Before You Start: What to Have Ready
Setting Iraca up goes fastest when what it asks for is already at hand. This checklist lists what each part of setup uses, and why, so you can gather it before you sign up or before you sit down with the setup assistant.
You don't need all of it. Start with Everyone, then read only the sections for the way you sell. A business that resells finished goods to consumers never needs the recipe, wholesale or food sections. And nothing here has to be ready on day one: you can skip any step of setup and come back to it.
Tick it off online. The same checklist at iraca.app/before-you-start shows only the sections for the way you sell, remembers what you've ticked, and prints. Where something is "optional", Iraca works without it.
Everyone
Your business
- ☐ Legal business name, and the name customers know you by if it's different
- ☐ Business address, email and phone. They appear on your orders, invoices and packing slips
- ☐ Your logo, as an image file (PNG or JPEG)
- ☐ Your website address, if you have one. Iris reads it and suggests your products and business details for you to check
- ☐ Your country, currency and time zone. Prices, reports and "today" all follow them
- ☐ Your sales tax rate, as a percentage (for example
8.25). Iraca uses one rate for the whole business. See Sales tax
Your products and stock
- ☐ A list of your products: name, SKU, unit cost and selling price. A spreadsheet in any layout works (CSV or Excel, up to 5,000 rows); you'll match its columns to Iraca's
- ☐ Where you keep stock: each warehouse, storeroom or shop, with its address
- ☐ How much of each product you have today, in each place. This is your opening stock
- ☐ What each unit of that stock cost you. It values your stock in your books. You can bring stock in with No cost instead, but it then adds nothing to your books
Save typing: if you don't have a product list, invoices from your suppliers will do. The setup assistant can read PDFs or photos of them and turn them into suppliers and supplies, with the pack you buy and what one unit costs.
Your team
- ☐ The email address of each person who'll use Iraca, and what they do (warehouse, sales, accounts…). You choose their access when you invite them. See Team Management
Taking card or bank payments
Needed if customers pay you directly by card or bank transfer: at your online store, at your customer portal, for menus and catering, or on invoices. Not needed if you only sell through marketplaces like Amazon, or only invoice wholesale customers on credit terms.
Payments run through Stripe. You enter these details on Stripe's own pages, not in Iraca. Iraca never sees or stores your bank account number. Stripe usually asks for:
- ☐ Your business type (sole proprietor, LLC, corporation…)
- ☐ Your EIN (Employer Identification Number). A sole proprietor without one can use their Social Security number
- ☐ The business address and phone, and your website or a description of what you sell
- ☐ The bank account and routing numbers where payouts should land
- ☐ For the person setting it up: legal name, date of birth, home address and the last four digits of their Social Security number. Stripe may ask for a photo ID
- ☐ For a company, the same details for anyone who owns 25% or more of it
Stripe decides what it asks for, and it may ask for more. It can take a few minutes, and Stripe may still be reviewing when you come back to Iraca. Card payments through Iraca are available in the United States. See Payments and Stripe.
Selling in person
For a shop counter, a market stall or a food truck. The register works on a phone, a tablet or a computer. See POS settings.
- ☐ Where the register sells from. A place with its own stock, such as a shop or a food truck, can be its own warehouse in Iraca, so its stock is counted separately
- ☐ A line for the top of your receipts, such as your shop's name or a thank-you note
- ☐ A connected Stripe account, to take cards (see Taking card or bank payments)
- ☐ To take tapped or inserted cards: a Stripe smart reader (BBPOS WisePOS E or Stripe Reader S700), and the registration code its settings show
- ☐ Optional: if you also take cards on Square's or PayPal's own terminal, which one, so the register can record those sales
Selling on marketplaces and online stores
Each connection asks for its own sign-in or keys. Gather them for the channels you use. Connecting only reads your orders at first: nothing about your stock reaches a channel until you switch stock sync on. See Connecting a channel with Iris.
| Channel | What you'll need |
|---|---|
| Shopify | Your Shopify admin sign-in. You sign in with Shopify, no keys to copy |
| TikTok Shop | Your TikTok Shop seller sign-in |
| WooCommerce | Your store's address, and a Consumer Key and Consumer Secret. Create them in WordPress under WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → REST API, with Read/Write permission. You need to be an administrator of the site |
| Amazon | A Professional seller account (not Individual), and your Seller ID, Marketplace ID, and the LWA Client ID, Client Secret and Refresh Token of a Selling Partner API app authorized for your account |
| Walmart | A Walmart Marketplace seller account, and the Client ID and Client Secret from the Walmart Developer Portal |
| Etsy | Your Shop ID, an Etsy API key and an access token |
- ☐ The keys or sign-in for each channel you use
- ☐ Your SKUs on each channel. Products that have the same SKU in Iraca and on the channel match in one step; the rest you match by hand
- ☐ Which warehouses should supply each channel, if you have more than one
Making what you sell (recipes and production)
Only if you make or assemble your products. Switch recipes off if you resell finished goods.
- ☐ For each product: the ingredients or components, and how much of each goes into one batch
- ☐ How many units one batch makes
- ☐ What you pay for each ingredient, and from which supplier. Supplier invoices give Iris both
- ☐ Whether you track lots (batch numbers). You'll need them for traceability and recalls, and a lot number for any opening stock that tracks lots
Catering, meal prep and retail food
For caterers, meal prep companies, and food businesses that operate under a state retail food license. Menus, catering orders and weekly meal prep come with the Menus add-on. See Menus.
Your license
- ☐ Your retail food license or permit: its number, the agency that issued it (often your state Department of Agriculture, sometimes the county health department) and when it expires. A food truck also has its mobile food unit permit. Iraca keeps them with a reminder before each expires: see Licenses and permits
Your menus
- ☐ The items on each menu, grouped into sections (starters, mains, desserts…), and any menu price that differs from the product's usual price
- ☐ The dietary tags and allergens of each item, and your own allergen disclaimer if you have one
- ☐ How much notice each item needs before you can serve it
Catering
- ☐ Your minimum number of guests and minimum order, if you have them
- ☐ Your usual deposit (for example 25% or 50% of the order). Deposit invoices need the Invoicing add-on
- ☐ Any service charge you add to events
Meal prep
- ☐ When your weekly ordering opens, and its cutoff: the last moment a customer can order
- ☐ The days you deliver or hand orders over, and whether each one is delivery, pickup or both
- ☐ Your pickup places: name, address, and the days and hours you're there. See Pickup
Selling wholesale (B2B)
Only if you sell to shops, restaurants or distributors. Gather prices in this order: your standard wholesale list first, then only the exceptions. That's the order Iraca reads them in, so it keeps the work small. See Wholesale pricing.
Prices
- ☐ Your standard wholesale price for each product, separate from your retail price
- ☐ Quantity breaks, if you offer them (for example $9.00 each from 25, $8.00 each from 100). The lowest break is also the minimum order: with prices starting at 25, nobody can order 10
- ☐ Tiers of customers who pay the same rates (distributors, independent shops…). In Iraca these are pricing groups
- ☐ Prices agreed with a particular customer. These win over the group and standard prices
- ☐ Any percentage discount for a customer or a tier. A percentage comes off your standard price only; it never stacks on top of an agreed price
Customers
- ☐ Each wholesale customer's business name, contact person, email, and billing and shipping addresses
- ☐ Their payment terms (Net 30, Due on receipt…). You can set a default for new customers
- ☐ Their credit limit. In Iraca a blank limit means no credit at all, not unlimited credit
- ☐ Their resale or tax-exemption certificate: number, issuing state, and a PDF or photo of it
- ☐ Which customers should get a portal login to see their orders and invoices and reorder
Your rules
- ☐ The order size, if any, above which someone must approve an order before it's confirmed
Save typing: invoices you've sent to your wholesale customers can go into the setup assistant. Each customer becomes a wholesale customer for you to review.
Invoicing and keeping the books
Only if you invoice customers or keep your accounting in Iraca.
- ☐ The payment terms you usually give. Iraca numbers invoices for you
- ☐ A list of your suppliers: name, contact and email
- ☐ Your opening balances on the day you start (bank, money customers owe you, money you owe), from your accountant or your last balance sheet. You enter them as a journal entry. See Journal entries
- ☐ To let customers pay invoices by bank transfer: a connected Stripe account (see Taking card or bank payments)
Shipping
Shipping works without any carrier account: Iraca buys discounted labels for you. You'll need:
- ☐ Your ship-from address
- ☐ The box sizes and typical weights you ship in
- ☐ A card on the Billing page to top up your shipping wallet, which labels are paid from. You can also top it up by bank transfer
- ☐ Optional: your own UPS, FedEx or USPS account number, or an EasyPost API key, if you'd rather use your negotiated rates. See Bring your own carrier accounts
Delivering locally with your own vehicles
- ☐ Where you deliver: the areas or distances, and what each costs
- ☐ Any order amount above which delivery is free
- ☐ The days and time windows you deliver
- ☐ Each driver's name and an email they check on their phone. Drivers sign in with a code sent there. They don't need a team seat
Your own online store
- ☐ The name you want for your store's address (yourname.iraca.app)
- ☐ A photo and a short description for each product you'll sell there
- ☐ How orders reach buyers: a shipping rate, pickup places, or local delivery
- ☐ A business email buyers can write to
- ☐ A connected Stripe account. A store can't be published without one
See Setting up your storefront.
Email marketing
Only if you'll email your customers news and offers from Iraca, with the Customer Marketing add-on. Iraca sends from its own address, so there's no domain or DNS to set up. See Your marketing sender.
- ☐ Your business's postal address, under Settings. The law requires it at the bottom of every marketing email, and Iraca won't send without it
- ☐ The name your customers should see in their inbox. It starts as your business name
- ☐ An inbox for your customers' replies. Iraca emails a 6-digit code to it to confirm it's yours
- ☐ Which customers to ask first. Customers you bring in can't be emailed yet: everyone starts as "Not agreed", and only the customer can say yes. You can send them a confirmation email, up to 100 at a time and once every six months. Start with customers you've heard from recently, because bounces and spam complaints can pause your sending. See Who you can email
- ☐ If you sell on Shopify, customers who opted in there count as agreed. On WooCommerce, only the box the Iraca Connector plugin adds to your checkout counts
Making packaged food
For food you make and package: in a food plant, a shared kitchen, or at home under cottage food rules. A business that doesn't make food can skip this section entirely.
FDA facility registration, if your facility must register:
- ☐ Your FDA registration number and the year you last renewed it. See FDA facility registration, which also lists what the FDA form asks for if you haven't registered yet
Acidified foods (sauces, pickles, salsas):
- ☐ For each product, its scheduled process from your Process Authority: the target pH ceiling, the minimum fill temperature, and when it's due for review
- ☐ The Process Authority letter for each product, as a PDF. See FDA Acidified Foods compliance
Cottage food (made in a home kitchen):
- ☐ Your home state
- ☐ Your estimated yearly cottage food sales
- ☐ Where you sell (farmers markets, roadside stand, online, wholesale)
- ☐ Your state permit or registration, if your state issues one. See Cottage food compliance
HACCP / food safety plan:
- ☐ Your current written food safety plan, if you have one, and your process steps from receiving to shipping. See HACCP plans
Labels:
- ☐ For each product: the full ingredient list, allergens and net weight