Test copies and environments

A test copy is a clone of your organization: your setup and your books exactly as they are, in a separate organization where you can try things out, train people or run acceptance tests without touching the real books. Your real organization is called Production; each test copy has a name of its own, such as Test or Dev.

Where: Settings → Test copies (administrators only). The API is test copies; why it works this way is in ADR-0039 and ADR-0040.

Make a copy

1. Open Settings → Test copies in Production and choose Make a test copy.
2. Give it a name (it is what the environment picker shows), and tick Mask customers and vendors if the people who will test should not see who your customers and vendors are (see Masking). Masking is off unless you tick it.
3. Make the copy. The copy is ready when the screen says so.

What is copied: everything of the business, exactly as it is: companies and settings, chart of accounts, customers, vendors and products, every entry, invoice, bill, payment, asset, bank statement and VAT return, contracts, plans and closes, stored files, the audit trail, and your people with their roles. Before the copy is ready, its books are checked against yours: every hash chain verifies and every account has the same balance. If anything differs, no copy is made.

What is not copied: API keys, sign-in sessions, the security log and exports.

An organization has at most five test copies at a time. A copy is not copied again.

Switch between environments

The environment picker in the top bar, next to the company name, lists Production and each of its test copies by name. One click switches: you stay signed in, and the page reloads in the other environment. Every page of a test copy shows an orange banner, so you always know you are not in Production.

Copy link on the Test copies screen gives a link that opens the copy itself, to share with the people who test there. If someone opens it while signed in to another environment, the app asks first and names both places, so nobody moves between a copy and Production without noticing. The link grants nothing: only the copy's own people get in.

A copy never reaches the real world

A test copy holds your real customers, vendors and bank accounts (unless masked), so nothing that could reach them or a bank leaves it: no invoice e-mails, QR-bills, e-invoices or payment files. Every invoice and statement PDF is marked on each page as a test copy and not valid. Your own people still get their sign-in e-mails from Google.

Refresh

Refresh now replaces the copy with a fresh clone of Production as it is now, masked again if it was masked. Everything done in the copy is lost; it keeps its name and link, and everyone signed in to it is signed out. If anything goes wrong the copy stays as it was.

A copy can also refresh by itself, every night or every week (Refreshed by itself). If a scheduled refresh could not run, the copy says so on the Test copies screen ("Not refreshed on date: reason"), for example when whoever set the schedule is no longer an administrator; setting the schedule again fixes that.

Masking

A masked copy is for testing with people who should not see who your customers and vendors are. Their names, e-mails, addresses, bank accounts and contacts become mock values (Customer 001, Vendor 001) everywhere in the copy, including the history; notes about them and hand-typed journal texts (such as a salary naming an employee) become "(masked)", and stored files become placeholders.

Nothing else changes: amounts, dates, accounts, codes, VAT data, your setup and the books stay exactly the same, so reports and totals match Production. Your own people keep their names and e-mails, because that is how they sign in.

Testers. Only a masked copy can have testers from outside your organization: open the copy and invite them in Settings → Users. They reach that copy only, never Production, and stay through refreshes. An unmasked copy holds your real data, so only your own people reach it.

Sample data

In a test organization (never in Production), Add sample data adds a month of invented business to one company: three sample customers, two sample vendors, four invoices and two bills dated this month, and the payment of the first invoice and the first bill. It goes through the ordinary rules, so VAT and accounts are right and the books stay balanced. Asking again adds another set.

Remove a copy

Remove deletes a test copy and everything in it for good. From that moment nobody can open it; it is deleted with the next deploy. Production is never touched, and a real organization can never be removed this way.

Who may do what