Signing in for the first time, completing the guided setup wizard, and finding your way around Steward.
Your church administrator will send you a link to your organisation's Steward workspace, along with a username and a temporary password. Open the link and sign in with those details.
If this is the very first sign-in for a brand-new organisation, Steward will take you straight to the guided setup wizard instead of the dashboard — that's expected.
New organisations are walked through a six-step wizard before the main dashboard becomes available. You can skip most steps and come back to them later from Settings, except the first one.
Replace the temporary password you were given with one only you know. This step cannot be skipped.
Enter your church's name and upload a logo. This appears on receipts, reports, and across the dashboard.
Rename the levels used to describe your structure (for example "Region", "District", "Branch") to match how your church is actually organised. You can add the branches themselves afterwards — see Branches.
Define the kinds of payments your church collects — Tithe, Offering, Building Fund, and so on. These show up whenever someone records a transaction. See Setting up transaction types for more detail.
Choose a short prefix for member IDs, for example GRC, which Steward will turn into sequential IDs like GRC-0001, GRC-0002, and so on.
Turn on the optional modules your church needs, such as Ministries. You can revisit this at any time — see Enabling and disabling features. Click Finish Setup to land on your dashboard.
Every step has a Skip for now option (except changing your password) — you can always finish it later from Settings.
Once setup is complete, the sidebar is your main way of getting around Steward. The sections you'll use most:
The next chapter walks through everyday member management — see Members.
