and client pages stay off. See Signing up and Verifying your email address.

Step 2. Look around

A new account comes loaded with sample data: a booking, leads, quotes, contacts and a Space. Open them to see how each screen works. When you are ready to start on your own work, click Remove sample data at the top of any page. Anything you have used on your own work is kept.

You land on Leads (opens in 1pm in a new tab). The sidebar on the left holds everything else. The ones you will use most:

• Leads (opens in 1pm in a new tab): new jobs from your website forms, before they are booked. Quotes, proposal templates and reply templates sit underneath.
• Events (opens in 1pm in a new tab): every booking.
• Calendar (opens in 1pm in a new tab): bookings, plus leads that named a date, by month, week or day. It also has a button in the top bar.
• Contacts (opens in 1pm in a new tab): clients, suppliers and crew. Crew are contacts you have added to an event.
• Spaces (opens in 1pm in a new tab): your rooms and reusable locations.

The sidebar also has Companies, Portals, Check-ins, Tasks, Automations, Programs, Fields, Files, Invoices, Items, Requests, Reports, Branding, Emails and Terms. The Hospitality plan adds Menus, Ingredients and Recipes. Hide the ones you do not use with Customise menu. Account, Team, Help and Sign out are top-right (behind the three-dot menu on a phone).

The setup guide. A new account shows a setup guide at the top of the sidebar: the next few steps worth doing, each linking to its screen. Steps tick themselves off as you do them. Open Setup (opens in 1pm in a new tab) for the full list. Each step shows roughly how long it takes; click it to see what it involves, open its page, or mark it done or Not needed. Start the guide again at the top of that page clears your own ticks and answers so you can work through it from the top; steps 1pm can see you have done stay ticked. See Working the leads inbox and The sidebar.

Step 3. Set your name, time zone and wording

On your profile (opens in 1pm in a new tab), set your display name (shown on emails 1pm sends for you) and your time zone (used for "today" in reports, your calendar feed and appointment reminders).

The Wording tab on the same page lets you rename terms to match how you talk: run of show, Space, event, crew, booking portal and lead stage.

Add your logo and colors in Branding (opens in 1pm in a new tab). They appear on share links, proposals and portals. Branding can wait until you send something to a client. See Your profile and display name, Time zones in 1pm and Branding your account.

Step 4. Add your Spaces

A Space (opens in 1pm in a new tab) is a reusable place an event happens: a room, an outdoor area, a park, a client's home. A venue with several rooms adds one Space per room.

Click New space and enter the name and address. Add access and parking notes for crew, and capacity if it matters. Venues should do this now, because you pick a Space when you create an event. See Spaces: saving and reusing venues.

Step 5. Add contacts

Click New contact in Contacts (opens in 1pm in a new tab). Only first name is required. Add an email so you can send people their share link in one click. Tags (Caterer, AV, Florist) let you filter contacts and target requests.

To bring in a list from a spreadsheet, use Import CSV (opens in 1pm in a new tab) (paid plans). See Adding contacts, Importing contacts from a CSV and Tagging contacts.

Step 6. Create your first event

In Events (opens in 1pm in a new tab), click New event. Only name, date and status are required.

• Status: Lead, Tentative, Confirmed, Completed or Cancelled.
• Pax: expected and guaranteed guest numbers.
• Space and Zone: where it happens. Zone is an optional sub-area, such as "east wing".
• Client and Organizer: picked from your contacts.
• Value: what the booking is worth.

If the booking came in as a lead, convert the lead instead so its details carry across (see getting booked).

Each event row has two main buttons:

• Settings reopens this form.
• Edit event portal (house icon) opens the event itself: run of show, BEO, crew, share links, requests and files.

Each client gets two portals. The booking portal holds the money side: quote, confirmation, terms, deposit and invoices. The event portal holds the job side: run of show, BEO, requests and files. See Your booking portal and your event portal, Creating your first event and Event details and the briefing.

Step 7. Build the run of show and BEO

The run of show (ROS) is the timeline for the day. Fill it in one of two ways:

• Type it. Click Add first item. Each row has a start time, title, duration, Where, details and a responsible crew member. Press Tab in Duration to add the next row.
• Paste it. Click Paste in and paste lines like "6:00pm - 6:45pm Canapes and arrival drinks". 1pm turns each line into a row.

The BEO is built from the event's fields: service style, setup style, dietary and menu summary, bar package, AV notes, and the access from and vacate by times. See Run of show items, Pasting in a run of show and Editing the run of show inline.

Step 8. Assign crew and share their links

Set the responsible crew member on each item. Their items are highlighted on their link, and they still see the full timeline. See Assigning crew to ROS items.

Open the Crew section on the event. Click Generate link for a crew member, then Email link or Copy link. Crew need no app and no login. See Sharing the live link and What crew see. For one read-only link covering the whole event, see The public shareable runsheet.

Step 9. Run the day

Crew open their link and see the briefing, notes and timeline. The current item shows a red countdown of the minutes left. Crew tap Start and Mark finished (or Done) as they go.

Changes you make appear on every open link within seconds. The link keeps working offline once loaded. See Real-time updates, How crew mark items and Working offline.

Part 2: Getting booked (leads and quotes)

Lead forms. In Lead types (opens in 1pm in a new tab), build a form and paste its embed snippet into your website (Squarespace, Wix, WordPress and most builders). Each submission lands in Leads (opens in 1pm in a new tab), tagged with its type.

If you have several lead types (weddings, corporate, tastings), the Combined form on the same page gives you one snippet. The visitor picks a type and the matching form loads.

Working leads. Reply from the lead, and save common replies as Reply templates (opens in 1pm in a new tab) with merge fields like [first name] and [event date]. The Pipeline view shows every lead by stage.

Quotes. Raise a quote from the lead. When the client accepts, 1pm creates the booking with the quoted charges already on it. For a designed, branded pitch around the quote, use proposal templates.

Importing. To bring in leads from a spreadsheet or another CRM, use Import next to Add lead (paid plans). Importing sends no email and runs no automations.

See Capturing leads with a form, The leads pipeline, Replying to leads, Quotes and invoices, Turning a lead into an event and Importing leads from a CSV.

Part 3: Getting paid

Set these up once, before your first quote:

• Tax and invoicing (opens in 1pm in a new tab): your tax rate (GST, VAT or sales tax), invoice defaults and service charges.
• Terms library (opens in 1pm in a new tab): your booking terms. Each confirmation keeps a copy of the version the client agreed to.
• Online payments (opens in 1pm in a new tab): connect your Stripe account to add a Pay now button to invoices. Payments go to your Stripe account, and 1pm takes no cut.
• Xero (opens in 1pm in a new tab): sends your invoices and payments to Xero. See Sending invoices to Xero.

Then per event, open its Billing page (the Billing button on the event). Add charges from your items catalog (opens in 1pm in a new tab), raise the confirmation for the client to sign, and raise deposit, progress and balance invoices. Payments you record (bank transfer, cash or card) bring the balance down to zero.

See Pricing an event, Your items catalog and packages, Event confirmations, Deposits and payment schedules and Getting paid.

Part 4: Menus and costing

On the Hospitality plan:

• Menus (opens in 1pm in a new tab): build food and drink menus once and add them to events. They print as branded, client-facing menus. See Food and beverage menus and Collecting dietary requirements.
• Ingredients (opens in 1pm in a new tab) and Recipes (opens in 1pm in a new tab): enter ingredient prices, build recipes from them, and 1pm works out each dish's plate cost, food cost percentage and margin. See Costed ingredients, Building costed recipes, Plate cost, food cost and margin and the recipe costing walkthrough.

Part 5: When you need more

None of these are required.

• Event templates: save a run of show you use often and start new events from it.
• Programs: group related events, such as a multi-day conference.
• Companies: group several bookers under the organisation they book for.
• Custom contact fields: keep your own details on each contact.
• Requests: collect certificates, dietary needs and other details from crew, one at a time or in bulk.
• Check-ins: see which crew are on site.
• Self-registration: let crew or guests add themselves to an event from a link.
• Files: attach floor plans and seating charts to an event or a timeline item.
• Tasks and workflows: to-do lists and reusable checklists, standalone or on an event.
• Automations: emails that send on a schedule, such as a reminder a week out.
• Appointments: a booking page where clients pick a time for a site visit or tasting. Set it up on a Space.
• Calendar sync: show your bookings in Google, Outlook or Apple Calendar.
• Sending domain: send client emails from your own domain instead of a 1pm address.
• Team: share your account with colleagues.
• Two-factor authentication (opens in 1pm in a new tab): a code at sign-in as well as your password.
• Reports: revenue, leads and conversion, deposits, tax, Space use, covers, food cost and more, each exportable to CSV.

Where to go from here

The help library covers each feature in detail. For a worked example from lead to event day, see the corporate event walkthrough or the wedding day walkthrough.

If something does not work as described, email [email protected].