Create your workspace

An account gets you into Monument, but it doesn't give you anywhere to work yet. That's what an organisation is: your firm's actual workspace, the container every project, person and invoice lives inside. We'll build Northlight Architects as a fresh organisation, and along the way show the demo-company shortcut for anyone who'd rather explore with realistic data first.

Two ideas worth knowing before you click anything

You and your firm are different records. Your login is personal and stays yours; the organisation is shared. When colleagues join later, they're joining the organisation, so everyone sees the same projects and data, not a copy of yours.

One login, several organisations. Nothing stops a single account from belonging to more than one organisation, and switching between them is a menu click away. That's exactly how a real firm and a throwaway demo company coexist under the same login, and how a consultant working across two practices hops between both. Each organisation's data stays completely separate from the others.

Land on the organisation screen

A fresh account has nowhere to go yet, so Monument drops you here first: a screen to build a new organisation, or accept an invitation to join one.

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   After signing up, you land on the organisation screen with no workspace attached yet.

Try it first with a demo company

Before committing to your real firm, it's worth knowing this option exists: a demo company is a separate organisation, pre-populated with sample projects, staff, time and invoices, that you can poke around in without touching anything real.

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   Find Try with Sample Data and click Create Demo Company.

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   Choose a firm size: Small, Medium or Large. Each preset shows its fixed staff and project counts.

   

A demo company behaves exactly like a real organisation. Explore it, break things, delete it later, and it never touches your firm's actual data.

Build your firm's organisation

For your actual practice, creating an organisation asks for exactly one thing: its name.

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   Under Create New Organization, enter your firm's name: Northlight Architects.

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   Click Create Organization. Monument builds the workspace and switches you into it.

   

That's the whole setup wizard: a name, and you're in. Everything else, regional formats, branding, financial-year start, waits for you in Settings whenever you're ready for it.

You're not landing in a truly empty firm, either: Monument adds you as the organisation's first staff member automatically, tied to your login. Sarah is already on Northlight's staff list from this single step, schedulable and able to log time with no further setup. Building out the rest of the team comes later, in Set your team's availability and Invite your team.

Switching between organisations

Because one login can hold several organisations, moving between them is always available, whether that's a demo company alongside your real firm, or two firms you work across.

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   Click your initials at the bottom of the navigation rail.

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   Under Your Organisations, the one you're currently in is marked Active.

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   Click any other organisation to switch. Monument reloads into that workspace.

The same menu also lets you spin up another organisation or another demo company whenever you like.

Troubleshooting

• Keep experiments in a demo company. If you want to poke around and break things, that's what it's for. Your firm's organisation isn't disposable the same way.
• Switching reloads the app. That's expected, not a glitch: Monument is loading an entirely different workspace's data, so save anything unsaved first.
• Invited colleagues land on this same screen. Someone you invite signs up with the invited email, then returns to the secure invitation page to accept, rather than creating an organisation of their own.
• Deleting an organisation is permanent. It wipes that organisation's projects, people and history for good. Delete demo companies freely; think twice about anything real.

Where this fits next

You've got a workspace. Find your way around Monument next, to map out where things live. When you're ready to bring colleagues in, see Invite your team, and for firm-wide defaults, Organisation setup.