Getting started
Your first week: set up the company, load opening balances, record a month, ask an office.
Cortex is an AI-run ERP: your books, payroll, tax compliance and dashboards in one place, with AI executive offices that read them. The offices are only as good as the books, so the first week is about getting real numbers in.
1. Set up the company
Open Books → Masters and add every account money moves through — bank accounts and cards, flagging any personally-owned card used for company spend — and the customers and suppliers you deal with. Then, on Books → Compliance, add a GST registration for each state you are registered in.
2. Load opening balances
On Books → Compliance, enter the balances at the start of the year you are beginning from — usually the closing balance sheet your accountant signed. Everything after builds on them, and the balance sheet on Statements should balance once they are in.
3. Record a month
- Sales — raise your invoices; numbers are assigned for you, without gaps, per financial year.
- Purchases — enter what each bill says; Cortex works out the tax split, credit eligibility and TDS. You can upload the PDF and let the AI propose the entry.
- Payroll — one run per month. See the payroll guide.
- Banking — import the bank statement (CSV, or the PDF for the AI to read) and match each line to the entry it settles.
The forms do no arithmetic: enter what the document says and read the preview. If a number looks wrong, the input is wrong.
4. Publish the dashboards
Press Update dashboards at the top of Books after a big change. The department dashboards and the AI offices then work from the new figures. Where hourly refresh is switched on, this also happens by itself.
5. Ask an office
Open Chat and pick an office — start with the CFO(“Where do we stand this year?”) or the Controller(“What statutory deadlines are due in the next 60 days?”). Each office has ready prompts. See the AI offices guide for what each can see.
6. Close the month
Once the month’s bank lines are matched, open Finance → Month-end close and run it for that month. The AI Controller lists what still needs fixing, with an owner and an action for each.
Tell the offices about your company
Every office starts with a starter brief. Add what makes your company yours — what you sell, how you are funded, what is deliberate — under Library → Agents, starting with the CEO, CFO and Controller.
Invite your team
From Settings → Users, invite colleagues as admin, member or viewer. Plans are priced per company, not per seat. See the admin guide.