Skip to main content
Put the check in the calendar for a date two weeks before you go live, and name the one person who signs it. Invite everyone whose work appears below, and ask each of them to bring the evidence for their own lines. Answer six lines. Each is settled by something a person who was not in the room could look at, so gather the evidence before the meeting rather than during it.

​
What each line takes to answer

Treat “nearly” as a no. A line that is nearly a yes is work with an owner and a date on it, not a detail to finish during launch week.

​
Reconcile your imported data by value

Compare totals, not row counts. A row count tells you the import ran. It stays identical when a price moves a decimal place, when a purchase value lands in the wrong column, and when stock imports perfectly and belongs to no listing. Run these in any order, and write down what each one returned: Trace every difference to the listing or the stock item behind it. The Purchase Price column on Inventory → Stock items settles a single item; a gap of a few percent across a whole location is usually one mis-mapped column rather than many small errors. Record what you found and what you did about it. A difference nobody named is the one that comes back in week one, as a refund rather than as a correction.
Reconcile before you start correcting. The comparison works only while both sides still hold what the import produced. Once you edit prices and stock to fix what you found, the account no longer shows what arrived, and a second pass cannot tell your correction from an import error. Take the totals first, then correct against a written list.

​
Prove the payment on live settings

Taking the live payment belongs to Connect payments and Run your pre-launch test order. This check wants the trail it left. A settled charge is not a payout. Providers batch payouts on their own schedule and take their fees on the way, so the amount reaching your bank differs from the amount on the order, and the payment figures in TWICE carry none of your provider’s fees. Reconcile the two once here, and the first real payout in your first weeks is arithmetic you have already done.

​
Write a rollback condition someone can act on

Write one sentence with four parts in it. A condition missing any of them is an intention, and nobody acts on an intention at 07:00 on a Saturday. Say in the same sentence what returns you to normal, so the fallback ends on evidence rather than on someone’s nerve. Store the condition where the person on call can reach it, and tell them where it is.

​
Name who is on call

Put a name against each day of the first week. Tell the whole team which name covers which day, and how to reach that person outside working hours. One named person per day beats a group chat in which everyone assumes somebody else is answering.

​
Hold the meeting and record the decision

Read the six lines in order and take the evidence for each. Then say out loud which of two things you are doing:
  • Go. The date stands. The person signing says so, and you move to Go live.
  • No-go. Name what failed, give every failed line an owner and a date, and either fix it inside the two weeks or move the launch date.
Record the decision, the date it was taken, and who took it. Two weeks is the room you have to act on what the check finds, which is why it sits there and not the day before.

​
Done when

  • Every one of the six lines has evidence behind it that somebody outside the room could check.
  • Every difference found in reconciliation is traced to a listing or a stock item, and has been corrected or accepted in writing.
  • A live-mode payment has been taken, refunded, and followed from the order to your bank.
  • The rollback condition names a trigger, a threshold, a decider and an action, and the person on call knows where to find it.
  • One named person has signed a go or a no-go, on a date.
  • After a no-go, a new launch date is set and every failed line has an owner.

Go live

The step this check gates, and the cutover that follows it.

Run your test order

The round trip that produces the live payment this check asks for.

Connect payments and checkout

Connecting a provider, and what a live-mode payment proves.

Train your team

What trained staff means, and how it is observed.

Build a price table

Rate cards and their linked listings, which is where prices reconcile fastest.

Reports

Every built-in report, including the inventory and finance ones used here.

Your first weeks

Reading your numbers and reconciling payouts once you are live.