BusinessPlus Documentation & Help Center

Official technical documentation, user guides, API references, and operational playbooks for BusinessPlus.

Getting Started

Platform architecture overview, account setup, and initial setup workflows.

BusinessPlus Platform Overview & Architecture — Discover the unified architecture of BusinessPlus: combine online storefronts, inventory control, appointment bookings, M-Pesa payments, WhatsApp messaging, and AI customer service in one system.
Creating an Account & User Authentication — Register your BusinessPlus user account using email or Google authentication, configure your personal profile, and manage multi-organization memberships.
Creating Your First Business Organization — Provision your business organization container: set legal registered names, operating currencies, primary contact numbers, and industry classifications.
The Step-by-Step Onboarding Setup Wizard — Complete the interactive onboarding wizard (`/onboarding`): upload brand logos, extract primary color palettes, and configure communication preferences in minutes.
Provisioning Your First Storefront Site — Allocate your official storefront subdomain (`https://.businessplus.co.ke`), configure site categories, and activate online commerce capabilities.
Adding Your First Product or Service — Get your catalog live in under 2 minutes: add physical products with prices and stock counts, or configure bookable service appointments.
Connecting Payment Methods (M-Pesa & Card) — Activate payment processing for your storefront: enter Safaricom M-Pesa credentials, configure IntaSend card payments, or enable manual cash logging.
Pre-Launch Storefront Verification Checklist — Verify your digital storefront before sharing your link with the public: complete this essential 7-point pre-launch operational checklist.

Business & Site Management

Business profiles, multi-site management, staff rosters, and ownership transfers.

Managing Business Profiles & Core Site Identity — Configure your public business identity, official contact details, operational currency, business operating hours, and location landmarks across your sites.
Multi-Site Architecture & Branch Management — Scale your business across multiple physical locations or digital brands with isolated product catalogs, dedicated custom domains, and centralized organization billing.
Inviting Collaborators & Team Invitations — Add staff members, managers, and accountants to your business dashboard with secure email invitation links and automated onboarding.
Team Roles & Role Capability Matrix — Understand the role-based permission system: inspect the exact access boundaries and operational capabilities for each collaborator tier.
Staff Rosters, Shift Schedules & Service Assignments — Configure team member profiles, define working shift hours and break periods, and link staff to specific bookable services.
Custom Legal Pages & Operational Policies — Publish compliant legal terms and operational policies on your storefront to build customer trust and comply with consumer protection regulations.
Site Ownership Transfers & Agency Handoff — Discover the agency workflow: design, populate, and test a complete digital storefront for a client, then transfer full site container ownership securely.
Organization Settings, Security & Emergency Controls — Maintain organization-level administrative controls: audit collaborator activity, manage emergency access controls, and understand data deletion protections.

Customers & CRM

Customer directories, purchase history, lead capture, and status pipelines.

Customers & CRM Architecture Overview — Discover the BusinessPlus CRM architecture: centralize customer contact directories, purchase histories, appointment records, and lead pipelines in one system.
Customer Profiles, Tags & Contact Metadata — Maintain rich customer profile cards: configure phone numbers, delivery locations, custom avatars, and segmentation tags like VIP, Loyal, and Wholesale.
Customer Purchase History & Appointment Tracking — Audit individual customer transaction histories: review past order line items, total lifetime spend, appointment attendance, and no-show statistics.
Lead Capture & Sales Pipeline Stages — Track prospective customer leads from AI chat interactions, storefront inquiries, and external landing pages through a structured 5-stage sales pipeline.
Internal Staff Notes & Account Assignment — Collaborate on customer relationships: maintain internal staff notes, record customer sizing and preferences, and assign dedicated staff account managers.
Customer Loyalty Points & Reward Redemption — Incentivize repeat business with automated loyalty points: track customer point balances and enable 1-click point discount redemption at storefront checkout.
Direct WhatsApp Outreach & Customer Messaging — Engage customers directly on WhatsApp from their CRM profile: launch 1-click WhatsApp chats, share product recommendations, and dispatch order updates.
Merging Customer Profiles & CRM Data Export — Keep your customer directory clean and actionable: merge duplicate customer profiles without losing transaction histories and export complete CRM data to CSV.

Products & Inventory

Product catalog setup, stock tracking, SKU management, and categories.

Managing Products in BusinessPlus — Learn how to view, create, edit, price, and organize physical products across your business sites using the BusinessPlus Inventory dashboard.
Product Fields Reference Guide — A complete reference of every user-configurable product field in BusinessPlus, detailing data types, required constraints, customer visibility, and operational impacts.
Stock Control & Reorder Points — Understand real-time stock level tracking in BusinessPlus: automated checkout decrementation, zero-stock storefront protection, reorder point thresholds, and stock filtering.
Restocking Products & Stock Ledger History — Learn how to record inventory restock entries (Purchases, Returns, Adjustments) and inspect the complete chronological stock ledger history for any product.
Inventory Intelligence: Expiry & Slow-Moving Alerts — Monitor critical inventory intelligence in BusinessPlus: track perishable batches expiring within 3 days and detect slow-moving stock with 0 sales over 30 days.
Bulk CSV Product Import & Export — Learn how to import large product catalogs from CSV spreadsheets and export inventory records with verified column schemas and validation rules.
Customer Product Reviews & Moderation — Collect, review, and moderate customer ratings, text reviews, and photo uploads on your product detail pages.

Orders & Checkout

Order processing, checkout workflows, status updates, and receipt PDFs.

Managing Orders in BusinessPlus — Master order management in BusinessPlus: search by customer or order number, filter by fulfillment status and site, inspect detailed order records, and review chronological history.
Creating Manual Staff Orders & POS Sales — Learn how staff members create manual orders, process walk-in POS transactions, link CRM customers, apply custom discounts, and record upfront or partial payments.
Customer Storefront Checkout Workflow — Understand the customer checkout experience on BusinessPlus storefronts: cart drawer review, contact & delivery capture, loyalty point redemption, and idempotency safeguards.
Order Fulfillment Statuses & State Machine — A complete guide to the BusinessPlus fulfillment state machine: permitted transitions, status history audit logging, and operational rules.
Order Payment Statuses & Reconciliation — Master payment reconciliation in BusinessPlus: track payment statuses (Unpaid, Pending, Partially Paid, Paid, Overpaid), integrate mobile gateways, and log manual payments.
Order Notifications & Customer Communication — Understand the multi-channel notification architecture in BusinessPlus: real-time dashboard alerts, push notifications, WhatsApp alerts, and customer status updates.
Generating PDF Receipts & Tax Invoices — Generate, preview, and download professional PDF receipts and tax invoices for customer orders. Customize business branding, banking details, and deliver digital receipts via WhatsApp and email.
Public Document & Order Verification — Discover how BusinessPlus verifies invoice and receipt authenticity using cryptographic paylink tokens and live digital verification URLs.

Services & Bookings

Service catalog setup, appointment calendars, and customer booking passes.

Managing Services in BusinessPlus — Create and organize professional service offerings, set pricing and durations, configure booking settings, and control public storefront visibility.
Service Fields Reference Guide — A complete reference of every user-configurable service field in BusinessPlus, detailing data types, required constraints, customer visibility, and scheduling impacts.
Appointment Calendar & Staff Scheduling — Manage daily, weekly, and monthly appointment schedules across all staff practitioners and locations with real-time conflict detection and waitlist tracking.
Creating & Managing Staff Appointments — Learn how staff members schedule manual appointments from the calendar, assign specialists, link CRM profiles, and log upfront payments.
Customer Online Booking Workflow — Understand the public storefront booking journey: service selection, practitioner choice, live time slot availability, contact capture, and instant confirmation.
Booking Statuses & Appointment Lifecycle — Master the appointment state machine: understand status meanings, transition workflows, cancellation logging, and no-show count tracking.
Digital Booking Pass & Self-Service Rescheduling — Discover how customers manage appointments online using secure digital Booking Passes: QR verification, calendar sync (.ics), self-service rescheduling, and cancellation.
Booking Settings, Reminders & Notifications — Configure site-wide booking rules: auto-confirmation toggles, custom cancellation policies, automated reminder schedules (48h, 24h, 2h), and waitlist settings.

Storefronts

E-commerce storefronts, custom subdomains, custom DNS mapping, and customer reviews.

Creating & Configuring a BusinessPlus Storefront — Launch an online storefront for your business: understand automatic subdomain provisioning, site architecture, and basic storefront activation.
Storefront Settings, Themes & Customization — Style your storefront to match your brand identity: apply curated theme presets, select typography from Google Fonts, set color palettes, and configure layout modes.
Custom Domains & Storefront URLs — Connect a custom domain to your BusinessPlus storefront: configure DNS CNAME records, test live DNS propagation, and secure automatic SSL certificates.
Storefront Product Catalog & Shopping Experience — Discover how online customers browse your catalog: responsive product cards, category navigation tabs, real-time search, sorting, and out-of-stock protections.
Product Detail Pages & Customer Actions — Discover the rich capabilities of BusinessPlus product and service detail pages: high-resolution image galleries, video embeds, WhatsApp ordering, trust badges, and Web Share.
Storefront Cart & Checkout Workflow — Understand the customer checkout experience on BusinessPlus storefronts: shopping cart drawer, contact & delivery capture, loyalty point redemption, and idempotency safeguards.
Customer Product Reviews & Moderation — Collect authentic customer ratings, written reviews, and photo uploads on storefront product pages, and moderate submissions from the dashboard.
Customer Accounts, Loyalty & Storefront AI Assistant — Explore the customer experience on BusinessPlus storefronts: passwordless OTP login, loyalty point tracking, order history access, and 24/7 AI chat assistance.

AI Assistant

Grounding knowledge base training, multi-channel chat, AI logs, and staff handoff.

BusinessPlus AI Assistant Overview & Architecture — Discover the architecture of the BusinessPlus AI assistant: ground-truth knowledge retrieval, real-time catalog grounding, customer session context, and multi-channel deployment.
Training the Business Knowledge Base — Upload operational guidelines, policy documents, delivery details, and custom FAQs to ensure your AI assistant provides accurate customer responses.
AI Chatbot Identity, Persona & Tone Customization — Customize the voice and behavior of your AI assistant: configure bot identity, custom system prompts, tone presets, language modes, and auto-response rules.
Chat Widget Appearance, Styling & Embedding — Style your live chat widget to match your website: configure color palettes, bubble icons, corner roundness, screen positions, and external script embedding.
Automated Lead Capture & Contact Extraction — Discover how the AI assistant captures customer phone numbers, emails, and purchase intent during conversation, automatically creating qualified CRM leads.
AI-to-Staff Escalation & Human Takeover Workflow — Learn how complex customer conversations are escalated from the AI assistant to human staff members in the unified Inbox, and how to resume bot automation.
Auditing AI Activity, Latency & Query Analytics — Monitor customer interactions with your AI assistant, review query confidence scores, inspect source tokens, and track response latency in milliseconds.
Deploying AI Assistant on WhatsApp — Connect your AI assistant to WhatsApp Cloud API: deliver 24/7 automated customer support, share formatted product catalogs, and escalate to human agents.

Communications

WhatsApp Cloud API integration, unified messaging inbox, and social post scheduling.

Unified Messaging Inbox & Team Collaboration — Centralize customer conversations from WhatsApp, storefront chat widgets, and email into a single operational inbox for your team with real-time channel filters and CRM integration.
WhatsApp Cloud API Integration & Setup — Connect your official WhatsApp Business Cloud API account to enable automated customer service, catalog discovery, order taking, and messaging in the Inbox.
Human Agent Takeover & AI Automation Controls — Master the conversation takeover workflow: understand automatic bot silencing when staff reply, human takeover indicators, and manual AI reactivation.
Social Media Channels & Accounts Management — Connect your official Facebook Pages and Instagram Professional business accounts to publish and schedule posts across all channels from one dashboard.
Composing & Scheduling Social Media Posts — Create, schedule, and automate social media posts across connected channels using the integrated Social Composer and AI content generator.
AI Social Copywriting & Catalog Content Generator — Generate high-converting social media captions, promotional hooks, and relevant hashtags with AI grounded directly on your active product and service catalog.
Social Post Statuses, Calendar & Publishing Lifecycle — Understand the social post state machine: track publication progress across draft, scheduled, publishing, published, and failed states with automated retry handling.
Multi-Channel Notifications & Alert Rules — Configure site-wide notification preferences: set alert triggers for new orders, leads, low inventory, and payment failures across WhatsApp, Email, and Web Push.

Payments

M-Pesa STK push, IntaSend card processing, and manual transaction verification.

Payments Architecture & Multi-Gateway Processing — Accept payments across online and offline channels: automated Safaricom M-Pesa STK push, IntaSend Visa/Mastercard processing, digital paylinks, and manual cash logging.
Safaricom M-Pesa Daraja STK Push Integration — Connect your Safaricom Daraja API credentials to trigger instant M-Pesa PIN prompts on customer phones during online storefront checkout and digital paylink settlement.
IntaSend Card & Mobile Money Processing — Integrate the IntaSend gateway to accept international Visa and Mastercard debit/credit cards with automated 3D Secure verification and webhook reconciliation.
Digital Paylinks & Hosted Checkout Pages — Generate standalone, mobile-responsive payment links with cryptographic token protection to collect payments via WhatsApp, SMS, email, or invoice.
Recording Manual & Offline Transactions — Log physical cash, bank transfers, POS card payments, and partial installments directly into the payment ledger with custom references and notes.
Payments Ledger & Transaction Reconciliation — Track revenue, audit transaction histories, inspect payment gateway logs, and re-verify pending transactions in the Payments ledger.
Payment Statuses & Transaction Lifecycle — Understand the payment state machine: track transactions across pending, completed, failed, and refunded states and see how orders update automatically.
Payment Receipts & Automated Proof of Payment — Generate official, branded PDF payment receipts and dispatch proof-of-payment documents automatically to customer WhatsApp numbers and email inboxes.

Subscriptions & Billing

Platform subscription plans, billing frequencies, and account status locks.

Platform Subscriptions & Billing Overview — Understand the BusinessPlus subscription architecture: plan tiers, billing cycles, multi-site management, and organization-level billing.
Subscription Plans, Tiers & Feature Matrix — Compare available BusinessPlus subscription tiers and resource quotas to choose the optimal plan for your business scale.
Subscription Lifecycle & Status Transitions — Understand the subscription state machine: follow your account through trial, active, grace period, suspended, and cancelled states.
Read-Only Mode & Feature Lock Enforcement — Learn what happens when an account enters Read-Only mode: understand write lockout enforcement, disabled features, and safe data preservation.
Subscription Payments, M-Pesa Renewal & Invoicing — Renew or upgrade your platform subscription in seconds: trigger an instant M-Pesa STK push prompt on your phone or pay by credit card with automated reactivation.
Grace Period Mechanics & Expiry Warnings — Learn how the grace period protects your business operations when a renewal date passes, giving you time to renew without downtime.
Managing Organization Billing & Payment Methods — Update corporate billing information, tax identification numbers, and contact emails to ensure accurate platform invoicing.
Subscription Cancellation, Data Retention & Reactivation — Understand the cancellation procedure, continued access through your paid term, long-term data retention guarantees, and instant reactivation.

Analytics & Reporting

Sales metrics, revenue trends, and operational performance reporting.

Executive Analytics Dashboard & KPI Overview — Monitor high-level business performance, sales volume, confirmed revenue, and customer growth trends in real time from the Executive Analytics dashboard.
Sales Velocity, Revenue Trends & Pipeline Value — Understand how revenue is calculated across order states, analyze daily sales velocity with interactive area charts, and monitor pending pipeline values.
Top Products, Best Sellers & Inventory Velocity — Discover your top-selling products and services ranked by unit sales volume and revenue generation to guide inventory replenishment and promotions.
Order Status Breakdown & Fulfillment Funnel — Track order fulfillment health: inspect the distribution of orders across lifecycle stages, measure completion rates, and detect cancellation spikes.
Storefront Traffic, Views & Checkout Conversion — Measure customer acquisition and storefront engagement: analyze visitor traffic, product page impressions, and cart-to-checkout conversion rates.
AI Assistant Performance & Inquiry Analytics — Evaluate your AI assistant's operational efficiency: track conversation volume, automated answer rates, human escalations, and common customer questions.
Exporting PDF Executive Reports & Summaries — Generate professional, formatted PDF performance reports for stakeholders and schedule automated daily or weekly business digests via email and WhatsApp.
Financial & Operational CSV Data Export — Export complete, unaggregated business records to CSV format for custom spreadsheet modeling, financial audits, and third-party accounting imports.

Data & Security

CSV data export/import, administrative backups, and soft delete recovery.

Data Management, Backup & Security Architecture — Discover the enterprise-grade data security foundation of BusinessPlus: strict multi-tenant isolation, automated daily backups, role-based access control, and soft deletion.
CSV Data Export & Bulk Catalog Import — Export line-by-line business datasets to CSV for external accounting, or import bulk product inventory catalogs with intelligent column mapping.
Administrative Backup Jobs & JSON Archives — Generate comprehensive, machine-readable JSON backup archives of your entire business database including products, orders, settings, and conversations.
Soft Delete Management & Data Trash Recovery — BusinessPlus uses non-destructive soft deletion to protect your business records. Deleted products, services, and customer profiles can be recovered instantly.
Team Roles, RBAC & Granular Permission Matrix — Manage collaborator access using Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): configure team roles and granular permission flags to protect sensitive financial and customer data.
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA/MFA) & Account Security — Enforce multi-factor authentication across staff accounts to prevent unauthorized access using Google Authenticator, Authy, or Apple Keychain.
Security Audit Logs & Activity Monitoring — Monitor chronological security audit trails: inspect collaborator actions, login timestamps, inventory price modifications, and payment verifications.
Data Privacy, Cookie Consent & Tenant Isolation — Ensure compliance with global and regional data privacy laws: configure cookie consent banners, generate legal policies, and understand tenant data isolation.

BusinessPlus Connect (Developer)

API keys, embedded chat widget integration, REST endpoints, and custom web integration.

BusinessPlus Connect: Developer Architecture & Authentication — Integrate BusinessPlus e-commerce catalog APIs, order intake, and conversational AI widgets into custom web or mobile applications using high-performance REST endpoints.
Installing & Customizing the Embedded Chat Widget — Embed the 24/7 AI chat assistant into any custom website (WordPress, Shopify, React, Webflow, HTML) to provide automated customer support and catalog search.
Products REST API Reference — Fetch active product catalog items for your business site via HTTPS GET requests for custom e-commerce storefronts or mobile apps.
Services & Bookings REST API Reference — Fetch active service offerings, appointment durations, and booking prices via HTTPS GET requests.
Unified Catalog API Reference — Retrieve your business site metadata, product catalog, and service listings in a single high-performance request with server-side caching.
Orders & Checkout REST API Reference — Submit customer orders programmatically from custom applications, receive cryptographic paylink URLs, and trigger automated notifications.
Leads & CRM Ingestion REST API Reference — Ingest prospect contact details, inquiry messages, and intent tags from external landing pages directly into your BusinessPlus CRM directory.
Headless & Custom Web Application Integration Guide — Integrate BusinessPlus backend infrastructure into custom React, Vue, Next.js, or HTML websites by combining Catalog APIs and the Embedded Chat Widget.

Support & Troubleshooting

DNS custom domain resolution, M-Pesa callbacks, and troubleshooting procedures.

BusinessPlus Support & Diagnostic Tools Overview — Diagnose and resolve common operational issues using built-in diagnostic tools, live health checkers, and self-service troubleshooting guides.
Troubleshooting Custom Domains & DNS Resolution — Fix common custom domain issues: resolve CNAME routing errors, diagnose SSL certificate delays, and test live DNS records directly in the dashboard.
Troubleshooting M-Pesa STK Push & Callbacks — Resolve M-Pesa payment issues: diagnose missing STK push prompts, fix credential misconfigurations, interpret Safaricom error codes, and manual re-verify.
Troubleshooting WhatsApp Business & Webhooks — Fix WhatsApp Cloud API connection issues: resolve webhook handshake failures, refresh expired Meta tokens, and troubleshoot template message delivery.
Troubleshooting AI Assistant Grounding & Accuracy — Improve AI assistant response quality: fix grounding gaps in your Knowledge Base, prevent out-of-scope answers, and optimize system prompt instructions.
Troubleshooting CSV Import & Data Formatting Errors — Fix CSV import rejections: format spreadsheet headers properly, resolve duplicate SKU conflicts, and ensure clean UTF-8 encoding.
Troubleshooting Read-Only Account Locks & Grace Periods — Diagnose and resolve account lock states: clear grace period warning banners, understand read-only restrictions, and restore full access instantly.
Troubleshooting API Errors, CORS & Rate Limits — Debug external API integrations: resolve HTTP 401 missing key errors, fix CORS origin blocks, and manage rate limit exceptions.