Using the Tallycon admin console

Coming This guide describes Tallycon accounts, which open with our hosted service. Until then it is a preview.

What the console is for

The console is a small website where your firm's partners run the firm's Tallycon account from any browser: who has access, to which clients, on which computers, and what it is costing. Only partners can sign in to it. Staff and owners who try are told the console is for partners.

The console never shows your books, questions or answers, and never shows your clients' names. Tallycon's server has none of them. Clients appear as short ids, and Tallycon on your own computers shows which id is which client (see "Clients").

Signing in

Sign in with an email code or with Sign in with Google. The console signs you out after 30 minutes without use, and after 12 hours in any case, or when you close the browser. If a partner is disabled or made staff, their console session ends at once.

The console keeps working when your firm's licence has lapsed, so a partner can still read usage or remove people.

Overview

The first page shows your firm's name, your plan and the date it runs to, seats used out of your total, this month's spending against the firm's cap, the cap alerts sent this month, and how many partners' computers hold the firm key. If only one does, the page warns you (see "The firm key and the last computer that holds it").

Users

Each person has one role:

Partner: sees every client and runs the account.
Staff: accountants and article assistants; sees only the clients assigned to them.
Owner: a client's business owner; sees only their own business.

On Users you can:

Invite someone by email address, with a role and, if you tick with a seat, a seat. Give staff and owners their clients afterwards with Clients on their row. They get an email asking them to sign in with that address. An address can belong to only one firm's Tallycon account.
Change a role. Every partner is emailed when a role changes. Making someone a partner gives them every client; if they are later made staff again, they start with no clients and you assign them afresh. The firm must always keep at least one enabled partner.
Disable someone who has left or should stop for now. They are cut off at once: their seat is freed and the AI refuses their questions from that moment. Enable lets them sign in again; give them a seat again if they need one.
Assign seat or Free seat. A person needs a seat to ask questions. The page shows how many of your plan's seats are in use.
Set cap for a seat: a monthly spending limit for that person (see the spending caps guide).
Clients edits client assignments for staff and owners, up to 50 clients each, ticked by short id. Changes apply at the AI service at once, and in the person's Tallycon within 15 minutes.
Clear Google for a person whose address your Workspace admin gave to someone else (see the Google sign-in guide).
Erasing a disabled person who has asked to be forgotten is not in the console yet; ask us. Their email address, device names and device keys are deleted; usage stays for billing, under an id that no longer names anyone.

The page also shows each person's devices, whether they have signed in with Google, and their spending and cap this month.

Devices

Each seat can be signed in on a limited number of computers (your plan's device limit). Devices lists every computer in the firm's account: its name, whose it is, whether it is the office computer that serves remote access, whether it holds the firm key, when it was added and when it was last seen.

Remove a lost, stolen, sold or retired computer. It is cut off at once: it cannot ask another question, it frees a device slot, and the next time it reaches Tallycon's server it deletes its sign-in and its copy of the firm key.
Mark office for the computer that runs remote access for owners and partners outside the office. Tallycon does this itself when a partner turns on remote access; a member of staff who turns it on needs a partner to mark it here.
To have a removed computer's name and keys erased from the server, ask us; the console cannot do it yet.

The firm key and the last computer that holds it

Your firm key turns client names into client ids on your own computers. Only partners' computers hand it on to a new computer, after the partner compares a short code on both screens.

The console stops you removing the last partner's computer that holds the key, or disabling or demoting the partner who owns it, because the key would be lost. First sign in on a second partner's computer and let it receive the key. If the computer is lost or stolen and there is no other, you can still remove it: the console asks you to confirm, then your firm makes a new key in Tallycon, client ids change, and you assign clients to staff and owners again. Every partner is emailed when that happens.

The console cannot hand on the firm key itself. A browser holds no firm key, so handing it on always happens in Tallycon, between your firm's own computers.

Clients

Clients lists every client your firm has used Tallycon on, by short id, like 9f2c41be…7d03, with how many people are assigned to it, when it was first seen, and this month's spending and cap. Clicking an id copies the full one.

The names stay on your firm's computers. In Tallycon, the Clients page shows the same short id beside each client's name, so you can match a row in the console with the client it belongs to. When you assign clients to someone in the console you pick them by id; in Tallycon you pick them by name.

Why ids and not names: each id is worked out on your firm's computers from the client's name using your firm key, which the server never holds. The server can tell that Ravi may use client 9f2c41be…7d03, but not that this is Sharma Traders.

Usage and Caps

Usage shows a month's questions and their cost, grouped by person, seat, client, day or computer, for this month and up to 12 months back. Download CSV saves the same table. A question an owner asks from outside the office through remote access counts against the owner who asked it, not the office computer that read Tally for them.

Caps sets monthly spending limits; the spending caps guide covers it.

Emails partners receive

Every partner is emailed when: a role changes; Google sign-in settings change; caps change; a cap reaches 80% or 100%; a person is erased (by id, not address); the firm key is lost and must be remade; a new computer's key code did not match; and, while Google sign-in is required, whenever a partner signs in with an email code.

What Tallycon's server holds, and what it never sees

Holds	Never sees or keeps
Your firm's name, plan, seats and caps	Your books, ledgers, vouchers, questions or answers
Each person's email address, role, whether they are enabled, and their seat	Your clients' names: only ids made on your computers with your firm key
Each computer's name, its public key, whether it is the office computer and holds the firm key, when it was added and last seen	The firm key in readable form: at most a locked copy for one new computer, deleted once collected
Which client ids each person may use	Conversations, question logs, exports or GSTR-2B files, which stay on your computers
Usage per question: who asked, from which computer, for which client id, when, which AI model, how many tokens and the cost	The text of any question or answer: these pass through to the AI service and are not stored
Console sessions, kept only as a fingerprint and ended on sign-out or after 12 hours	Passwords: there are none

Removed people and computers stay listed, marked as removed, because the usage rows that bill your firm point at them. We erase a person's or computer's details on a partner's request. When your firm leaves Tallycon, you can ask us to delete the firm's account, which removes every record of it, usage included.