A quick start is what everyone wants don't they. I know when I install a new piece of open source software, I quickly jump to this section, skim through the steps, and wing it. If I can't get it to work I go back to that section, and only if I absolutely have to do I touch the real docs. So, here goes.
The first thing you probably want to do when you test out this system is to generate a PDF invoice, right? Ok, here's what you do. After installation, you'll have an "admin" account, so login with that.
Create a client - the recipient of your invoice
click on the "Companies" link (MAIN section)
click the "add company" link
fill in all the information and click "submit"
follow these steps a-c to create your parent company as that is disassociated from the user you login as
Create a project
click on the "Projects" link (MAIN section)
click "Add Project" link in the "Selected projects" section
fill in the information, be sure to select the "Customer" who is the recipient, and "Billing Company" who is the owner of the project
Create a person
click on the "Persons" link (MAIN section)
click on the "Add Person" link in the "Persons" section
fill in the info and select a company
default hourly rate can be changed for each project this person works on
Don't jump to the project resource section yet, this person won't show up. First you have to create a user.
Create a user
click on the "Users" link (ADMINISTRATION section)
click "Add user" under the Users section
enter the login, and select the "Person" you created in step 3
Add project members and tasks
click "Projects" link (MAIN section)
under "Selected projects" click your project name
click the "Add Project Member" link
select a Person from the popup and their default job category and default hourly wage will be filled in automatically! Of course if they are different for this project, you may change them.
click "submit" when you're done
when the popup window for "Add Project Member" closes click "Add Task" on the "Project: your-project-name" page.
select the "Project member"
enter the start/end date or use the popup calendar to select them. The first + last day of the month make a lot of sense here.
Fill in the duration as total hours worked.
enter a description of what that resource did this month
Review project page
click the project name under "Project information" section
you'll see some changes there, and the graphs and details will include that new task you've added
Create your invoice
click on the "Invoices" link (FINANCE section)
click "Add invoice with tasks" under "Invoices" section
if these are your first invoices and tasks it won't be obvious, but at this point it's worth noting that only *unassigned* tasks which don't appear on another invoice will show up.
click the "Create Invoice" link
select or deselect tasks as appropriate, or add custom line items
click recalculate if you've removed items
when you're done, click "Create line items for associated tasks" button
finally if all is ok click "Create Invoice" button
note a *Notice* box may be displayed at the top if you don't select a recipient company
enter a custom invoice number if necessary
the resulting window will be your invoice in HTML format
click "Export PDF" + select options
select save-as or print from your Acrobat client