Explore a demo company

A brand-new organisation is empty by design: no projects, no people, nothing logged. That's the right starting point for your real firm, but it's a poor place to learn Monument, because there's nothing on screen to point at. A demo company solves that: it's a real organisation, built the same way any other one is, except Monument fills it for you before you ever click into it.

Why a demo company matters

Think of it as a sandbox, not a rehearsal space. It isn't practice for the real thing you'll redo later, it's a separate, disposable organisation that behaves exactly like your firm's would, sitting alongside it under the same login. You can open a project, resource a task, raise an invoice, or delete the whole organisation afterwards, and none of it touches your real firm's data, because it isn't the same organisation at all.

That separation is what makes it safe to explore hard. A fresh real organisation punishes experimentation, since anything you create is something you'll have to clean up later. A demo company is built from a realistic size preset, with varied sample details, so what you see is representative rather than precious, and nothing you break in it matters.

Build the demo company

You land on the organisation screen with nothing built yet. Rather than naming your own firm, skip that setup entirely and let Monument build a sample one for you.

1. 1

   On the organisation screen, click Create Demo Company.

2. 2

   Pick Small. It's sized with enough projects, people, invoices and logged time to explore every part of Monument, without overwhelming you on a first look.

3. 3

   Click Create Company.

Small, Medium and Large all exist as options if you want more or less to explore later; Small is the quickest way to see the whole picture the first time through.

Watch Monument build it

Clicking Create Company doesn't hand you an empty shell while a spinner runs. Monument starts building a complete organisation, the generated demo company, in the background, from a realistic size preset with varied sample details, so what you see is representative rather than precious.

1. 1

   Monument shows a progress view while it builds the generated demo company. You can close it and keep working elsewhere; the build keeps running.

2. 2

   When it finishes, Monument activates the generated demo company and lands you inside it automatically, no extra click required.

Where you land

You come in on the dashboard, already inside the generated demo company rather than the empty organisation screen, and the account menu at the bottom of the rail shows it marked Active. Everything else in Monument is already populated: open Schedule and you'll find projects like Olive Street Apartments laid out in stages, open Invoicing and there are sample invoices tied to those projects, open Time and hours are already logged against real tasks. It's a firm mid-way through its year, not a blank form waiting to be filled in.

That's the point of exploring here first: every other getting-started article and feature walkthrough makes far more sense once you've seen what a lived-in organisation looks like, rather than trying to picture it from an empty one.

Troubleshooting

• Small, Medium and Large aren't the only choice shown here. This walkthrough demonstrates Small; the other two options are covered in create your workspace.
• The build takes a little while. Monument generates real projects, people, invoices and time entries rather than copying a static snapshot, so give it a moment even after closing the progress dialog.
• A demo company still counts as an organisation. It shows up under Your Organisations alongside a real firm, so check which one is marked Active if you land somewhere unexpected.
• Deleting it is fine, and permanent. Nothing in a demo company is real, so delete it whenever you're done exploring.

Where this fits next

You're inside a fully populated organisation now. Find your way around Monument next, using the generated demo company's real projects and invoices as your map. When you're ready to stop exploring and set up your actual firm, create your workspace walks through naming it and switching in.