First-week setup checklist
Set up your shop in Meridian, in order: shop profile, locations, tax, labor rates, users, employees, parts basics — then go live.
You just created your shop in Meridian and the trial clock is running. Work through this checklist in order — each step feeds the next, so an hour spent here means your first real repair order prices itself, taxes itself, and lands on the right location's books.
Everything below lives under Settings in the sidebar. Only owners and managers can open Settings; if a step sends you somewhere else, the step says so.
Fill in your shop profile. Open Settings and complete the Business Info, Contact, and Address cards — shop name, phone, and address print on every estimate and invoice you send. See Shop settings.
Add your locations. If you run more than one branch or a service truck base, add each one under Settings → Locations and star your main shop as the default. Single-location shops can skip this — your first location was created with your account. See Locations.
Set up tax areas. Under Settings → Tax Areas, click New Tax Area and enter your jurisdiction's parts and labor rates. Then put that area's code in the Default Tax Area Code field on the main Settings page so new orders tax themselves. See Shop settings.
Create your labor rates. Under Settings → Labor Rates, click New Rate and add each rate you bill at — standard, fleet, warranty — and star one as the default. Every labor line on an order starts from these. See Shop settings.
Review fees and payment settings. If you pass card surcharges to customers or take card payments at the counter, walk through Settings → Payments (card processing, surcharge rules) before your first checkout.
Invite your team. Under Settings → Users, invite each person with the role that matches their job — advisors write orders, parts clerks run inventory, accounting sees the money. See Users and permissions.
Create employee records — and flag your technicians. Under Employees in the sidebar (not Settings), click New Employee for every person who turns wrenches or clocks time, and check the Technician box for your techs. A user login alone does not put a tech in the tech dropdown — this step does. Then link each employee to their login. See Employees.
Set your parts basics. Under Settings → Part Categories, add the category codes you organize inventory by, and check Settings → Inventory for receiving preferences. You can build the full parts catalog as you go — categories first makes that cleaner.
Set your order preferences and go live. Back on the main Settings page, set your Order Number Prefix, decide on Auto-invoice on complete and Require mileage on close, and write your Invoice Footer Text. Then write your first real repair order — you're live.
What happens behind the scenes
Nothing here is cosmetic. The tax area and labor rate you mark as defaults are applied to every new order automatically, the shop profile feeds every printed document, and each invoiced order posts to your books under the location it was written at. Getting these right in week one means you never have to fix pricing or tax on live orders later.
Troubleshooting
A login and an employee record are two different things. Create an employee for them under Employees → New Employee, check the Technician box, and link their login on the employee's page. See Employees.
Only owners and managers see Settings — advisors, techs, parts clerks, and accounting are sent to their dashboard instead. That's by design. Check their role under Settings → Users, and see the permissions matrix for what each role can reach.
Two things have to be true: the tax area exists under Settings → Tax Areas, and its code is entered in Default Tax Area Code under Work Order Settings on the main Settings page. If you only did the first, orders start with no tax area.