The basics

Getting started

After you sign up or sign in at saku.ie, you land on the Home hub. From there open Boards, Notes, CRM, or Calendar, switch teams, and jump into existing work.

• Pick a team from the team selector in the header, or create one in Settings.
• Use New Board to create a board, then add lists and cards inside it.
• Open a card to add description, due date, priority, labels, assignees, comments, attachments, and checklists.
• Visit Settings for members, billing, team settings, and API keys on Max.

New to Saku? Take the guided product tour for a quick walkthrough of Boards, Notes, CRM, Calendar, and Insights. You can replay it any time from Settings, the Home help menu, or by visiting /tour. After the tour, explore the linked Example Client Ltd workspace — a sample board, CRM account, calendar item, and note — to see how everything connects before you add your own data.

Flow power view

Flow is an optional, full-screen workspace for experienced Saku users. Choose a product in the narrow rail, then keep opening context in columns from left to right. For example, Boards opens boards, the selected board's lists, that list's priority-marked cards, then the selected card with click-to-edit fields and checklists. Searchable actions follow for moving, assigning, labelling, creating labels, linking accounts, duplicating, archiving, and deleting. Costs (with the same expense fields and export options as the board card), connected links, threaded comments, and activity continue in their own columns. A settings control on each board opens the full board settings trail instead of lists. The Links header jumps to that column; each outgoing or incoming link is an actionable row that opens its record in a new Flow column, with the viewport moving there automatically. Use the card editor to add or change [[links]]. Notes opens vaults, notes, a Flow-native Markdown or visual editor that fills the column (Save sits beside the editor mode controls), then separate connected columns for labels and note actions, comments, sharing and permissions, and version history. Notes links and version previews open to the right, keeping the source note in view. CRM starts with accounts, contacts, leads, and deals, then opens the selected record and related work in additional columns. Account overviews use a clearer profile layout; you can add contacts from an account, and opening a board from an account continues into that board's lists and cards. Paths can keep growing as deeply as the work requires.

Open Flow from Home or search for Open Flow with Cmd/Ctrl + K. Flow loads each column only when you need it, keeps the timer bar available, and uses skeleton layouts while content arrives. Column headers include relevant creation shortcuts, and the large pinned horizontal scrubber above the timer makes long paths easy to move through. The timer recognises the card, board, note, account, contact, lead, or deal currently selected in Flow and offers to start a linked session for it. Flow has its own column-native controls rather than opening standard product modals. Flow is marked Beta in the header; on your first visit it explains the power-user layout, and you can reopen that note any time from the Beta or Power mode chips.

First board workflow

Most work in Saku follows the same shape: create a board, define your columns, add cards, then decide who should see or edit the board.

1. Create a board and choose the right team and visibility level.
2. Add lists that reflect your workflow, such as Backlog, In Progress, Review, and Done.
3. Add cards for the work itself, then open them to set owners, dates, labels, files, and comments.
4. Use Board Members to add teammates or invite customers as board-only guests.
5. If you collect work by email, enable Card creation via email from board settings so incoming messages create cards automatically.

If you are unsure which visibility to start with, use Invite only. It keeps the board private while you build it out. You can also use the global search trigger in the header with Cmd/Ctrl + K to jump between boards, Notes, CRM, and the New board action quickly.

What is Saku?

Saku is a connected business workspace for teams, not just a kanban board. Boards handle delivery with lists and cards; Notes capture knowledge with wiki links across CRM and projects; CRM tracks accounts, contacts, leads, and deals; Calendar brings due dates and meetings together; Time tracks billable work from anywhere in the app; Expenses connects employee claims and receipts to clients and delivery; Invoicing turns billable work and approved costs into client invoices you get paid for; Insights rolls up time and cost. Work, client context, money, and documentation share one hub and link to each other, so you are not juggling separate tools. On boards you organise delivery as cards on boards, grouped into lists. Moving a card between lists reflects progress. Cards support priority, due dates, labels, assignees, comments, attachments, checklists, and activity history. Teams own subscriptions and workspaces; access can be shared with teammates, guests, or the public depending on each board or note.

Key concepts

• Teams

  A team is a workspace. It has members, settings, a subscription, boards, Notes vaults, and (on Pro/Max) CRM data. You can belong to multiple teams and switch between them from the header on any hub page.

• Hub

  Home is the launcher for Boards, Notes, CRM, Calendar, and Insights. Each product shares the same team context and can link to the others (for example wiki links from Notes to CRM records or cards).

• Boards

  A board is where delivery work is tracked. Boards have lists, cards, labels, settings, and access controls. A board can be visible only to you, invite-only, open to the full team, or public read-only by link.

• Notes

  Notes live in personal or team vaults with folders, wiki links, versions, and sharing. See Notes for vaults, Smart Notes, and linking to CRM and cards.

• CRM

  On Pro and Max, CRM holds accounts, contacts, leads, and deals with pipeline views and linked Saku notes. See CRM.

• Lists

  Lists are the columns on a board. They represent stages in your workflow and can be renamed, reordered, and marked as done.

• Cards

  Cards are the tasks, requests, or deliverables on a board. They can be created manually, via the API on Max, or from inbound email on Pro and Max.

• Guests

  Guests are people you invite to one or more specific boards without adding them as full team members. This is useful for customers, clients, or external collaborators.

• Labels

  Labels are board-level tags used to categorize cards. A card can have multiple labels.

Where to manage things

• Home: the hub that launches every part of Saku and shows recent activity across your teams. Sections include Boards, Notes, CRM, Calendar, Time, Invoicing, and Insights on supported plans.
• Notes: personal and team vaults, wiki links to CRM and cards, and access requests for linked personal notes. My Work: your assigned cards queue.
• Time: track billable work with timers and manual entries, then Invoicing: turn that time into client invoices you get paid for.
• Board view: add lists and cards, open the share action, and manage board members.
• Board settings: rename the board, update visibility, set labels, change appearance, and configure email intake.
• Team settings: invite full members, review guest access, manage billing, and create API keys on Max through Settings.