Set up and run your organisation on OpportuNation

OpportuNation is an all-in-one platform for HR, payroll, finance, and procurement — built for NGOs, SMEs, and growing teams across Africa. This guide is built around the order things should be done in: each part of the system depends on the one before it, so setting up in sequence means every module has what it needs to work.

The four portals

OpportuNation is one platform with separate front doors for different users. You only need the one that matches your role — and a single account can hold more than one. Each opens at its own address.

Signing in

Go to the address for your portal and enter your email and password. If an organisation invited you, use the exact email the invitation was sent to.

• Invited to an organisation? Open the invitation link from your email and follow accepting an invitation. Your email is already filled in — you just set a password.
• Starting a new organisation? Go to the marketing site, choose Start free trial, and follow the steps below.
• Forgot your password? Choose Forgot password on any sign-in screen; we email a single-use reset link.

Creating a new organisation

This takes a few minutes and starts on a free trial — no payment card needed to begin. Whoever creates it becomes the first administrator, the super admin.

1. Verify your email. Enter your work email; type the 6-digit code we send to confirm it's you.
2. Add your details. Your name and a password (at least 12 characters).
3. Name your organisation. Legal name, a shorter display name, and a workspace handle. We check the name isn't already taken as you type — if a similar organisation exists, ask an existing admin there to invite you rather than creating a duplicate.
4. Choose your modules and plan. HR, Finance, Procurement — you can change these later in Billing.
5. Set your team size and start. Enter your staff count, accept the terms, and your workspace opens.

Admin The setup sequence

Everything in OpportuNation builds on what came before it. Departments hold employees; compensation feeds payroll; access rights make approvals possible. Follow this ladder from the top — each rung unlocks the next.

1. Foundation — the structures everything attaches to

2. Departments & job titles

   The organisational skeleton. Every employee is slotted into a department and a job title, so these must exist before you add people. Do this first, always.

   HRIS → Dept/Job

3. Compensation structure

   Your pay grades and components. Payroll reads pay from here — without an active compensation record for a staff member, a payroll run has nothing to calculate. Build this before adding people so you can assign each person a grade as you go.

   HRIS → Compensation
4. People — added from the top of the hierarchy down

5. Add employees, senior-first

   Add your CEO / executives first, then managers, then their teams. Each person can report to a manager — and you can only pick a manager who already exists, so building top-down means every reporting line and approval chain connects correctly. Assign each employee a compensation grade as you create them.

   HRIS → Employees
6. Access — who can do and approve what

7. Team & Access

   Give the people who help run the workspace a role or specific permissions — including the Approve permission for anything they'll sign off. This is the gate: without it, the next step has no effect.

   System → Team & Access

8. Approval Authority

   Now shape what each approver can approve, for whom, and up to what limit. This only works once the person already has the Approve permission from the step above — the two settings work hand in hand, access first.

   System → Approval Authority
9. Go live — let people in, then operate

10. Invite employees to the portal

    An employee record doesn't give the person access. Invite them so they can log in to see payslips, book leave, and submit timesheets. Now you're ready to run operations — payroll, finance, and procurement.

    HRIS → Employees → Invite to portal

Departments & job titles

Open HRIS → Dept/Job and create the departments your organisation is structured around (Finance, Programmes, Operations…) and the job titles people hold. Departments can be nested under a parent to mirror your real structure.

Why first: when you add an employee, you place them into a department and give them a job title. Having these ready means every staff record lands in the right place — and it's what later scoping (like “approve leave for my department only”) is built on.

Compensation structure

Open HRIS → Compensation and define your pay grades and the components that make up pay. This structure is the single source your payroll calculates from.

Add employees — from the top down

Open HRIS → Employees and add people starting with the most senior — CEO and executives, then managers, then their teams.

Why senior-first matters

Each employee can be given a manager, and you can only choose a manager who already exists in the system. Adding people top-down means every reporting line connects the first time, which is what drives “my direct reports” approval scopes and manager-based routing. If you add junior staff first, you'll have to go back and set their managers later.

Adding one person

Choose Add employee. The form is tabbed — Identity, Work, Compensation, Personal contact, Sensitive. Only a few fields are required: employee code, first and last name, and hire date. Set their department, job title, manager, and compensation grade here too.

Adding many people at once

Use Bulk import: download the CSV template, one row per employee, and upload (CSV or Excel). Every row is previewed and problems flagged before anything saves.

Team & Access

Open System → Team & Access to control who can do what. There are three role levels:

For members you grant permission per area and per action — view, create, update, delete, approve. So a line manager can be allowed to approve their team's leave and timesheets without touching payroll or finance.

Approval Authority

Open System → Approval Authority to fine-tune, for each person and each request type (leave, purchase requests, travel, expenses, timesheets…):

• Whether they can approve that request type at all.
• Whose requests — direct reports only, their department, specific departments, or everyone.
• Up to what limit — e.g. approve purchases up to an amount, above which it escalates.
• Delegation — whether they can hand approvals to someone else while away.

Invite employees to the portal

An employee record alone doesn't let the person log in. To give them access to payslips, leave, and timesheets, send an invitation: open the employee and choose Invite to portal (or Resend invite if they were invited before). The Portal access column on the employee list shows who is Linked, Invited, or Not invited.

What the employee does

1. Opens the invitation link from their email.
2. Chooses I have an account (if they already use OpportuNation) or Create account.
3. Their email is already set — they just enter or create a password.

Admin Running payroll

Open HRIS → Payroll to prepare, review, and finalise a pay run. The flow:

1. Create the run for the period. It pulls each employee's active compensation.
2. Review per employee. Check the calculated pay; approve an entry or send it back for correction.
3. Finalise. Once finalised the run locks, and each employee's payslip becomes available in their portal. Payroll also posts through to the finance ledger.

Where enabled, Salary Advance lets you record staff loans and advances that are recovered automatically through future payroll.

Admin Finance — the complete guide

Finance is your organisation's full set of books: a chart of accounts, double-entry journals, budgets, expense claims, payroll approvals, donor funds, multi-currency support, and a complete suite of reports. This section walks a finance admin through every tab, in the order you set it up and use it.

The Finance tabs at a glance

Open Finance from the sidebar. Along the top you'll find these tabs. Work left to right when setting up for the first time:

Step 1 · Finance Settings

Set your base currency before you post anything, so every report is denominated correctly.

1. Open Finance → Settings.
2. Set your functional currency — the main currency your books are kept in (e.g. NGN). This is what totals and reports are shown in.
3. Leave the period lock open for now. You'll use it later to close finished months (covered in Month-end).
4. Save.

Step 2 · Chart of Accounts

The chart of accounts is the master list of “buckets” money moves between. Each account has a code, a name, and a type. There are five types:

To add an account:

1. Open Finance → Chart of Accounts.
2. Choose Create Account.
3. Enter a unique account code (your numbering, e.g. 1000 for Bank), an account name, and pick the account type.
4. Save. Use Edit Account to rename later. Some system accounts are provided automatically and can't be changed.

Step 3 · Journal Entries

A journal entry is how a transaction is recorded, using double-entry: every entry has lines that debit some accounts and credit others, and the two sides must be equal — the entry won't post if it doesn't balance.

1. Open Finance → Journal Entries and choose Create Journal Entry.
2. Set the date (it must fall in an open period) and a description.
3. Add lines: for each, pick an account and enter a debit or a credit. Keep adding until total debits equal total credits.
4. Save it as a draft to finish later, or Post it to commit it to the ledger.

Entry statuses: Draft (not yet in the books) → Posted (committed). To correct a posted entry, use Reverse Entry — this creates an equal-and-opposite entry rather than deleting, keeping a clean audit trail.

Step 4 · Budget Control

Budget Control lets you set spending limits and track them. It has a few parts:

Budget lines

1. Open Finance → Budget Control → Budget Lines and choose Create Budget Line.
2. Pick the account (or budget code) it applies to, the period, and the budgeted amount.
3. Save. Repeat for each area you want to budget.

Budget holders

1. Go to Budget Holders and choose Assign Budget Holder.
2. Assign the employee who owns a budget line, so accountability is clear. Deactivate an assignment when it changes.

Tracking

Once budgets are set, the Budget vs Actual and Burn Rate views (also available as reports) show how much of each budget has been spent and how quickly.

Step 5 · Expense Claims

Staff submit expense claims from their own portal; finance reviews them here.

1. Open Finance → Expense Claims. New claims arrive with status Submitted.
2. Open a claim to check the amount, the expense account, and any attached receipt.
3. Choose Approve or Reject (with a reason). Approved claims can then be marked Paid once reimbursed.

Claim statuses: Draft → Submitted → Approved / Rejected → Paid. You can create a claim on a staff member's behalf with Create Expense Claim.

Step 6 · Payroll Approvals

The Payroll Approvals tab is the finance sign-off on a payroll run before it commits. Review the run, then Approve payroll — on approval the payroll journal posts to the ledger and payslips become available to staff. (Preparing the run itself happens in HRIS → Payroll.)

Step 7 · Donor Funds

For grant-funded and NGO work, Donor Funds tracks restricted funding separately so you can show each funder exactly how their money was used.

1. Open Finance → Donor Funds and set up each fund with its opening balance.
2. As transactions are tagged to a fund, the fund's balance updates.
3. Produce a Donor Fund Statement (opening balance, activity, closing balance) for any fund and period — ideal for funder reporting.

Step 8 · FX Rates

If you transact in more than one currency, keep exchange rates here so foreign amounts convert into your functional currency.

1. Open Finance → FX Rates and choose Add FX Rate.
2. Enter the from and to currencies and the rate. Add a new rate whenever it changes; delete one that was entered in error.

Step 9 · Reports

The Reports tab is where finance produces its statements. Every report works the same way, and each can be exported to PDF or Excel.

To run any report:

1. Open Finance → Reports and pick the report.
2. Choose the period (start and end dates) and any filters (e.g. department).
3. Choose Generate to view it, then PDF or Excel to download.

The reports available, and when to use each:

Month-end routine

A simple close each month keeps your books tidy and prevents accidental edits to finished periods:

1. Post any outstanding journal entries and clear approved expense claims and payroll for the month.
2. Run the Trial Balance to confirm debits equal credits.
3. Review the Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet, and export copies for your records.
4. In Finance → Settings, set the period lock to the end of that month. Locked periods won't accept new or changed entries, so the numbers you reported stay fixed.

Admin Procurement & vendors

Procurement runs from a request through approval to a purchase order and delivery. Vendors come first, because you can't issue a PO to a supplier who isn't verified.

1. Add the vendor. In Procurement → Vendor Registry, register the supplier or invite them to register themselves.
2. Verify them. The vendor sets their registration type and uploads the required compliance documents (PDFs). Verification confirms these before you transact.
3. Raise a purchase request and route it through its approvers (this is where Approval Authority thresholds apply).
4. Issue the purchase order to the verified vendor, then record delivery / goods received.

Admin Recruitment

Where enabled, HRIS → Recruitment helps you hire: create a job requisition, get it approved, post the role, track applicants through your stages, and — when someone is hired — turn them straight into an employee record without re-typing everything.

Employee Your employee workspace

The employee portal (employee.opportunation.io) is your personal home for work life. Sign in and you land on your Overview; the sidebar groups things into Personal, Work, and Your data.

Employee Everyday tasks

Book leave

Open Leave, check your balance, and submit a request with the dates and type. It goes to your approver; the status updates once they respond.

Submit a timesheet

Open Timesheets, add your hours for the week, and submit. You can edit it until it's approved.

Claim an expense

Open Expenses, enter the details and amount, attach a receipt where needed, and submit for approval.

Get your payslip

Open Payslips to view or download any payslip. New ones appear automatically once your employer finalises that month's payroll.

Your data, your control

Under Your data you can export a copy of your information and request account deletion.

Employee Working with more than one employer

A single personal account can work with several organisations — useful for consultants and contractors. Your records stay separated per employer.

1. Sign in to the employee portal with your personal account.
2. Open Organizations to see every organisation you belong to.
3. Switch into a workspace to access that employer's records — you confirm with your password when entering.

Vendor The vendor portal — for suppliers

If you supply an organisation using OpportuNation, they can invite you to the vendor portal (vendor-erp.opportunation.io) — one place to work with every buyer connected to you.

To get started: register or accept your invitation, complete your Vendor Profile, set your registration type, and upload the required compliance documents. Keeping these current means buyers can onboard and transact with you without delay.

Account & security

Your data's safety is built into the platform. A few things worth knowing:

• Each organisation's data is fully separated. One organisation can never see another's records.
• Passwords are protected. Stored only in a scrambled form that can't be reversed — not even by us — and must be at least 12 characters.
• Sensitive details are encrypted. Bank account and tax numbers are encrypted, and only the last few digits are ever shown.
• Signing out ends the session immediately. Once you log out, that session can't be used again, even from the same device.
• Documents are private. Files you upload are accessible only to the people and organisation they belong to.

Getting help

Stuck, or something not behaving as this guide describes? We're here to help.

• Email support: support@opportunation.io
• Learn more: opportunation.io

When you write in, tell us which portal you were using and what you were trying to do — it helps us help you faster.