Company settings and the Setup menu

Setup is the admin's home. Company settings define the org's defaults: its locale, time zone, currencies, fiscal year, and working hours. Several of these choices are hard or impossible to reverse, so they deserve a plan before anyone clicks Save.

Finding your way around Setup

• Setup menu: Opened from the gear icon. The Quick Find box searches every Setup page by name, which is faster than browsing the tree.
• Object Manager: A separate Setup tab that lists every standard and custom object. Fields, page layouts, record types, and validation rules all live under the object.
• Setup Audit Trail: Records configuration changes made in Setup: who changed what and when. Use it when a setting changed and nobody remembers why.
• Login History: Shows each login attempt with its time, source IP, login type, and status. The first place to look when a user says they can't log in.
• System Overview and limits: Setup shows usage against org limits such as data storage, file storage, custom objects, and API calls, so you can spot trouble before a limit is hit.

Company information

• Company Information page: Holds the org's name, primary contact, default locale, default language, default time zone, and the license counts the org has bought and used.
• Default locale and time zone: The org defaults used for new users. Each user can set their own locale, language, and time zone, and dates and numbers display in the user's settings.
• User and feature licenses: The Company Information page lists every license type with totals and used counts. Check it before creating users or assigning a feature license.
• Locale controls number, date, and address formats. Language controls the labels users see. They are separate settings.

Fiscal years and currencies

• Standard fiscal year: Twelve months that follow the Gregorian calendar, starting in the month you choose. Forecasts and report date filters such as "this fiscal quarter" use it.
• Custom fiscal year: For companies with irregular periods, such as a 4-4-5 week pattern. Once enabled it can't be turned off, and each custom year has to be defined, so plan before switching.
• Multiple currencies: Lets records carry their own currency. Once enabled it can't be disabled. The corporate currency is the one exchange rates are based on.
• Advanced currency management: Adds dated exchange rates, so opportunities convert at the rate in effect on their close date instead of a single static rate.

Business hours and holidays

• Business hours: Define when the company works, per time zone. One set is the default; you can add more for regional teams.
• Holidays: Dates linked to business hours that pause the clock. Escalation rules, entitlement milestones, and case age calculations can respect them.
• Business hours matter most in Service: an escalation rule that should fire after 8 working hours fires too early if it counts nights and weekends.