Stria help centre
Walkthroughs for the work Stria is for, and troubleshooting for when something is not behaving.
Get something done
Walkthroughs, in the order the work happens.
Getting started
Set the workspace up and get your first job through it.
- Set up your workspace in three answers — What you do, what you need first, and roughly what a project is worth — Stria works out the rest.
- From a new client to money in the bank — The whole loop once, so the rest of the product makes sense.
- Move your clients and projects from another tool — Export a CSV from what you use now, map the columns once, and bring the book across.
- Build the form people fill in to hire you — Pick a starter set, edit the questions, choose what happens after they send it, then publish.
Clients and reviews
Share work, collect a sign-off, keep the record.
- Share work for review and collect a sign-off — One link, no login for your client, and a record of exactly what they approved.
- Add a client when you do not have their email yet — Start the record now, add the address when the conversation gets that far.
- Have a report send itself every week — Pick a report, a cadence and where it should land, and Stria writes and delivers it without you opening anything.
- Get an approval your client cannot walk back — How a sign-off captures a verified email, a server-observed IP and timestamp, and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the exact version approved.
- Check a certificate without a Stria account — Anyone holding the fingerprint can confirm an approval on a public page that never reveals the signer’s email or IP address.
- Contest an approval after it is signed — Either side can challenge a sign-off inside the dispute window. The original record is superseded rather than edited.
Scope and changes
Agree what is included, then price what is not.
- Write down what is included, and lock it — The one step that makes every later request answerable.
- Price a change a client just asked for — Paste the request, get a judgement against what you agreed, and turn it into a priced change order.
- How revision rounds are counted — What counts as a round, what happens when they run out, and why the meter might read nothing.
- Have Stria flag client email outside scope — Forward the message. Stria checks it against what you agreed and tells you before you reply.
Automatic forwarding
Set a rule once in your own mail app, so client email arrives without you sending it.
- Make client email arrive without forwarding — One rule in the mail app you already use, so the client messages you choose reach Stria on their own.
- Forward client email automatically from Gmail — Add the address, answer Google’s confirmation from inside Stria, then filter so only the mail you choose is sent.
- Forward client email automatically from Outlook — The rule takes a minute. Whether your organisation lets it leave the building is the part to check first.
- Forward client email automatically from iCloud Mail — Use a rule, not the account-wide forwarding switch, so only the client mail you choose leaves your mailbox.
- Forward client email from any other provider — The same four moves work anywhere with rules or filters — plus what to do about the providers that restrict forwarding.
Invoices and money
Get paid, chase what is late, read the year.
- Where an invoice gets its due date — From your payment terms, set once at setup and editable in Settings.
- Chase what is late — Reminders, late fees, and reading the aging buckets.
- Read your business health — Six numbers that say whether the business is working, not just how much money moved.
- Look at any month, quarter or range you like — Every figure on Business health follows one date control, and the thing it compares against is written next to it.
- What you spent and where the hours went — Three breakdowns under Business health that answer "what is my biggest cost", "who is my best client" and "how much of my time was billable".
- Hold the work until the deposit clears — A deposit invoice can withhold deliverable files at the point the download link is minted, so the hold is real rather than a polite request.
- Connect Stripe so payments land in your account — Stria charges no platform fee. Payments are taken on your own Stripe account, with your rates, your payout timing and no card details on Stria.
Time tracking
Run the clock, and trust the hours it produces.
- Where is my running timer? — In the header bar on every page, and in your browser tab title.
- Idle minutes, long sessions, and honest hours — Why the stop dialog offers to drop minutes, and why a very long session is not billable by default.
Something is not working
Symptoms in plain words, and what causes each one.
Troubleshooting
Something is not behaving. Start here.
- "A timer is already running" when I try to start one — One clock at a time. Find the running one and stop it.
- The Sentinel is not flagging anything — Four things to check, in order. An empty list is sometimes the correct answer.
- My revision limit is not stopping anything — Almost always an unlocked scope, or an allowance of zero.
- My effective hourly rate is blank or looks wrong — It needs logged hours and issued invoices, and it counts absorbed costs against you.
- My client says the review link does not work — Usually an expired link, a spam-filtered code, or the wrong email address.
- I cannot add another client or deliverable — You have reached a plan limit. Nothing is deleted and nothing is locked.
- My billable share shows a dash, not a percentage — The hours in that range pre-date the billable switch, so any figure Stria showed would be an artefact rather than a measurement.
- Why is my booking rate missing or low? — It is measured over proposals that got an answer, and it is withheld entirely when too few have.
- My client never got the sign-off code — The code is an ordinary email, so it can be filtered, delayed or sent to an address nobody reads. Here is how to tell which.
- The deposit is paid but the files are still locked — Part payment does not release a gate, and an offline payment has to be recorded before Stria knows it happened.
- Why has my client not had a payment reminder? — Reminders are capped, spaced, and skipped for invoices the payment processor is already chasing. A stopped scheduled job is visible in-product.
- The verification page says the content changed — The integrity check is recomputed from the current record, so it reports a change even when the approval itself is untouched.
Look something up
Plans, limits, and what happens to your data.
Account and plans
Limits, billing, and what happens to your data.
- Plans, trials and limits — What each plan includes and what happens when a trial ends.
- Getting your data out — Exports, what they contain, and what happens if you leave.
- Add a second step to signing in — Enrol an authenticator app and every protected page requires the code, including a password reset. It fails closed rather than open.
Email support if you cannot find an answer here.