The setup wizard
The short guided flow that takes you from a fresh account to a working dashboard, and what to set up next.
The very first time you sign in to a new WAQAF account, you're shown a short setup step before you reach your dashboard. It's deliberately brief — it just confirms your name and lets you add a profile picture, so your colleagues recognise you and your name appears correctly on the things you do later. You'd see it once, when your account is brand new; after you've finished it, WAQAF takes you straight to your dashboard on every future visit.
Who can do this. Anyone with a WAQAF account sees this step — it's about you, not your organisation, so no particular role is required. It runs the first time you sign in, whether you joined by accepting an invitation or created the organisation yourself.
Where to find it. You don't navigate to it — WAQAF shows it automatically the first time you sign in to a new account, and skips it once it's done.
Finishing the setup step
Check your name
The wizard opens on Set up your account, with a Name field already filled in from how you were invited. Read it over and correct it if needed — this is the name your colleagues see next to your actions, and the name that can later appear as the person who recorded an entry. Keep it your real, full name.
Add a profile picture (optional)
Next to Avatar there's a circle you can click, or drop an image onto, to upload a picture of yourself. This is entirely optional — you can leave it empty and add or change it later from your account settings. It only sets your photo; it is not your organisation's logo.
Continue to your dashboard
Click Continue. WAQAF saves your name (and avatar, if you added one), marks your setup as complete, and takes you to your dashboard. From now on, signing in brings you straight to the dashboard without showing this step again.
This step is short on purpose. It's about your personal account, not about configuring your charity — so it won't ask you about funds, bank accounts, your team, or your website. Those are set up separately, in their own areas, and only by people whose roles allow it. The rest of this page points you to each one.
What to set up next
Once you're on the dashboard, getting your organisation ready to run happens across a few separate areas rather than one long wizard. You only reach the ones your role allows, and each has its own help article. A sensible order is:
Create your organisation
If you're starting a brand-new charity rather than joining one — you become its owner.
Fill in your profile and logo
Set your organisation's name and upload the logo that appears across WAQAF.
Set your letterhead
Add the address, contact details and signatories that appear on printed receipts, vouchers and reports.
Invite your team
Add colleagues and give each the roles their job needs.
Turning on Finance
Recording income and expenses isn't switched on by default. The first time someone opens Finance, they're offered a one-time choice for how to start — this is separate from the personal setup step above.
Who can do this. Turning on Finance needs a finance role that grants create — typically the Accountant or Finance Manager (an owner or admin can do it too). If you open Finance and only see a message saying you don't have permission to enable it, ask whoever holds one of those roles. See Members & roles.
You're given three ways to begin:
- Use Istiqama defaults — installs a ready-made category register, plus a set of sample funds and bank accounts, so you can start straight away and tidy the names afterwards.
- Customise, then seed — starts from that same template but opens an editor first, so you can rename categories and choose which to keep before anything is created.
- Start with an empty register — sets up only the underlying accounting scaffold (the chart of accounts, the standard funds, and bank accounts) and no categories, so you add your own from scratch. WAQAF asks you to confirm this choice before going ahead.
Whichever you pick, WAQAF always installs the five standard funds — Zakat, Sadaqah, Waqf Principal, Waqf Returns and General — so your money is kept properly separated from day one.
The sample categories, funds and bank accounts that come with Use Istiqama defaults are examples to get you moving, not your real figures. Rename or remove the ones you don't use, and add your own bank accounts, before you start recording real money. WAQAF keeps a permanent ledger — entries are never deleted, only corrected with a reversing entry — so it's worth getting your starting set-up tidy first.