The desktop version of Abio provides access to entry screens, reports and utilities via the navigation pane:


When Abio first opens, each of the subsystems are displayed. At this point you can stretch the panel to be wider or narrower, or hide it by clicking the button on the top left.

If you are managing more than one set of books, you’ll see a drop-down list you can select different companies from.

Abio has been designed to enable power users to work through entering large amounts of information for very large jobs. Using the mouse tends to slow data entry down, so Abio provides keyboard shortcuts for every action. If you are on an entry screen and want to position on the navigation pane, simply use <ctrl> Q.

You can use the mouse to click on menu items, but you can also just type the letter next to the option. So, for example, if you wanted to open the vendor entry screen you could do so by typing <ctrl> Q to position on the menu. If any sub-menus are open, you would press <escape> until the sub-menus are all closed. Then you would type [a] to open the Payables menu, and then type [a] to open the vendor entry screen.

Abio opens to the vendor entry screen. You can select any of the vendor tabs by using <alt> and the number of the tab. We’ll look more at entry screens in the next lesson.