Welcome. This is the fastest path from a fresh account to a working dashboard that tells you what's happening in your business. Follow these five steps in order and you'll be in great shape within 30 minutes.
Every step has a why (what you get out of it) and a what you'll see after (so you know you did it right).
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1. Connect your first Shopify store · ~5 min
Why: Nothing else works until Ecom Forward can read your orders, products, and customers. Shopify is the backbone.
- From the sidebar, click Stores, then Add store.
- Enter your
your-store.myshopify.comdomain. - Click through the Shopify permission screen (read-only on products, orders, and customers).
- You'll land back on the Stores page with your store listed as Connected.
What you'll see after: A green connection badge next to your store name. New orders start flowing in right away. To pull your history, click Backfill data on the store card and pick how far back to go — see Backfilling your data.
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2. Meet your Command Center (and Ford) · ~2 min
Why: The Command Centeris your home — live revenue, profit and ROAS, your monthly objective, and what needs attention, with Ford in the middle. It's where you'll start every day.
- Click Command Center at the top of the sidebar.
- Glance at the live numbers and the “Needs Attention” line.
- Tap the glowing brain in the middle and ask Ford something — “how did yesterday go?” or “where am I losing money?”
What you'll see after: Real numbers, and an answer from Ford in plain English. (Prefer the classic detailed grid? It's the Dashboard entry just below Command Center.)
3. Connect at least one ad platform · ~5 min
Why:Your ROAS, blended return, and per-platform spend all depend on ad sync. The P&L pulls ad spend nightly and subtracts it from revenue automatically.
- From Stores, pick a store, then scroll to the Ad platforms section.
- Click Connect on whichever you use:
- Meta: paste a long-lived access token (1 minute to generate in Meta Business Settings).
- TikTok: paste an access token from TikTok Business Center.
- Google Ads / Pinterest / Snapchat: click Connect and go through OAuth — no tokens to paste.
- The platform runs a nightly sync at 1:30 AM UTC. Click Sync now to backfill immediately.
What you'll see after: Your Marketing tab populates within a few minutes. Blended ROAS appears on the Dashboard.
4. Set COGS on your top products · ~10 min
Why:Without COGS, your P&L can show revenue but not profit. Setting COGS for even your top 10 products transforms the platform.
- Go to Products → Catalog.
- Sort by Revenue (30d) to find your top earners.
- For each product, click the COGS cell and type your tier-1 unit cost.
- Use the Quick filter: Needs COGS to see everything still missing a value.
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What you'll see after: Open the P&L tab and your Gross Profit line is now populated. Margin % tells you whether your products are actually profitable after COGS.
5. Invite your most important teammate · ~3 min
Why: Solo operators who invite just one teammate (bookkeeper, ops lead, agency, VA) retain 5-10× longer. And once you start sharing numbers, you stop being the bottleneck.
- From the sidebar, click Team.
- Click Invite member.
- Enter their email and pick a role — or create a custom role (e.g. “Accountant” with Financials access only).
- They receive a magic-link email and join your workspace with exactly the access you picked.
What you'll see after: Your teammate appears in the Team list. When they sign in, they only see the tabs you granted. Every action they take is stamped to the audit log.
What's next
- Set a monthly goal so pacing starts working.
- Choose how Ford's alerts reach you — a one-tap preset, then fine-tune.
- Connect your ad platforms and Klaviyo so spend, ROAS and email revenue blend into your real profit.
- Connect reviews, support, or Google Analytics if you use them.
- Get Ford in your pocket — connect him to Slack or Telegram.
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