TradeFlow
Website ManualWebsite BuilderDashboard
Subscriber guide

TradeFlow Website Manual

A simple guide to building and maintaining your customer-facing website. TradeFlow keeps the important business connections working automatically, so you can concentrate on your branding, pages and content.

Open Website BuilderOpen Buying CatalogueOpen SellingBusiness Settings

Business Dashboard

The Business Dashboard is your operational home screen. You do not need to know TradeFlow's backend, database or technical implementation to use it.

Use the dashboard to see where work currently sits across:

  • Buying — new customer requests and acquisition work.
  • Inventory — items that have completed the buying process and are available for stock/sales operations.
  • Selling — listings and sales activity.
  • Orders — customer retail orders.
  • Fulfilment — orders waiting to be completed and shipped.
  • Returns — return activity requiring attention.
Dashboard colours are operational guidance. Green indicates action required from the business; blue indicates internal processing; yellow indicates waiting for the customer; red indicates an exception or process needing attention.

Use the dashboard cards to open the relevant area and process the next action. The technical backend, database tables, security policies and internal services are managed by TradeFlow and are not part of normal subscriber operation.

TradeFlow Assistant and customer assistant

The TradeFlow Assistant is the subscriber help assistant. It is designed to explain how to use your TradeFlow workspace using approved TradeFlow guidance. The subscriber does not need to understand the backend, database or AI provider technology.

The customer-facing assistant is separate from the subscriber assistant. A signed-in customer can ask about their own buying/selling journey, orders, shipping and returns. Customer information is restricted to that customer and this business.

AI boundary: the assistants cannot freely search or change the TradeFlow database. They must remain within the approved tenant/customer security boundary. Gary's personal Gemma research system is separate from TradeFlow and is not connected to customer or subscriber assistants.

If an AI provider is enabled for TradeFlow, provider credentials remain server-side. A subscriber-owned provider connection, where offered, uses the subscriber's own provider account rather than exposing credentials to customers.

How the website works

Your website has two different types of content:

  • Website design and content — controlled in Website Builder. You can choose a template, colours, backgrounds, typography, page text, images and optional pages.
  • Business data — connected automatically from TradeFlow. What We Buy comes from your Buying Catalogue. What We Sell comes from your published Selling listings. The Website Banner is a compact branding area used in the What We Sell title area; it is not a full-width page strip.
You do not type product lists into the Website Builder. The Builder controls how the pages look. TradeFlow supplies the connected products and categories.

1. Start with Business Settings

Before designing the site, open Settings.

  1. Enter your business name and customer-facing contact details.
  2. Open Website Builder → Branding to upload or replace your business logo and website banner.
  3. Choose which contact details customers can see.
  4. Save your business details.

2. Build the website

Open Website Builder.

  1. Choose a page from the Website pages list.
  2. Click editable text in the preview to change wording.
  3. Use Add image or Replace photo where an image control is available.
  4. Use the design controls for colours, backgrounds and typography.
  5. Use the page controls for optional pages, page visibility and navigation. What We Buy and What We Sell are permanent TradeFlow pages: you can hide or show them, but you cannot delete them.
  6. Click Save draft regularly.

3. What We Buy — automatic connection

The What We Buy page is connected to your Buying Catalogue.

Add a product to the Buying Catalogue and it can appear on What We Buy automatically. Remove or switch off a product in the catalogue and the website follows the catalogue state. You do not need to create the same product again in Website Builder.
  1. Open What We Buy / Buying Catalogue.
  2. Choose Master Catalogue — Add Products.
  3. Select a Category, Branch and Manufacturer, or search for a specific model/product.
  4. Select the model or package configuration you want your business to buy.
  5. Set the appropriate buying/valuation method and keep the product active.
  6. Return to Website Builder and open What We Buy. The connected buying information is supplied automatically.

The Website Builder can control the page title, introductory wording, layout, images and tile presentation. It does not replace the underlying buying catalogue.

4. What We Sell — automatic connection

The customer-facing Sell to Us journey is submitted from the live website. If the customer is already signed in, the request is submitted immediately; otherwise the completed website form is carried into the customer account and submitted automatically after authentication. The customer is then taken to the account to view the request and follow its progress.

The What We Sell page is connected to your retail selling listings.

Products you set up for sale and publish through Selling appear on What We Sell automatically. You do not need to add the same products again in Website Builder.
  1. Make sure the product is in Inventory.
  2. Open Selling and create a listing for the inventory item.
  3. Choose the sales channel and enter the title, price and description.
  4. Move the listing through the normal selling workflow until it is published/available to customers.
  5. Return to the website. The What We Sell page uses the connected retail listings.

The Website Builder controls the page presentation, introduction, images and layout. Selling controls which products are actually offered.

5. Save, preview and publish

1

Save draft
Stores your latest website changes.

2

Preview website
Check the customer-facing draft before publication.

3

Publish website
Makes the saved website revision live.

6. What you should not rebuild

  • Customer Login and customer account relationships.
  • What We Buy product/category connections.
  • What We Sell retail product connections.
  • Core customer selling/request routes.
  • Tenant and customer security.

These are TradeFlow platform connections. The Builder is for presentation and editable website content around them.

7. Changing the design later

You can return to Website Builder at any time. Change the template, colours, background, typography, images or page wording, then save and publish again.

Branding is kept together in Website Builder. The logo is used in the website header and the banner is used in the homepage hero. Reset design keeps your uploaded branding and content.

7. Quick troubleshooting

  • A product is missing from What We Buy: check that it is active/selected in the Buying Catalogue.
  • A product is missing from What We Sell: check Inventory, then check that a Selling listing exists and is published/available.
  • The logo or banner is wrong: open Website Builder → Branding. The banner status and current logo are shown there together.
  • My design change is not live: save the draft and then publish the website.
  • I cannot find a product in the catalogue: use the Category, Branch and Manufacturer filters or search the Master Catalogue.

8. Account and subscription

Your TradeFlow business account and subscription are separate from your customer accounts.

  • Use Account in the dashboard header to view the signed-in business account details.
  • Your TradeFlow subscription is linked to the business account that owns the subscriber workspace.
  • At the bottom of the dashboard's left-hand navigation there is a small Cancel subscription link.
  • Cancellation requires you to confirm your TradeFlow password before the request is accepted.
  • Cancellation is scheduled for the end of the current trial or billing period, so access is not removed immediately.
Do not use customer account controls to manage the TradeFlow subscription. Customer accounts are for customers using the subscriber's website; the subscriber account controls the TradeFlow business workspace.

9. Website Builder — practical workflow

Use this order when setting up or changing your website:

1

Business details
Check the business name and customer-facing contact information in Settings.

2

Branding
Open Website Builder → Branding and check the logo and website banner.

3

Pages
Choose the page you want to edit and change its editable text, images and presentation settings.

4

Connected business content
Maintain products in Buying Catalogue, Inventory and Selling rather than recreating product data in the Builder.

5

Save and publish
Save the draft, preview the result, then publish when the website is ready.

10. Keeping customer-facing information separate

The subscriber Website Manual is for operating your TradeFlow website. It should contain practical instructions for the subscriber, not development history, test accounts, internal build dates, deployment notes or platform-owner work.

Customer-facing information should be maintained separately in the Customer Documentation area. Do not place internal TradeFlow implementation details there.

11. Customer payment setup

Before you start selling online, choose the payment provider you want customers to pay through. Open Settings → Checkout & payments → Customer payment provider.

TradeFlow currently provides six setup guides: Stripe, PayPal Business, SumUp, Square, Mollie and Revolut Business. You only need to set up the provider you intend to use first; you can record another provider later.

  1. Choose a provider.
  2. Use Open provider signup to create or sign in to the provider's business account.
  3. Use Open official instructions if you need help completing the provider's verification.
  4. Complete the provider's own business and identity checks and add the bank/payout information it requires.
  5. Return to TradeFlow and click Enter setup details.
  6. Enter the provider account email and, if the provider gives you one, the non-secret account or merchant ID.
  7. If you have created a payment link, you can record it in the Payment link box.
  8. Check the business postcode shown by TradeFlow and make sure it matches your Business Settings.
  9. Tick I have completed the provider setup and verification only after the provider says your account is ready.
  10. Choose Use this as my primary customer payment provider if this is the provider you intend to use.
  11. Click Save payment setup.
Never enter your payment-provider password, secret API key, bank login or other secret credential into TradeFlow. Those remain with the payment provider.
Important: completing this onboarding checklist does not by itself prove that the provider is technically connected to TradeFlow checkout. TradeFlow only treats a provider as technically connected after the relevant integration has been implemented and verified.

Stripe is currently the live provider used by the TradeFlow customer retail Checkout. The other provider guides are onboarding preparation until their specific TradeFlow checkout integrations are completed.

12. Using the TradeFlow Assistant

Use TradeFlow Assistant when you need help understanding a TradeFlow workflow, finding a setting or understanding how the business areas connect.

  1. Open TradeFlow Assistant from your subscriber dashboard.
  2. Ask one clear question at a time.
  3. Include the page name, button name or workflow stage if you know it. For example: “Where do I set my customer payment provider?”
  4. Follow the answer using the exact page path provided.
  5. If the Assistant says that approved guidance does not cover something, do not assume that a feature exists. Ask the platform owner/support team or report the exact issue.

The Assistant uses approved TradeFlow guidance and your signed-in business context. It is not unrestricted database access and should not be used to request or store payment-provider passwords, secret API keys or bank logins.

Customer Questions

If a customer sends a question to the business, open TradeFlow Assistant → Customer Questions. Select the conversation, read the customer's message, reply in the chat box, and close the conversation when it is finished. The customer can see your reply through Customer Assistant.

Subscriber-owned domains — LIVE

TradeFlow now uses subscriber-owned domains only. A subscriber buys and renews their domain with their chosen registrar and enters the hostname in Website URL. TradeFlow does not purchase, renew or request the registrar password.

  1. Subscriber enters their existing domain.
  2. TradeFlow creates a connection request for the Platform Owner.
  3. The Platform Owner prepares the approved hosting connection and exact DNS instructions.
  4. Subscriber applies those exact DNS instructions at their registrar.
  5. TradeFlow verifies DNS, SSL and tenant routing.
  6. Only after all three checks pass is the domain activated.

The domain remains pending while connection work is outstanding. Never invent DNS targets and never mark a domain active without verification.

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LIVE TradeFlow platform address

The LIVE TradeFlow platform is available at https://tradeflow.laurendigital.co.uk. This is the normal branded address for the TradeFlow subscriber workspace.

Internal tenant IDs are not customer-facing website addresses. TradeFlow keeps the internal tenant ID for secure tenant scoping, while normal subscriber browser URLs use a clean business slug where applicable.

For example, a business named Adventure Outpost can use the URL-safe identifier adventure-outpost. This identifier is only for routing/presentation; it does not replace the internal tenant security boundary.

Lauren Digital and TradeFlow

Lauren Digital is the parent/company brand. TradeFlow is one of its products.

This does not change the subscriber-owned domain process described above. A subscriber's own domain remains their property and is connected through the Platform Owner workflow.

# 2026-10-05 — STANDARD WEBSITE BUILDER LOCKED BASELINE The current LIVE/production Website Builder is now the approved standard reusable website template and is locked as the design/reference point for future company/service websites and new subscribers. ## Lock rule Do not redesign, reposition, resize, restructure, or replace the locked Website Builder arrangement unless the user explicitly reopens the baseline. Future work must build around this baseline rather than silently changing it. ## Locked scope - Home page structure and page composition. - Shared top/banner section and its current arrangement. - Text-box, image-box and CTA/button positions and proportions. - Homepage body layout and tiles. - What We Buy and What We Sell sections. - Buying Catalogue / Buying page structure. - Retail Shop page and tile structure. - About, Contact and Customer Account pages. - Shared top-section editor and Top-of-page editor. - Text, font, size, colour, line spacing, letter spacing, border and background controls. - Current light editor toolbar treatment and orange-accented control borders. - Subscriber-specific branding remains tenant-specific; the template does not hard-code a subscriber's identity. - Edit → Save Draft → Preview → Publish → LIVE workflow remains authoritative. ## New-subscriber starter layout `resetToFreshWebsite()` is the source of the standard fresh-subscriber arrangement. `template_reset_version: 2` protects established drafts from being reset on reload. Approved starter elements: - Left text box: x 6, y 7.131578947809846, width 47.093378607809846, height 32.868421052190154. - Right image box: x 56, y 8.236842105263158, width 38, height 34. - Lower text box: x 0, y 53.68421052631579, width 70.44991511035653, height 28. Starter text boxes are blank by design. Do not restore placeholder copy such as “Your Text Here” or “Edit this text” into the fresh starter content. ## Reuse objective This locked arrangement is the standard starting template that can later be transferred/reused for other company/service websites. Do not build a separate style-system-dependent replacement unless explicitly requested. Preserve the existing page/content-box architecture. ## Reference restore point Immutable restore branch: `LOCKED-standard-website-builder-2026-10-05`. Production code state captured before documentation-only updates: `f3ff7f9d34030dbcde3440e21c097726ddef4f1d`. ## Next stage The next chat will decide the next development stage. Do not infer or start that stage automatically. First read this lock and the continuation prompt, inspect current production state, and wait for the user's next instruction.