Help center

How to use DixonDesk

Setup, then a walkthrough of each tab in the app — the everyday workflow plus the parts that aren’t obvious from the screen.

Getting started

Your first 14 days

DixonDesk starts a 14-day trial automatically the moment you open it — nothing to sign up for, no card required. Every feature is fully available during the trial, including syncing every marketplace and connecting as many accounts as you want. There’s no crippled “lite” version to work around.

If the trial runs out before you’ve activated a license, your dashboard, every tab, and full export all stay fully available — nothing you’ve already entered is ever locked away. What actually requires an active trial or license is adding new activity: syncing pauses, and creating or editing purchases, sales, and any other record needs a current subscription. Renew any time to pick up exactly where you left off.

The quickest way to start

You don’t have to connect anything to start using DixonDesk. Add order and Add sale let you enter a purchase or a sale by hand, so you can put real numbers in on day one and set up accounts whenever you’re ready.

•Add order — manual purchase entry, and the only way in for anything that didn’t come through mail sync: bought in person, or from somewhere DixonDesk doesn’t read email for. Same shape as editing an order — vendor, order number, method, date, tracking, line items — just starting from a blank form instead of a parsed one.

•Add sale — manual sale entry, for the same reasons on the selling side. Two toggles worth knowing about: marking a sale as a pre-order, for something sold before it’s in hand, and a “multiple items” option for logging several different items sold together as one order.

Connecting your accounts

Everything DixonDesk does starts with two kinds of accounts, both under Accounts in the sidebar.

Mailboxes

How DixonDesk knows what you paid for something. Connect the email accounts you use for buying inventory and it reads confirmation and shipping emails to build your purchase history automatically. You’ll need the email address, an app-specific password (not your regular login password — Gmail, Outlook and most providers require a separate one for this), and the IMAP server details, which are usually filled in automatically once you pick your provider. You can also set how far back to look on first connect.

Selling accounts

What pulls in your actual sales, fees and refunds. DixonDesk connects directly to eBay, Amazon, Walmart and Wix through each platform’s own seller API, not a browser login — so you’ll need API credentials from that marketplace’s developer or seller center rather than just your seller login. Each connection screen asks for slightly different fields (client ID, client secret, refresh token, and so on) depending on what that platform requires.

Mailbox connections are unlimited on every plan. Selling accounts are the one thing tied to your subscription tier.

Bringing in data you already have

If you’re not starting from zero, File → Import has two options:

•My resale book (Excel) — if you’ve been tracking purchases in a spreadsheet, this brings that history in directly rather than making you re-enter it by hand.

•Sales from a file — for bringing in a sales export, a CSV from a marketplace for example, instead of waiting for automatic sync to catch up.

For column names, formatting tips, and how to get a clean import on the first try, see Importing your book.

Settings worth checking early

Tools → Settings covers a handful of things worth setting up before you get going, not just tweaking later:

•Business name, address, invoice format and default tax rate — used to pre-fill invoices and the Add Order form. Always editable per order afterward; this just saves retyping the same numbers every time.

•Backups — your whole ledger is backed up automatically on whatever schedule you set (daily, weekly, or on close), to a folder outside the app’s own install location by default, specifically so a backup never lives where a drive failure or bad install could take out the original. Old backups beyond your chosen count are cleaned up automatically.

•How often to sync automatically — how frequently DixonDesk checks your connected accounts for new activity in the background, without you clicking anything.

•Automatic updates — on by default. DixonDesk checks for new versions periodically and verifies them, both the file itself and its digital signature, before installing anything.

Licensing

DixonDesk is a subscription in two tiers — Basic (up to 2 selling accounts) and Unlimited (as many as you connect). Mailbox connections don’t count toward this limit on either tier, since they’re what feeds your cost data.

Once you’ve subscribed, activate your license under File → License… — paste in the key from your confirmation email and click Activate. The same screen shows your current status, trial days remaining or your active plan, at any time. If a subscription ever lapses, the same graceful behavior as an expired trial applies: viewing and exporting never stop, only adding or changing records pauses until you renew.

Still stuck?

Ask in the Discord — edge cases and release notes live there too.

Open the Discord