Countries & cities
Maintain the master list of countries and cities your organisation works in, so they appear as ready-made choices on payment vouchers, staff requests and reports.
Countries & cities is your organisation's master list of the places you work in. You keep them here once — each country, and the cities within it — so that when someone raises a payment voucher or a staff request, they pick the location from a tidy list of chips and a dropdown rather than typing a country and city name by hand each time. Keeping the list short and correct is what makes those forms quick, and it keeps your reports clean: every voucher for the same city is filed under exactly the same spelling.
You'll come here when you start working in a new country or city, when a name needs correcting, or when you first set up your organisation and want to mark your head office. Nothing in this list moves money — it's reference data. The names you keep here are simply what appear in the Country and City pickers across finance.
Who can do this. Viewing the list needs any finance role that grants read — the Accountant, Finance Manager, Auditor or CEO can all open it. Adding or editing a country or city needs a finance role with update — in practice the Accountant or Finance Manager (an organisation Owner or Admin can too). An Auditor or CEO can read the list but won't see the New country, New city or Edit buttons; that's by design, not a fault. If a button is missing for you, your role simply doesn't reach it — see Members & roles.
Where to find it. Finance → Settings → Countries & cities. The page opens straight to this section when you arrive from the Add or Manage in settings shortcut on a voucher or staff-request form.
How the list is laid out
The section has two side-by-side panes:
- Countries (the first pane) — every country you've added, each showing its flag (if you set one), its name, an HQ badge if it's your head office, and its short code. Select any row to work with its cities.
- Cities (the second pane) — the cities that belong to the country you've selected. Until you pick a country, this pane just invites you to Select a country to manage its cities.
A country can be marked as your head office (HQ). The head office is treated as a country with no cities, so when you select it the cities pane simply says The head office is a country with no cities — there's nothing to add there.
Add a country
Open Finance → Settings → Countries & cities
From the dashboard, go to Finance, choose Settings, then select Countries & cities from the sub-menu down the side. If you don't see that option, your role doesn't include Finance settings.
Select New country
Choose New country above the countries list. A dialog opens with the country's details to fill in. (If you don't see this button, your role can view the list but not edit it.)
Fill in the code, flag and names
- Code — a short identifier for the country (for example a two- or three-letter code). It's shown alongside the name in the list.
- Flag — optional. You can paste a flag emoji here; it appears next to the country's name to make the list easier to scan.
- Name (English) and Name (Arabic) — the country's name in both languages. The app shows whichever matches the reader's language, so filling in both means it reads correctly for everyone.
Code, Name (English) and Name (Arabic) are all required — Save stays disabled until you've entered them. The flag is optional.
Mark the head office, if this is it
If the country you're adding is where your organisation is based, tick This is the head office (HQ). A short note reminds you that the head office has no cities. Most organisations mark exactly one country as HQ; leave the box unticked for the countries you simply work in.
Save
Choose Save. The country is added to the list straight away and becomes available in the Country picker on the voucher and staff-request forms.
Add a city to a country
Cities belong to a country, so you add them from within that country.
Select the country
In the countries pane, select the country you want to add a city to. Its cities (if any) appear in the second pane. You can't add cities to a country marked as the head office — the cities pane will tell you so.
Select New city
Choose New city above the cities list. A dialog opens for the city's details.
Enter the names and region
- Name (English) and Name (Arabic) — the city's name in both languages. Both are required; Save stays disabled until you've entered them.
- Region — optional. A region, governorate or area name to group cities by, shown as a column in the list. Leave it blank if you don't need it.
Save
Choose Save. The city now appears under its country, and it shows up in the City dropdown on the forms once you've picked that country.
Edit a country or city
To correct a name, change a flag or fix a region, find the country or city in its list and choose Edit on the row. The same dialog opens with the current details; change what you need and choose Save. For a country you can change any field, including whether it's the head office.
Editing a name here updates it everywhere it's shown from now on. It doesn't reach back and rewrite documents you've already raised — a voucher that was printed with the old city name keeps that name. So correcting a spelling here fixes it for the next voucher, not for one already issued.
How these appear on the forms
When someone raises a payment voucher or a staff payment request, the location is chosen from this list, not typed in:
- The Country field is shown as a row of chips — one per country you've added, with the head office shown first and marked HQ. Picking a chip selects that country.
- The City field appears once a non-head-office country with cities is selected. It's a searchable dropdown of that country's cities (you can search in either language).
If your list is empty, the form shows a gentle prompt instead of chips. Anyone who can edit this list sees an Add shortcut on the form that brings them straight here; everyone else sees a note asking a finance manager to add the places they need.
Because the forms only offer the countries and cities you've added, a missing place means someone can't file a voucher against it. If a colleague tells you a city isn't in the list, add it here and it appears on their form right away — they don't need to wait for anything else.
See also
Create a payment voucher
Where the Country and City pickers you maintain here are used.
Vendors & payees
The other piece of voucher reference data — who you pay, alongside where.
Finance settings
The home for all your finance reference data and rules.
Members & roles
Why the New country, New city or Edit button might be hidden for you, and which role unlocks it.