01 Help
Getting started
The short version: install, set up your account, load the demonstration data and look around. Each app also has its own help: press F1, or the ? button on any window.
Your first ten minutes
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Install the apps you want
Download the setup and run it, as the download page describes. Then type "Full Compass" in the Start menu to find the apps.
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Set up your account
The first time the start page opens, it asks for your name, a username and a password. You become the suite's primary administrator, and it shows a recovery code: write it down and keep it away from the computer, as it is shown only once.
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Load the demonstration data
In the start page, choose Help > Load Demonstration Data. It fills an empty data file with made-up clients to look around: nothing in it is real.
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Open an app on a client
Choose a client on the start page's Clients tab. Its card shows what each app holds for the client, with a button to open the app straight on that client, already signed in.
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Set up your practice
When you're ready for your own clients, enter the practice's details in Tools > Settings, add colleagues in Tools > Users, and add clients with the + beside Search Clients.
Remember: a test version
Full Compass has not been recognised or approved by HMRC or Companies House. Check anything it works out, and don't use it to file real returns or accounts yet.
Questions
Where is my data kept?
Only on your computer, in your own Windows user's folders. Accounts, Books, Business Tax and Personal Tax share one data file in %APPDATA%\uk.fullcompass.suite; Pay keeps its own in %APPDATA%\uk.fullcompass.pay. To find them, type %APPDATA% into File Explorer's address bar and press Enter.
How do I back up?
In the start page, File > Backup Data File saves a copy of the shared data file, and File > Restore Data File brings one back. Pay backs up its own payroll in File > Back-up & Restore. You can also close the apps and copy the two folders above somewhere safe. The start page backs up the data file by itself before every update.
How do updates work?
The start page looks for updates when it opens, and from Tools > Check for Updates. An app with a newer version shows Update available and an Update button, and Update all updates every app, the start page last. Close the apps being updated first. If the suite was installed for everyone on the computer, an administrator installs the updates.
How do I add an app later?
In the start page, use Tools > Install Apps, or the Install button beside an app that isn't installed. The setup opens with your apps ticked: tick the ones to add and choose Install.
I forgot my password.
On the start page's sign-in, use your recovery code (the primary administrator's) or the recovery email, if you gave one, to set a new password. Anyone else can ask whoever manages users in Tools > Users.
Windows says it "protected your PC".
That is Windows' SmartScreen, shown because the setup isn't yet signed with a publisher's certificate. Choose More info, then Run anyway. Updates installed by the start page don't show it.
Can I use it on a Mac?
Not yet: Full Compass is for Windows 10 and 11.
What does it cost?
Nothing. The test version is shared free, as it is, for trying out.
How do I uninstall it?
In Windows, Settings > Apps > Installed apps: uninstall each "Full Compass" app. Each uninstaller offers to delete that app's data: leave it unticked unless you want the data gone for good, and back up Pay's payroll records first (employers must keep them for three years). The start page always keeps the shared data file, because the other apps use it.
Still stuck?
Get in touch: the contact page says how.