---
title: "01 \u2014 Before You Start"
space: "Setup Guide"
url: "https://jmtradelink.com/setup/01-what-you-need"
updated: "2026-07-13"
---
Welcome. This guide walks you through setting up your export desk — the system that takes a deal from "what would it cost me to ship rice to Cotonou?" all the way to "the bank has confirmed my export payment and my drawback is claimed."
This first section has **no prerequisites** — it is the starting point of the guide. Read it once before you touch any settings: it shows you the journey the system follows and the one screen you will work from every day.
## What the system does for you
Two apps work together behind one screen:
- **Export Management** handles the commercial side: costing a deal, collecting freight and handling rates from your vendors, picking the cheapest combination, quoting the buyer, winning the order, and running the shipment with its containers and document checklist.
- **Exim** handles the compliance and money side: the export invoice with its FOB split, Duty Drawback and RODTEP benefit entries, the LC/contract document checklist, bank realisation (BRC), and benefit claims.
Every deal follows the same path:
```mermaid
flowchart LR
A[Cost the deal] --> B[Ask vendors
for rates]
B --> C[Pick the
cheapest mix]
C --> D[Quote the buyer
and win the order]
D --> E[Run the
shipment]
E --> F[Raise the
export invoice]
F --> G[Get paid and
close the BRC]
F --> H[Claim drawback
and RODTEP]
```
You will set up the building blocks first (sections 02–05), then walk one real deal down this path (sections 06 onwards).
## What to keep at hand
Gather these before you start section 02 — you will type them in as you go:
- **Your company identity:** legal exporter name, registered address, contact person, email, phone, website.
- **Your bank details** exactly as they should appear on invoices (bank name, account number, SWIFT, branch).
- **Your registrations:** IEC code, GSTIN, and LUT number.
- **Artwork:** your company logo and a signature/seal image (scanned, reasonably high resolution) — these print on every document.
- **Your supplier list** with a contact email for each — the system emails them rate requests.
- **Your buyer list** with full billing addresses, including the country — the buyer's country drives the benefit calculations.
- **Your trade lanes:** the ports you load from and discharge at, and the shipping lines you use.
- **Product and packaging specs:** bag weights, empty-bag weights, and bags per container for each product you ship.
- **Your usual cost heads:** the freight, handling, customs and clearing charges you pay on a typical shipment, and roughly what each costs today.
> **One-time technical setup — ask your administrator**
>
> These are done once, before you begin, and are not owner steps:
>
> - Both apps (**Export Management** and **Exim**) must be installed on your site, along with ERPNext.
> - An **outgoing email account** must be configured — without it the system cannot send rate requests to your vendors (you will need this by [Ask Vendors for Rates](/setup/07-send-rfqs)).
## Take a tour of your workspace
Everything in this guide happens on one screen: the **Export Management** workspace. Take five minutes to find your way around it.
1. **Log in.** Open your site in a browser and sign in with the email and password your administrator gave you.
*You know it worked when:* you land on the home screen with a sidebar on the left.
2. **Open the Export Management workspace.** Look at the left sidebar — **Export Management** is the workspace you land in. If you ever find yourself somewhere else, click **Home** at the top of the sidebar to come back to this view.
*You know it worked when:* the page header reads **Export Management** and you see a **Key Numbers** row of cards.
3. **Scan the sidebar.** This is your map of the whole system. The links are grouped by what they do:
- **Shipments** — the daily work: **Export Shipment**, **Export Costing**, **Export Cost Combination**, and the **Combination Comparison** report.
- **Sales & Procurement** — the commercial paper trail: **Quotation**, **Sales Order**, **Request for Quotation**, **Supplier Quotation**, and **Purchase Order**. You will meet each of these in later sections; the system creates most of them for you.
- **Masters** — the building blocks you set up once: **Costing Template**, **Export Charge Item**, **Item Packaging**, **Port**, and **Shipping Line**.
- **Export Settings** — your company profile and pricing safety rails, covered next in [Set Up Your Export Profile](/setup/02-export-settings).
*You know it worked when:* you can point to each of the four groups without searching.
4. **Read the Key Numbers.** The cards at the top answer the questions you would otherwise ask your team each morning:
- **Open Quoted Value** — the total value of quotes waiting on buyers.
- **Rates Expiring This Week** — vendor rates about to go stale; time to ask for fresh ones.
- **Delayed Shipments** — shipments running behind.
- **Shipments Not Ready**, **Shipments Partially Ready**, **Shipments Ready** — how close each active shipment is to sailing.
*You know it worked when:* each card shows a number (zeros are fine on a fresh system — they fill in as you work).
5. **Glance at the Trends.** Scroll down to the two charts:
- **Won Value Trend** — the value of orders you have won, day by day.
- **Expected Funds Inflow** — when money from open invoices is expected to arrive, including anything already overdue.
*You know it worked when:* both charts render (empty charts are normal before your first won order and first invoice).
## Where to go next
You can now navigate the workspace and you know the journey a deal takes. Start the actual setup with [Set Up Your Export Profile](/setup/02-export-settings) — it puts your company identity and bank details on every document the system prints.