[{"content":"An order comes in on WhatsApp. You reply with a price, the customer agrees. Then comes the part that never feels finished: making the invoice. You open Word, hunt for a template you saved somewhere ages ago, and retype the items you already typed into the chat five minutes ago.\nThis post covers two ways to create an invoice from an order. First, the manual way most people learn, including the part that rarely gets discussed: what happens when the order changes. Second, creating the invoice from an order already recorded in your workspace, so nothing gets typed twice.\nOne note on terminology. Vio calls the document an invoice — generated as a PDF or PNG from an order. If you sell in Indonesia, your customers will probably keep calling it a “nota”; nothing about the workflow changes.\nThe most common ways to create an invoice — and why they get tiring fast The oldest method is the carbon-copy notebook. You write the customer’s name, the items, the quantities, and the total; the first page goes to the buyer, the copy stays with you. For one or two transactions a day, it still makes sense.\nStep up a level, and many owners build an invoice template in Word. The shop header is designed once, the item rows get filled in every time, and the file is saved under the customer’s name. The result looks neat — but every new invoice means one more file to name and to find again later.\nExcel comes in when you want the totals calculated for you. You set up formula rows, copy them into a new sheet, and save the result as a PDF. Canva shows up for a different reason: it looks better, especially if the same document doubles as promotional material.\nAll of these methods share one trait. The invoice is a document you build from scratch every time, and its data doesn’t live where the order lives. You become the bridge between the chat, the notebook, and the document.\nThe cost shows up in two moments. First, the order changes: the customer adds an item, asks to change the delivery address, or you entered the shipping cost wrong. In the notebook you cross things out; in Word and Excel you reopen the file and make sure the totals are right again.\nSecond, you need the same invoice a second time. The customer asks for a copy, or you’re reconciling sales at the end of the month. If the file can’t be found, you rebuild the document from scratch — and this time the numbers risk disagreeing with what the customer already received.\nThat is not carelessness on your part. It is simply how documents behave when they live separately from the orders they represent.\nWhat every invoice needs to include Before talking tools, let’s agree on the contents. An invoice that works for confirmation, billing, and reconciliation usually includes:\nInvoice number — sequential, so a transaction can be referenced without naming the customer. Invoice date — when the document was created, not when the goods shipped. Your business identity — business name, address, and a contact number. Customer identity — name, phone number, and shipping address if the goods are delivered. Item details — item name, quantity, unit price, and the subtotal for each line. The money math — subtotal, discount, shipping cost, and final total. Payment status — paid or not yet, and the method used. Notes — special instructions, like delivery timing or a customer request. If everything above is there, your invoice covers most small-business transactions. The most commonly skipped item is the last one — and it’s often that small note that saves you when a customer asks about their delivery schedule.\nHow to create an invoice from an order in Vio (step by step) In Vio, you don’t start from a blank document. The invoice is created from an existing order, so the customer, the items, and the totals are already filled in before you pick a file format.\nThe order needs to exist first. The guide is in creating an order. If the customer isn’t on file yet either, start with adding a customer.\nOpen Orders and pick the order you want to invoice. Use search or the status filters once the list gets long. Check the order detail page. Make sure the customer, items, quantities, prices, discount, and shipping cost are right, because the document will follow whatever the order says. The order detail page is where the invoice starts: every item and total is already here.\nRun the action to create an invoice from that order. Choose the output type: PDF for a document ready to print or attach, PNG for an image that opens easily in a chat. Pick PDF or PNG depending on how you send the invoice to the customer.\nDownload the file. The document shows the invoice number, the customer’s name, the line items, and the total in your workspace currency — while the link back to the order lives on the invoice’s page in Vio. Send it to the customer yourself. The invoice stays in the invoice list, so there’s no separate folder to archive copies in. A finished invoice, complete with invoice number and order total.\nIf you’d rather work by conversation, the assistant in your workspace can also be asked to create an invoice from a specific order. Name the order, then review and download the document it prepares.\nOne thing to keep in mind: recording orders still involves you. Orders from WhatsApp don’t flow into the workspace on their own — you or your team make the record, and the invoice follows that record.\nWhen the order changes, the invoice is just regenerated This is the part that differs most from the manual methods. Because the invoice is created from the order, the source of truth is the order, not the document.\nSay the customer adds an item after the invoice was sent, or the shipping cost you entered turns out to be too high. What you fix is the order. Then open the related invoice and regenerate the document. Nothing gets retyped, because the new items and totals follow the updated order.\nIf the old document is already out the door and shouldn’t be used anymore, mark that invoice as void. An invoice in Vio has only two statuses — issued or void — so it’s always clear which documents still count.\nThe same applies when you need the same invoice a second time. The customer asks for a copy, or you’re matching up this month’s sales. Open the invoice list, filter by status, and download the file again. No document has to be built from scratch.\nNota, invoice, and receipt: what’s the difference? These words get used interchangeably, even though the documents do different jobs. A nota — the word Indonesian shops use — is a record of the sale, usually handed over right when the order happens. An invoice is a bill that itemizes what needs to be paid. A receipt is proof that payment has been received.\nIn a small shop, one sheet often does all three jobs. In Vio, the document is called an invoice because it’s created from an order — even if your customers keep calling it a nota. When payment changes, update the payment status on the order.\nFrequently asked questions Do I need an order before I can create an invoice? Yes. In Vio, invoices are created from orders that are already recorded, not from a separate document form. The order is deliberate: items, prices, and totals are pulled from the order, so no number needs to be typed twice. If the order doesn’t exist yet, create it first in the Orders section.\nIf a number is wrong, can I edit the invoice file? You don’t edit the PDF or PNG directly. Fix the order first — an item quantity or the shipping cost — then regenerate the document from the related invoice. The new document follows the corrected order data, and the old one can be marked void so it isn’t used again.\nWhat file format do I get? When you create an invoice from an order, you choose PDF or PNG. PDF suits printing or attaching as a document; PNG is easier to read directly in a chat. If one invoice has more than one file, you can download just the file you need.\nA customer asks for a copy of an old invoice — how do I get it? Open the invoice list in your workspace and find the document. You can filter by status, then download the file again. Because the invoice is stored alongside its order, you can also open the source order to confirm it’s the right transaction before sending the copy.\nStart with one workspace, then create your first invoice from an order that’s already there. Every invoice after that comes from orders you were recording anyway.\nGet started with Vio\nRelated reading How to create an order in Vio How to add a customer in Vio Run your back office from WhatsApp with Vio ","date":"2026-10-21","summary":"An order comes in on WhatsApp. You reply with a price, the customer agrees. Then comes the part that never feels finished: making the invoice. You open Word, hunt for a template you saved somewhere ages ago, and retype the items you already typed into the chat five minutes ago.\nThis post covers two ways to create an invoice from an order. First, the manual way most people learn, including the part that rarely gets discussed: what happens when the order changes. Second, creating the invoice from an order already recorded in your workspace, so nothing gets typed twice.\n","tags":["Invoices","Orders","Tutorial"],"title":"Create an invoice from an order","url":"/blog/cara-membuat-nota-dari-pesanan/"},{"content":"The first assistant you configure decides whether every later conversation feels useful or repetitive. Set it up once, properly, and you stop explaining your business from scratch: the assistant already knows who you are, what currency you work in, and what you sell — and it works directly on the customers, products, and orders in your workspace. This tutorial walks through the whole setup in order: create the assistant, set its identity, tell it about your business, choose its skills, take it for a spin, and reach it from your phone.\nOne thing to set straight before the first step: this assistant works for you, not for your customers. Vio is a back office, not a customer-facing chatbot, POS, or support desk. You — the owner — talk to your own assistant, and it does real work on your workspace data so you spend less time navigating screens.\nWhat you need before you start A workspace that represents your business. In Vio, one workspace is one business: the data, the assistants, and the settings all live inside it. The assistant works on that data, not a separate copy of it. Some records to work with. The assistant is most useful when customers, products, and orders already exist in the workspace. If yours live in notebooks or spreadsheets today, start with how to create an order in Vio and bring the data in. A few minutes. Identity, skills, and settings are all things you can revisit later — nothing in this setup locks you in. Step 1: Create the assistant — template or from scratch A Vio workspace can run multiple assistants, each with its own personality. That’s a design choice, not an afterthought: most owners start with one assistant that does everything, then add others when different channels need different personalities.\nYou have two starting points:\nStart from an assistant template — for example, the store-manager template, which comes with a ready-made personality. Pick the template closest to the work you want to hand over, then adjust it. Configure from scratch — a blank slate, for when you already know exactly what you want the assistant to be. For a first assistant, the template is the faster route: you learn the settings by editing something sensible instead of filling an empty form.\nA store-manager template gives you a working starting point — and every part of it stays adjustable.\nStep 2: Set the identity Every assistant gets an identity made of four things: an avatar, a name, a personality, and an optional language.\nName it for the job, not for fun. You’ll choose this assistant again when you bind it to a channel later, and a workspace with several assistants should read like a team, not a toy box. “Rina — store manager” tells you who will answer. Describe the personality in plain language. How formal, how brief, what tone — write it the way you’d describe the role to a new employee. Leave the language unset unless you need it. If no language is set, the assistant responds in the customer’s language by default. Pin a language only when you want replies to come back in one fixed language every time. Four fields, set once: after this the assistant sounds like yours.\nStep 3: Tell the assistant about your business Here is the step people skip — and the one that pays most. The context that makes an assistant yours doesn’t live on the assistant; it lives in workspace settings: business name, business details, currency, tax rate, bank account, and social links. This is the business context the assistant works from.\nWithout it, every message has to explain itself first: “for my store, in rupiah, with the tax rate we discussed…” With it, you say “draft an invoice for the last order” and the assistant already knows which business, which records, and which settings you mean. Because these settings apply to the whole workspace, every assistant you create afterwards reads the same business details — set them once, benefit all of them.\nFill this in once and stop repeating it in every message.\nStep 4: Choose its skills Skills are what separate an assistant that chats from an assistant that acts. The workspace keeps a skill catalog, and each assistant gets its own per-assistant toggle for every skill — flip what it should have, then save.\nThe catalog includes skills such as store management, web browsing, and calculator. One honest caveat: what the assistant can actually do depends on the skills you switch on and the skills your workspace makes available, so the catalog you see may differ from workspace to workspace.\nFor a first assistant, turn on the store-management style skills so the everyday back-office work in the next step is available, and add browsing or the calculator if you expect to ask for those. You can come back and re-toggle later — saving works the same each time.\nWhat the assistant can do in a conversation comes from its enabled skills — the everyday jobs show up right in the opening suggestions.\nStep 5: Take it for a spin Send the first message. With the right skills enabled, a configured assistant can work on your workspace directly:\nLook up or create customers, orders, and products. “Create an order for Andi: two boxes of frozen rendang at catalog price.” Draft an invoice from an order. Because Vio invoices are generated from an existing order, the customer, items, and totals are already in place. Answer questions about the business — sales, customers, products, and performance. Generate a filled document from a workspace template. Open a support ticket from the conversation. Watch how it answers, not just what. Responses stream in as the assistant works, and reasoning and tool-call visibility show the steps — a lookup here, an order creation there — so you see what it’s doing before you see the result, and a wrong turn is obvious early. That’s the whole chat experience in a sentence; the deep dive is a topic for another post.\nNext: reach the assistant from your phone The assistant you just configured lives in the app, but it can also answer where you already spend your day. Each messaging channel connects to one assistant — WhatsApp via QR pairing (how to connect Vio to WhatsApp) or Telegram via a bot token (how to set up a Telegram bot for Vio). One assistant per channel is exactly why multiple assistants matter: run your store-manager assistant on WhatsApp, and bind a different one to Telegram if you want a different scope or tone. To see what a full working day looks like once a channel is connected, read run your back office from WhatsApp.\nFrequently asked questions How many assistants can one workspace have? Multiple — each with its own personality, language, and skills. The limit worth remembering is on the channel side: each connected channel is bound to one assistant, so different assistants can serve different purposes on different channels.\nCan the assistant reply to my customers? No, and it isn’t built to. You — the owner — are the one it works for. Vio is a back office, not a customer-facing chatbot, POS, or support desk, and the assistant doesn’t replace your accounting, legal, or tax judgment.\nWhat if I don’t set a language for the assistant? It responds in the customer’s language by default. Setting a language is only for when you want replies in one fixed language, regardless of who you’re talking about.\nA task I asked for didn’t happen. Did I phrase it wrong? Usually not — it’s configuration, not wording. The assistant acts through the skills it has, and what it can do depends on those skills and the ones your workspace makes available. Check the toggles, save, and ask again.\nIs there a limit on how much I can use the assistant? Yes, and it’s designed to be visible. AI usage runs on a daily AI usage budget measured per workspace and shown as a percentage: a warning at 80%, a hard stop at 100% with a clear message when the assistant can’t run until the budget resets. Plan tiers carry monthly AI budgets on top of the daily meter.\nYour first assistant, configured — now what Created from a template or from scratch, with its own avatar, name, personality, and language. Briefed on your business through workspace settings — business details, currency, tax rate — so you never repeat the basics. Skilled through per-assistant toggles you can revisit anytime. Tested on real records, with streaming answers and visible steps. Ready to bind to WhatsApp or Telegram — one assistant per channel. Configure it once, then let the conversation do the paperwork.\nGet started with Vio\nRelated reading How to connect Vio to WhatsApp How to set up a Telegram bot for Vio Run your back office from WhatsApp with Vio How to create an order in Vio ","date":"2026-10-21","summary":"The first assistant you configure decides whether every later conversation feels useful or repetitive. Set it up once, properly, and you stop explaining your business from scratch: the assistant already knows who you are, what currency you work in, and what you sell — and it works directly on the customers, products, and orders in your workspace. This tutorial walks through the whole setup in order: create the assistant, set its identity, tell it about your business, choose its skills, take it for a spin, and reach it from your phone.\n","tags":["AI Assistant","Setup","Tutorial"],"title":"Create your first AI assistant in Vio","url":"/blog/create-your-first-ai-assistant-in-vio/"},{"content":"The order was packed, the goods went out, the invoice landed in the customer’s chat. Two weeks later they ask for a copy, and you start scrolling — was their version before or after you fixed the shipping cost? The actual question — has this customer paid? — still lives in your head, alongside eleven other orders you’re waiting on.\nThe gap between “sent” and “known to be paid” is where invoices quietly rot in a lot of small businesses. In Vio, both sides of that gap are records: the invoice is generated from the order and stays linked to it, and payment is a set of fields you update on the order itself. This tutorial walks the full loop — invoice, send, mark paid — and shows which steps you can run by chat with your assistant instead of on the screens.\nOne boundary first: creating an invoice from an order covers building the document. This post picks up after the file exists: getting it to the customer, and keeping a dependable record of who has paid.\n“Sent” is not the same as “paid” Three different things get collapsed into one mental checkbox after a sale:\nThe document — the file the customer received, with the exact numbers they will quote back at you later. The money — whether it arrived, when, and by what method. The memory — which of last week’s orders are still waiting on a transfer. Small businesses handle all three informally: files in a folder named after customers, payments confirmed in chat threads nobody re-reads, month-ends rebuilt from memory. The failures are quiet — a reminder sent for money that arrived in cash three weeks ago. The fix is equally unglamorous: the document comes from the order and stays attached to it, the money is a status on the order, and the memory becomes searchable lists.\nWhat a Vio invoice carries An invoice in Vio is not a blank template. It is generated from an existing order, so it arrives carrying its own context:\nThe reference trail. Invoice number, linked order, linked customer, total, and currency stay visible on the invoice. A status with two options: Issued or Void — the document stands, or it doesn’t. Payment is deliberately not an invoice status; that’s the order’s job. PDF or PNG output. PDF to print or attach; PNG to open directly in any chat app. Selective downloads. A single file downloads directly; with more than one, pick the one you need. Regeneration instead of retyping. If the order changes, regenerate; void an older document that shouldn’t stand. Links at both ends. The invoice list searches and filters by status, and the detail page opens the linked order or customer. Everything a customer could ever question is on one screen: number, links, total, status — and the files ready to download.\nPayment lives on the order, not the invoice Goods and money run on different clocks: an order can be delivered while its payment is pending, or refunded long after it was completed. Vio keeps both answers as separate fields on the order record:\nFulfilment status — pending, processing, shipped, delivered, completed, or cancelled: where are the goods? Payment status — unpaid, pending, paid, refunded, or failed: where is the money? Payment method — cash, bank transfer, credit/debit card, e-wallet, check, or other. Date paid — recorded when the money is in. That separation is what turns “who hasn’t paid me yet?” from an afternoon of scrolling into a filter on the order list. And every invoice links back to its source order, so one hop connects document and transaction.\n“Paid” is a field on the order — recorded with method and date, independent of where fulfilment has got to.\nThe full run-through: invoice → send → paid If the sale isn’t recorded yet, create the order first — everything below hangs off that record. Then the whole loop, at speed:\nOpen the fulfilled order and check it: customer, line items, discount, shipping, total. The invoice will follow exactly what’s on the order. Run the action to generate the invoice from the order and choose the output type — PDF to print or attach, PNG to drop into chat. Download the file. A single file comes down directly; if the invoice already has more than one, pick the one you need. Send it yourself. Attach the PDF or drop the PNG into the customer conversation you already use. Vio does not deliver anything to your customers for you; the file is yours to hand over. When the money arrives, open the order and set the payment status to Paid, recording the method and the date paid — or keep it pending while you’re watching a transfer, failed or refunded if the money comes back. At month-end, filter twice: invoices by status for documents that stand, orders by payment status for who still owes you. Six steps, and the only thing your memory is still holding at the end is the customer’s name.\n“Which invoices are still valid?” and “who hasn’t paid?” are filter queries now — not recollections.\nThe chat version: ask → act → verify Steps 2 and 5 don’t need the screens. Your assistant — in the web app, the Android app, or a connected WhatsApp or Telegram channel — works on the same orders and invoices, and can draft an invoice from an order and act on order records. The pattern, twice:\n“Draft an invoice for Bu Ratna’s last order, as PDF.”\nThen verify: open the invoice, check the number, its links, the total and currency, and download the file. One message did the typing; the check confirms the order behind it is the right one.\n“Bu Ratna paid her last order — bank transfer, today. Record it.”\nThen verify: open the order and read back payment status, method, and date. That’s the whole trick: a conversation happens, and it becomes a workspace update without leaving the thread.\nThree honest caveats. First, delivery stays manual — the assistant drafts and records, but the file goes to the customer from your hands. Second, what the assistant can actually do depends on the skills you switch on for it — if something you asked for doesn’t get done, fix the configuration, not the phrasing. Third, one assistant per channel, whether WhatsApp (paired by QR) or Telegram (a bot token) — and the assistant works only inside your workspace, reading and writing the same records you would open yourself. Channel setup is in how to connect Vio to WhatsApp; a full working day in chat is in run your back office from WhatsApp.\nThe customer’s payment message goes one way; your assistant works the other — and the order record closes the loop.\nThe limits, so there are no surprises Vio never talks to your customers. No automatic invoice sending, no auto-replies — it is a back office, not a customer-facing chatbot, POS, or support desk. The assistant acts within its skills — invoice drafting and order updates included, nothing outside them. It’s not accounting or tax advice. Vio keeps the records; what you file, and how, stays your judgment (or your accountant’s). Assistant chat runs on a daily AI usage budget: a per-workspace meter shown as a percentage — warning at 80%, hard stop at 100% until it resets. Frequently asked questions Can Vio send the invoice to my customer automatically? No — and it’s not built to. Vio generates the file and keeps the record; you send the PDF or PNG yourself, through whatever channel you already use with customers. The assistant chats with you, not with them.\nIs payment status tracked on the invoice or the order? On the order. An invoice carries only two statuses — Issued or Void — because it describes a document. Payment status (unpaid, pending, paid, refunded, failed), method, and date paid are fields on the order — the transaction the money belongs to.\nShould I send PDF or PNG? PDF prints or attaches as a formal document; PNG opens anywhere in chat as an image. When an invoice has more than one file, download whichever one you need.\nCan the assistant mark an order as paid? Ask it to record the payment update on the order, as long as the assistant’s enabled skills cover that job. Then verify: status, method, date. One message, one check.\nI sent the invoice, then the order changed. What now? Correct the order, then regenerate the invoice — the new document follows the corrected items and totals. If the version you already sent shouldn’t stand, mark it Void.\nSent is a file. Paid is a field. Neither is a memory. The invoice carries its own record — number, linked order, linked customer, total, currency — with a simple Issued or Void status. Format follows delivery — PDF for print and attachment, PNG for chat — and you download the exact file you need. Payment stays on the order — status, method, and date, tracked separately from fulfilment. Chat can run the loop — ask the assistant to draft or record, then verify against the linked records before you call it done. The next time a customer asks for a copy, it’s a search, a download, and a send. And “who owes me money?” becomes a filter, not a feeling.\nGet started with Vio\nRelated reading Create an invoice from an order How to create an order in Vio Run your back office from WhatsApp with Vio How to connect Vio to WhatsApp ","date":"2026-10-21","summary":"The order was packed, the goods went out, the invoice landed in the customer’s chat. Two weeks later they ask for a copy, and you start scrolling — was their version before or after you fixed the shipping cost? The actual question — has this customer paid? — still lives in your head, alongside eleven other orders you’re waiting on.\nThe gap between “sent” and “known to be paid” is where invoices quietly rot in a lot of small businesses. In Vio, both sides of that gap are records: the invoice is generated from the order and stays linked to it, and payment is a set of fields you update on the order itself. This tutorial walks the full loop — invoice, send, mark paid — and shows which steps you can run by chat with your assistant instead of on the screens.\n","tags":["Invoices","Payments","Tutorial"],"title":"Send invoices \u0026 mark them paid without leaving chat","url":"/blog/sending-invoices-and-tracking-payments/"},{"content":"A common worry about AI assistants is “how will it know my business?” With Vio, the honest answer is simple: it knows what your workspace knows — from the very first message. Teaching it is not a prompting trick but a setup job: put the facts where the assistant can read them, fix its tone once, and steer conversations that drift.\nThis post walks through what the assistant actually reads: the settings that describe your business, the records it answers from, the personality you configure once, and the controls for a live conversation. If you have not created an assistant yet, start with how to create your first AI assistant in Vio.\nOne caveat: this assistant works for you — the owner — and Vio is a back office, not a customer-facing chatbot, POS, or support desk.\nThe settings that speak once A Vio assistant learns about your business from your workspace settings — business name, business details, currency, tax rate, bank account, and social links. That’s the picture it works from, so you don’t repeat those facts in every message — ask about money and answers come in your workspace currency.\nThis part flows into everything: a stale tax rate doesn’t just sit in a settings screen — it starts every answer. A complete profile is the cheapest teaching there is: say it once, and every message inherits it.\nThe business context the assistant works from — filled in once, used in every conversation.\nYour records are its memory Settings are the frame. The substance lives in your records — customers, products, and the orders that connect them — with three dependencies worth knowing:\nProducts carry the answer before the question. Your catalog holds selling price, cost price, stock, a made-to-order flag with prep days, SKU, and images. When an order line picks a product from the catalog — you in the form, or the assistant in chat — its name and price fill in automatically. A wrong price is baked into every order that touches it. And cost price is the field that turns “what sold best this month?” into “what sold best — and what did it earn?”, because gross-profit and top-product analysis builds on it. Analytics even flags cost coverage, so you know how complete the profit picture is. Cost price is what upgrades “what sold?” to “what earned?” — leave it out and the assistant only has half the story.\nCustomers save the typing — and the mistakes. A customer record keeps name, client reference ID, contact details, notes, and multiple labeled addresses with one marked default. On an order, the default address auto-fills billing and shipping, and any saved address can be applied to either block. A default saved address means billing and shipping fill themselves on the next order.\nOrders connect the story. One record ties the customer, the products, payment tracked separately from fulfilment, and shipping details — reliable context for follow-up work: an invoice drafted from an order pulls the customer, items, and totals with nothing retyped. Filling the records is field-by-field work, already covered step by step in how to add a product in Vio, how to add a customer in Vio, and how to create an order in Vio — the forms don’t need repeating here. The point is upstream: those records are not paperwork. They are what the assistant knows.\nThe honest limit: what isn’t in the workspace isn’t knowable, and record quality shows up in the answers. A missing cost price doesn’t stop a sale — profit answers just go thin. A customer with no saved address doesn’t block an order — free-form items and inline customer creation cover that — but nothing auto-fills what was never saved. Accurate records are the teaching.\nTone and language, set once Each assistant has its own identity: avatar, name, a personality you describe, and an optional language. Leave the language unset and it responds in the customer’s language by default — handy if your chats arrive in more than one. A consistent tone is configured rather than requested message by message, and a workspace can run multiple assistants, each with its own personality. Configuration details live in the assistant setup guide.\nSteering a conversation while it runs Teaching doesn’t end before you hit send. While a conversation is live, you control it:\nWatch the steps. Reasoning and tool-call visibility show what the assistant is doing — lookups and actions appear as steps — so you see the work, not just the final answer. Edit a sent message. When the answer went sideways because the question was vague, fix the wording and run again from a corrected ask. Regenerate a response, or stop generation mid-stream when it’s heading somewhere you don’t want. Attach context. Messages take images and files — a product photo can travel with the request it explains; large images are compressed before upload. Speak instead of typing where your platform supports voice dictation. Review the history. Chat history is kept per assistant: sessions with message counts and relative activity time, searchable, deletable one by one, or cleared in bulk. Reasoning and tool-call visibility: you can watch the assistant read your catalog before it answers.\nWhat “teaching” is not Nothing in Vio promises an assistant that learns as you chat — no memorized corrections across conversations, no model built from your messages. That’s fine, because there’s a sturdier place to put corrections: fix the workspace, and the fix sticks. Wrong profit answer, fix the cost price. Wrong business name in a reply, fix the settings. Tone off, edit the personality. The conversation is where the work happens; the workspace is where the teaching happens.\nThe habit: ask, act, verify Drill one loop:\nAsk the assistant for something small — draft an invoice for your last order. Let it act, watching the reasoning and tool-call steps as it works. Verify in the workspace: open the invoice, follow its links back to the order and the customer. When verification fails, correct the question — not the whole system: edit the message and regenerate, or fix the record the answer leaned on. A full day of this loop is walked through in Run your back office from WhatsApp.\nHistory per assistant: searchable when you need a past conversation, deletable when you don’t.\nFrequently asked questions Does the assistant learn from my conversations? No — plan around that. It reads your workspace — settings and records — not accumulated chat. Improve tomorrow’s data instead: correct a price, complete an address, tighten the business details.\nWhat happens if my records are incomplete? It answers from what exists, so gaps show up as shallow answers, not errors. No cost price means profit questions come back with partial coverage. A customer with no saved address means nothing auto-fills, though free-form items and inline customer creation keep the order moving.\nCan the assistant answer in my customers’ language? The assistant’s language is optional. Leave it unset and it responds in the customer’s language by default; set it and every reply follows your choice. Personality is configured separately, so tone and language don’t interfere.\nAn answer went wrong — must I start over? No. Edit the sent message so the conversation continues from a corrected ask, regenerate the response, or stop the generation while it runs. Then check whether the real fix belongs in a record, not the wording.\nDoes the tax rate in settings make Vio my accountant? No. The tax rate is just information the assistant reads, so answers stay true to your business — it is not tax, accounting, or legal advice, and those judgments stay with you.\nThe short version What the assistant knows is exactly what your workspace says:\nFill the workspace settings completely — business details, currency, tax rate — so you never repeat them in chat. Keep records accurate — catalog prices flow into order lines, cost price feeds profit answers, saved addresses fill shipping. Set personality and language once instead of coaching every message. Steer live conversations — edit, regenerate, stop, attach context, watch the steps. Close the loop: ask → act → verify, and correct the source when an answer is off. Make the workspace true, and the assistant has nothing left to learn.\nGet started with Vio\nRelated reading Create your first AI assistant in Vio How to add a product in Vio How to add a customer in Vio How to create an order in Vio ","date":"2026-10-21","summary":"A common worry about AI assistants is “how will it know my business?” With Vio, the honest answer is simple: it knows what your workspace knows — from the very first message. Teaching it is not a prompting trick but a setup job: put the facts where the assistant can read them, fix its tone once, and steer conversations that drift.\nThis post walks through what the assistant actually reads: the settings that describe your business, the records it answers from, the personality you configure once, and the controls for a live conversation. If you have not created an assistant yet, start with how to create your first AI assistant in Vio.\n","tags":["AI Assistant","Setup","Tutorial"],"title":"Teach your assistant your business","url":"/blog/teach-your-assistant-your-business/"},{"content":"Your assistant lives inside the Vio app. Your day, though, happens in WhatsApp — checking whether an order went out, chasing a supplier, wondering what sold this week while you’re away from your laptop.\nConnecting Vio to WhatsApp closes that gap. You scan a QR code once, and the assistant in your workspace becomes reachable from the app you already keep open all day: a WhatsApp AI assistant that knows your business and can work with your real records.\nOne thing to be clear about before we start. This channel is for you, the owner, to message your own assistant — it is not a bot for your customers to talk to. Vio is a back office, not a customer-facing chatbot, POS, or support desk. The WhatsApp channel is simply the road from your phone to that back office.\nThis guide covers the whole pairing: what you need, the WhatsApp QR pairing step by step, what the connection status and linked number mean, and what to do when the link drops.\nWhat you need before you start Check off four things first:\nA Vio workspace — the container that holds your business data and assistants. Admin rights in that workspace — creating a channel is admin-only. If you’re a member, ask a workspace admin to do the pairing. A WhatsApp account on a phone you have with you — you’ll scan the pairing code with the WhatsApp app on that phone. An assistant already set up — every channel is bound to an assistant, so you’ll want one configured before you create the channel. If the workspace or assistant isn’t ready yet, start with how to connect a channel to your assistant in Vio. That post covers the shared basics for any channel — creating it, attaching an assistant, and managing it from the channel list. This one goes deeper on the Vio WhatsApp channel specifically: the pairing itself, the statuses, and reconnecting.\nHow to connect Vio to WhatsApp, step by step Pairing is a handful of clicks in your workspace and one scan on your phone:\nOpen Channels in your workspace. Channel creation and management live in one admin view. Create a new channel and select the assistant it should be bound to. Each channel is bound to exactly one assistant — pick the one you want to reach from WhatsApp. Choose WhatsApp as the channel type. The pairing view opens with a QR code. Open WhatsApp on your phone and use its option to link a device — this gives you a camera scanner. Scan the QR code shown in the pairing view. The channel starts connecting. Watch the channel list. Once paired, the channel shows its connection status and the linked phone number. That’s it. WhatsApp needs no bot token and no developer setup — the QR code is the entire credential exchange. If you ever connect Telegram instead, that one uses a bot token; WhatsApp QR pairing is the simpler flow.\nOne caution while you’re in the pairing view: the QR payload is treated as a sensitive credential and is only ever shown inside the admin-facing view. Treat it like a password — don’t screenshot it or send it to anyone.\nThe pairing view while a channel is connecting. The QR code is pixelated here on purpose — treat a live pairing code like a password, exactly as above.\nReading the connection status and the linked number After the scan, your channel list tells you two things worth understanding.\nThe connection status shows where the pairing stands — still connecting, or connected. A channel can also end up disconnected later, and that same status is what tells you it’s time to act.\nThe linked phone number is the WhatsApp number that carries the channel. It’s shown right in the workspace, so you always know which phone identity is behind the connection. Check it immediately after pairing: the number you scanned with is the number now tied to your assistant. If you run more than one business — or more than one phone — this is the field that tells you which channel you’re actually looking at.\nWhen WhatsApp disconnects, reconnect in place Connections drop occasionally. When your WhatsApp channel shows it has disconnected — or is still stuck connecting — you don’t delete anything or start over.\nOpen the channel from your list and reopen the pairing view, then scan the new QR code with the WhatsApp app on the phone you want linked. The channel reconnects in place.\nAnd if you close the pairing view while the channel is still connecting, nothing is lost: the channel keeps its status in the list, and you can reopen the view whenever you’re ready. Editing and deleting channels happens from that same view too, so everything about the connection lives in one screen.\nOne channel, one assistant: plan the pairing Every channel in Vio is bound to one assistant. That’s a deliberate constraint, and it pays to plan before you scan anything.\nA workspace can run multiple assistants, each with its own persona and skills. So instead of asking one assistant to be everything, you can split by purpose: the assistant that knows your daily store operations gets the WhatsApp channel, while a different assistant serves a different channel or stays in the app.\nTo plan, ask one question: which assistant do I actually want to talk to from my phone? That’s the one to attach to the WhatsApp channel. If you later want a second assistant reachable the same way, create a second channel — each gets its own pairing, status, and linked number.\nWhat your assistant can do once it’s paired With the connection live, you message your assistant the way you’d message a colleague, and it works on your workspace’s real records. Practical examples:\nLook up an order — check where an order stands without opening the app. Draft an invoice from an order — the invoice is generated from the order record, not retyped. New to that flow? See how to create an order in Vio. Ask about the business — questions about sales, customers, and products get answered from your own data. Create or update records from the conversation — a routine you do in chat can end up recorded in the workspace, like adding the customer from this tutorial. Two honest limits to keep in mind. First, what your assistant can do depends on the skills enabled for it — the assistant is skill-driven, so a store-management setup behaves differently from a bare one. Second, your assistant is there to draft, look up, and act on your records — it doesn’t replace accounting, legal, or tax advice.\nOne more thing owners ask about: the daily AI usage budget is measured per workspace. Reaching the assistant from WhatsApp draws on the same budget as the app — the channel is a route, not a separate meter.\nCommon mistakes (and how to avoid them) Pairing with the wrong phone number. The number you scan with becomes the linked number. Glance at the workspace after pairing and confirm it’s the number you meant. If it’s wrong, reopen the pairing view with the right phone. Forgetting that channels are admin-only. A member who tries to create the channel won’t get far. Have a workspace admin do the pairing. Attaching the wrong assistant. The binding happens at creation. If the channel should serve a different assistant, manage it from the channel view — channels are editable and deletable there. Expecting a customer-facing bot. This is your line to your own assistant. Framing it as a support desk for customers is a category error — Vio is built as a back office. Frequently asked questions How do I connect Vio to WhatsApp? An admin creates a WhatsApp channel in your Vio workspace, binds it to an assistant, and shows a QR code in the pairing view. You scan that code with the WhatsApp app on your phone, and the channel appears in your list with a connection status and the linked phone number.\nDo I need WhatsApp Business or a bot token? No. WhatsApp connects through QR pairing with the WhatsApp app on your phone — no bot token and no developer setup. Bot tokens belong to the Telegram channel type, not WhatsApp.\nWho can create or manage the WhatsApp channel? Admins only. Creating the channel, reopening the pairing view, editing channels, and deleting them all happen in the admin-facing channels view.\nWhat happens when my WhatsApp channel disconnects? The channel’s status changes in your workspace list. Reopen the pairing view from the channel and scan again — the channel reconnects in place, no need to delete and recreate it.\nCan two WhatsApp channels use two different assistants? Yes. Each channel is bound to one assistant, but a workspace can run multiple assistants and multiple channels — so different assistants can serve different channels and purposes.\nDoes it matter which phone I scan with? Yes — that phone’s WhatsApp number becomes the linked number shown in your workspace. Scan with the phone you actually want carrying the connection.\nPair once, then work from wherever you are Connecting Vio to WhatsApp is one scan — and after that, your back office travels with you. Pair with the phone you keep in your pocket, attach the assistant that knows your daily operations, and confirm the linked number in the channel list. When the connection drops, the same view that paired it brings it back.\nStart with a workspace and an assistant, then connect your first channel:\nGet started with Vio\nRelated reading How to connect a channel to your assistant in Vio How to create an order in Vio How to add a customer in Vio ","date":"2026-10-20","summary":"Your assistant lives inside the Vio app. Your day, though, happens in WhatsApp — checking whether an order went out, chasing a supplier, wondering what sold this week while you’re away from your laptop.\nConnecting Vio to WhatsApp closes that gap. You scan a QR code once, and the assistant in your workspace becomes reachable from the app you already keep open all day: a WhatsApp AI assistant that knows your business and can work with your real records.\n","tags":["Channels","WhatsApp","Tutorial"],"title":"How to connect Vio to WhatsApp (QR pairing guide)","url":"/blog/how-to-connect-vio-to-whatsapp/"},{"content":"Telegram is arguably the fastest text-first interface to your back office. It is light, it is already on your phone, and it is pure conversation — which makes it a natural home for a business assistant. Connect a Telegram AI assistant to Vio and the assistant you configured in your workspace comes with it: the same persona, the same skills, and the same access to your customers, products, orders, invoices, and analytics.\nThis guide walks through both halves of the setup: creating the bot in BotFather, then connecting it to your Vio assistant.\nOne framing note before we start: the bot you are about to build is your route to your own assistant. Vio is a back office, not a customer-facing chatbot, POS, or support desk. You talk to the bot; the bot talks to your workspace.\nWhat you need before you start A Vio workspace with at least one assistant configured. Admin rights in that workspace — creating channels is admin-only. A Telegram account and the Telegram app on your phone or desktop. A safe place to store a credential — a password manager is ideal. If you want the general walkthrough first, here is how to connect a channel to your assistant in Vio. This post goes deep on the Telegram half: the bot, the token, and what to do when the token changes.\nPart 1: create your bot in BotFather BotFather is Telegram’s official tool for creating and managing bots, and it works exactly like a chat: you send it commands and it replies. Telegram’s own bots documentation explains the platform behind it — bots are special accounts that don’t need a phone number and are separate from your personal Telegram account.\nHere is the flow, step by step:\nOpen a chat with @BotFather. Search for BotFather inside Telegram — the official account is @BotFather — or open t.me/BotFather. Send the command /newbot. BotFather starts a short setup conversation. Choose a display name. This is what people see in their chat list — for example, “Raju Store Admin”. It is just a label, so make it recognisable to you. Choose a bot username ending in “bot”. Telegram requires bot usernames to end in bot, like @rajustorebot. It has to be unique, so expect a few tries if your first pick is taken. Copy the HTTP API token. BotFather immediately replies with a token that looks something like 123456789:AAHcqnylNgqBn3uT1z0abcDEFghi. This token authenticates the bot against Telegram’s Bot API. That token is the one thing you need from BotFather. Save it somewhere secure before you leave the chat — the next section shows where it goes.\nPart 2: connect the bot to your Vio assistant BotFather created the bot’s identity. Now you bind that identity to an assistant in Vio, turning it into a working Telegram AI assistant backed by your workspace data.\nSign in to Vio — web or Android — and open Channels in your workspace. Create a new channel. Select the Assistant this channel belongs to. Each channel is bound to one assistant, so choose deliberately. Set the Channel type to Telegram. Paste your BotFather bot token into the token field. Create the channel. It appears in your list with a live status badge. No phone pairing is involved on Telegram — the channel runs on the bot and its token, which you created in Part 1.\nThe Create channel dialog: assistant, channel type Telegram, and the token field. The visible “token” is just the field’s example placeholder.\nOnce pasted, the field masks your token — no credential sits in plain text on screen while you work.\nTest your Telegram AI assistant Time to say hello to your own back office.\nFind your bot in Telegram by its username, or open its t.me/\u003cyourbotusername\u003e link. Send the first message. Telegram bots cannot start conversations — you have to message them first. Send “hi” and let the assistant introduce itself. Ask for something real: “What sold best this month?”, “Look up today’s pending orders”, or “Add a new product called Keripik with a price of 15,000”. The assistant works on the same records you see in the web and Android apps — conversation on Telegram, action in the workspace. Check the channel’s status badge in Vio — it should still show as live after the exchange. If the bot stays silent, re-paste the token (a workspace admin can edit it from the channel view), confirm the assistant attached to the channel has the skills you expect, and make sure you are messaging the right bot username.\nA first real exchange: the owner sends an order, and the assistant checks it against the catalog and returns a complete draft before anything is created. Customer details are pixelated.\nRotating or editing your bot token later Two situations call for a new token:\nThe token leaked. You pasted it into a group chat, a screenshot escaped, or someone who shouldn’t have it now does. You recreated the bot. New bot, new username, brand-new token — the old one is worthless to Vio. The fix has two moves, in this order:\nIn BotFather: revoke or replace the token. Telegram’s documentation confirms a bot’s token can be revoked at any time via @BotFather, and a fresh one issued. In Vio: open the channel and edit the bot token. The Telegram bot token is editable by a workspace admin directly from the channel view — that is the rotation path. Paste the new token, save, and send the bot one test message. Done.\nToken rotation in Vio: the current token is never displayed, and an admin pastes a new one and saves — no need to recreate the channel.\nOne assistant per channel: planning multiple bots Every channel in Vio is bound to one assistant, and a workspace can run multiple assistants. If you want to separate roles — a store-management assistant for daily operations, a different assistant for another job — create a bot per assistant and a channel per bot. Give each bot a name that tells you which assistant sits behind it, and manage them all from the same channels view, where you can also delete channels you no longer need.\nOne more planning note: your assistant’s AI usage budget is a daily budget measured per workspace. Asking over Telegram instead of the app doesn’t create a separate allowance — it is the same assistant with the same budget, just a shorter path to it.\nSecurity basics: treat the token like a password Telegram’s own docs put it bluntly: everyone who has your token has full control over your bot. So:\nStore the token in a password manager or another secure place. Never paste it into chats, posts, or screenshots — screenshots of a token are a leak. Share it only with the workspace admin who manages the channel, only when needed. Rotate it the moment you suspect it leaked. Rotation is quick (see above), and regret is slow. Common mistakes Pasting an old token after recreating the bot. A deleted or replaced bot’s token will not work. Always paste the token BotFather just gave you. Confusing the display name with the username. The display name is the label in chats; the username is the unique handle ending in bot. You can share the handle with yourself; nobody needs the token. Waiting for the bot to write first. Bots can’t start conversations on Telegram. Message it once after connecting. Truncating the token when copying. Tokens look messy and end on a random string. Copy the whole thing — an incomplete paste is the classic silent failure. Trying to create the channel as a non-admin. Channel creation is admin-only, like other workspace settings. Ask your admin. Handing the bot to customers. This is your assistant, working on your records. Vio is back office — the bot is how you reach it. Frequently asked questions Do I need to write any code? No. BotFather creates the bot through a chat, and the bot works by authenticating to Telegram’s Bot API with the token you paste into Vio. Vio connects to that bot for you — there is no server to rent and no script to run.\nIs this Telegram assistant for my customers? No. Vio is an AI back office, not a customer-facing chatbot. The bot connects you — the owner — to your own workspace assistant, wherever you happen to be.\nWhere do I get the BotFather bot token? Message @BotFather on Telegram, send /newbot, choose a name and a username ending in bot, and BotFather replies with the HTTP API token. The official bot docs cover the same flow.\nCan I connect more than one Telegram bot to Vio? Yes. A workspace can have multiple channels, and each channel is bound to one assistant. Create a bot per assistant, connect each one as its own channel, and manage them from the same view.\nWhat happens when I delete the channel in Vio? Deleting a channel removes that route to your assistant, and admins can delete channels from the channel view. The assistant itself stays in your workspace, reachable from the web app, the Android app, or another channel.\nDoes using Telegram change my AI usage budget? No. The daily AI usage budget is measured per workspace, so the same budget applies whether you message the assistant from Telegram, the web app, or Android.\nConclusion: two small moves, one connected assistant Setting up a Telegram bot for Vio comes down to two parts: BotFather issues your bot’s identity and token, and the Vio channel binds that token to one assistant. After that, your customers, products, orders, and numbers are one message away — in whichever app you already have open.\nBuild the bot, paste the token, and send your assistant its first “hi”.\nGet started with Vio\nRelated reading How to connect a channel to your assistant in Vio How to create an order in Vio How to add a product in Vio ","date":"2026-10-20","summary":"Telegram is arguably the fastest text-first interface to your back office. It is light, it is already on your phone, and it is pure conversation — which makes it a natural home for a business assistant. Connect a Telegram AI assistant to Vio and the assistant you configured in your workspace comes with it: the same persona, the same skills, and the same access to your customers, products, orders, invoices, and analytics.\n","tags":["Channels","Telegram","Tutorial"],"title":"How to set up a Telegram bot for Vio (BotFather guide)","url":"/blog/how-to-set-up-telegram-bot-for-vio/"},{"content":"There was a time when closing a sale meant walking back to a desk, opening a laptop, and typing what just happened — customer, items, quantity, payment — into an order form. This tutorial on the WhatsApp AI assistant for business shows what a full day of that work looks like when it happens in a chat thread instead.\nOne thing to set straight first: the assistant does not talk to your customers. Vio is a back office, not a customer-facing chatbot, POS, or support desk. You — the owner — message your own assistant on WhatsApp, and it does real work on your workspace data: look up or create customers, orders, and products, draft an invoice from an order, and answer questions about sales and performance.\nOne message, an answer pulled live from the workspace catalog — and in that same thread, the next sale can be logged just as easily.\nBelow are four scenarios that cover a typical day, plus how to write messages the assistant actually acts on — and the limits to keep in mind.\nWhat you need before you start A connected WhatsApp channel. Pairing is covered in how to connect a channel to your assistant in Vio and how to connect Vio to WhatsApp — this post starts after it’s done. An assistant bound to that channel, with the right skills. Every channel is bound to one assistant, and its skills decide what it can do: look up or create customers, orders, and products; draft an invoice from an order; answer questions about your business. If something you need isn’t covered, check the skills first. A workspace already running your business. The assistant works on your workspace’s data — customers, products, orders — not a separate system with its own copy. Morning: log a walk-in sale from a chat thread Bu Ratna stops by for two boxes of frozen rendang and pays cash on the spot. Instead of waiting until you’re back at the desk, you message the assistant while you’re still at the counter.\nYou message: “New sale: Bu Ratna bought 2 boxes of frozen rendang at catalog price, paid cash. No delivery — she took them with her. Log it.”\nWhat the assistant does: it looks up Ratna in your customers — creating the record if it doesn’t exist — then creates the order, pulling the product’s name and price from your catalog into the line item. Each step streams in as it works: lookup, then order creation. You see what it’s doing, not just the final answer.\nYou verify: open the order in Vio (web or Android). The detail page links back to the customer and the products on the order, and status and payment stay editable from there. The form-based version of the same work is covered in how to add a customer in Vio and how to create an order in Vio.\nOne message, two records, zero retyping at a desk. That’s what managing orders from WhatsApp actually looks like.\nMidday: “what happened to that order?” Status questions never wait for a convenient moment. A partner asks about an order while you’re out, and all you have is your phone.\nYou message: “What happened to Bu Ratna’s order from this morning? Has the payment been marked?”\nWhat the assistant does: it finds the order — by customer, or by the reference ID in your own numbering — and reads the record back. Order status sits on a clear pipeline (pending, processing, shipped, delivered, completed, cancelled), payment is tracked separately (unpaid, pending, paid, refunded, failed), and courier and tracking details come along if they’ve been recorded.\nYou verify: open the same order in the Orders list and compare. The assistant answers from the same record you’d open in the app, so chat and workspace can’t drift apart.\nAfternoon: “draft an invoice for the last order” The sale is fulfilled; the invoice is next. Trust this one in steps: ask, let it act, then verify.\nYou message: “Draft an invoice for Bu Ratna’s last order.”\nWhat the assistant does: it drafts the invoice from the order itself. Because Vio invoices are generated from an existing order, the customer, the items, and the totals are already in place — nothing retyped, nothing mistyped along the way.\nYou verify: open the invoice in Vio. It shows the invoice number, total, and currency, with links to the source order and customer — jump straight to them from the invoice detail. If the order changes later, you regenerate the invoice instead of rebuilding it; if it shouldn’t stand anymore, you void it. Confirm the links point where you expect, and the loop is closed.\nThe same ask-and-verify flow on a connected channel — shown here on Telegram: the assistant creates the invoice from the existing order, and the payment status can follow in the next message.\nEnd of day: “what sold best this month?” Before you close up, you want the month’s picture — not one spread across five screens.\nYou message: “What sold best this month?”\nWhat the assistant does: it answers from your analytics, which are computed from the very orders you fulfilled all day. Expect top products ranked by revenue, with units and profit in the detail, alongside net revenue, order count, gross profit and margin, average order value, and each one’s change versus the previous period — all in your workspace currency.\nYou verify: open Analytics, set the period to 30 days, and check that the story matches. Reporting built on operational data means there’s no separate dashboard to reconcile against your order list.\nHow to write messages the assistant acts on Say it like you’d tell a colleague. “Create this order,” “draft the invoice,” “what sold best?” — plain language beats clever prompting. One task per message. Ask one thing, verify it, then move on. Trust your setup. The assistant works from your workspace settings — business details, currency, tax rate — so you don’t repeat them in every message. Watch the steps. Reasoning and tool-call visibility show you what the assistant is doing, so a wrong turn is obvious before it compounds. Correct and resend. You can edit a sent message, regenerate the response, or stop a generation mid-stream — mistakes are cheap. Attach context. Messages support images and files — a product photo can travel with your request to add it to the catalog. Pick up where you left off. Chat history is kept per assistant: sessions list message counts and relative activity time, and they’re searchable. The limits, so there are no surprises It works within its skills. The assistant acts on your workspace data through the skills enabled for it. If a task doesn’t happen, the fix is usually configuration — not different phrasing. One assistant per channel. Different channels can serve different assistants for different purposes. Whoever answers is whoever that channel is bound to. Recurring work runs on schedules. You can create scheduled commands — a cron expression, its own timezone, and a prompt — scoped to an assistant, so recurring work like a weekly order review runs on its own. There’s a daily AI usage budget. Usage is measured per workspace on a meter shown as a percentage: a warning at 80%, a hard stop at 100% until the budget resets, and a clear message when the assistant can’t run yet. It’s a back office. The assistant does back-office work for you. It isn’t a customer-facing chatbot, a POS, or a support desk — and your accounting, legal, and tax judgment stays yours. Common mistakes Asking for work outside the assistant’s skills. An assistant without the store-management skill set can’t create your orders. Check what’s enabled before you blame the answer. Forgetting each channel is bound to one assistant. If answers seem to miss context you configured, you’re probably messaging a different assistant. Stacking three tasks into one message. “Create a customer, order, invoice, and tell me the margins” is four verifications in disguise. One task at a time keeps the ask → act → verify loop honest. Skipping the verify step. Records are linked — invoice to order, order to customer and products — precisely so you can confirm in a few taps. Those checks build the trust that lets you work the day by chat. Frequently asked questions Can a WhatsApp AI assistant for business reply to my customers? No, and Vio isn’t built to. Vio is a back office: the owner messages their own assistant to get operational work done. Your customer conversations stay your own — the assistant handles the records behind them.\nWhat can the assistant actually do when I message it? It can look up or create customers, orders, and products, draft an invoice from an order, answer questions about sales, customers, products, and performance, generate filled documents from workspace templates, and even open a support ticket from the conversation — all through its enabled skills, scoped to your workspace.\nDoes it work on real data or just chat? Real data. The assistant works only inside your workspace, acting on the same customer, product, order, invoice, and analytics records you see in the web and Android apps.\nWhat happens when I hit the daily AI usage budget? You’ll see the workspace usage meter as a percentage, with a warning at 80% and a clear message when the budget is used up. The assistant pauses until the budget resets — nothing silently degrades before that.\nIs it the same assistant in the app and on WhatsApp? Yes. The channel is just a route to one of your workspace’s assistants — same persona, same skills, same data. You can also connect Telegram the same way, and reach the assistant in the web and Android apps.\nRun tomorrow from a chat thread You don’t need to learn a new interface — you already live in WhatsApp. What this tutorial walked through:\nLog a sale by chat — customer and order created, price pulled from your catalog. Check any order in seconds — status and payment, read from the same record as the app. Draft an invoice from an order — then verify its links back to the order and customer. Close the day with analytics — top products and headline numbers, asked in plain language. Pair the channel, bind the right assistant, and send tomorrow’s first message from wherever you are.\nGet started with Vio\nRelated reading How to connect a channel to your assistant in Vio How to create an order in Vio How to add a customer in Vio How to connect Vio to WhatsApp ","date":"2026-10-20","summary":"There was a time when closing a sale meant walking back to a desk, opening a laptop, and typing what just happened — customer, items, quantity, payment — into an order form. This tutorial on the WhatsApp AI assistant for business shows what a full day of that work looks like when it happens in a chat thread instead.\nOne thing to set straight first: the assistant does not talk to your customers. Vio is a back office, not a customer-facing chatbot, POS, or support desk. You — the owner — message your own assistant on WhatsApp, and it does real work on your workspace data: look up or create customers, orders, and products, draft an invoice from an order, and answer questions about sales and performance.\n","tags":["Channels","WhatsApp","AI Assistant","Tutorial"],"title":"Run your back office from WhatsApp with Vio","url":"/blog/run-your-back-office-from-whatsapp/"},{"content":"You’ve set up an assistant in Vio, wired it into your orders and customers, and it genuinely helps. Then comes the practical question every owner asks: which messaging app should you connect first — WhatsApp or Telegram?\nSearch “WhatsApp vs Telegram” and you’ll mostly find feature fights about things that have nothing to do with running a business. None of that helps you decide. Here’s the honest answer, before anything else: in Vio, the assistant behaves the same on either channel. The real differences are in how you connect each channel and how you manage its credentials afterwards. This post compares exactly those things — nothing invented, nothing padded.\nThe honest answer up front There is no “better AI” hiding in either app. A channel in Vio is a route to one of your workspace’s assistants. Whichever you connect, the same assistant answers you — the same persona, the same skills, and the same access to the same records: customers, products, orders, invoices, and analytics.\nSo “WhatsApp vs Telegram” is not a contest about answer quality. It’s a choice between two connection methods and two ways of managing credentials:\nWhatsApp links to Vio through QR pairing with the WhatsApp app on your phone, and your workspace shows the linked phone number. Telegram links to Vio through a bot token you create in BotFather, which a workspace admin pastes when creating the channel. That’s the whole decision. Pick by how you like to work and how you like to handle credentials — the sections below show exactly what each one involves.\nWhatsApp vs Telegram at a glance Aspect WhatsApp Telegram How you connect it QR pairing with the WhatsApp app on your phone Bot token created in BotFather, pasted by a workspace admin What the workspace shows Connection status and the linked phone number The bot token, editable by the admin Reconnecting and managing Reopen the pairing view if the channel is still connecting or has disconnected Edit the bot token from the same view when you need to rotate it Two flows, two credentials: WhatsApp asks for nothing up front — QR pairing follows creation. Telegram wants the bot token in the form itself.\nAnd here is what doesn’t differ between the two, because the differences many people go hunting for simply aren’t there:\nCreating a channel is admin-only on both platforms. Every channel is bound to one assistant, so different channels can serve different purposes. Channels appear in one list with a live status badge, and an admin can delete a channel from the same view. The assistant itself — its personality, skills, and AI usage budget — belongs to your workspace, not to the messaging app. How WhatsApp connects to Vio WhatsApp is the option with no moving parts to build in advance. An admin in your workspace creates a WhatsApp channel, picks the assistant that should sit behind it, and the pairing view shows a QR code. You scan that code with the WhatsApp app on your phone, and the channel lands in your list with a live status badge and the linked phone number visible — so you always know which number is carrying the connection.\nManagement follows the same shape: if the channel is still connecting or has disconnected, you reopen the pairing view from the list and pair again. Closing the dialog mid-pairing doesn’t lose the channel; its status stays right there in the list.\nThe WhatsApp pairing view — the code is pixelated, since a live pairing code is a credential. Once scanned, the channel list shows the connection status and the linked phone number.\nFor the full walkthrough, see how to connect Vio to WhatsApp.\nHow Telegram connects to Vio Telegram works the other way around: you prepare a bot first, then paste a credential. Open BotFather — Telegram’s official tool for creating bots — make a bot, and copy the bot token it gives you. Then a workspace admin creates a Telegram channel and pastes that token into the form.\nThe channel is carried by a bot and its token, so creating it doesn’t involve pairing with your phone. And the credential stays in your hands: if a token needs replacing — say you want to rotate it for good order — the admin edits the bot token from the same channel view in Vio.\nThe admin-only token edit — replace the bot token any time without recreating the channel.\nFor creating the bot and its token step by step, see how to set up a Telegram bot for Vio. The shared basics for any channel — attaching an assistant, status badges, deleting channels — are covered in how to connect a channel to your assistant in Vio.\nWhich messaging app for business: four decision factors With the mechanics on the table, the choice comes down to four honest questions.\n1. Which app do you already keep open all day? The channel worth connecting first is the one you’ll actually message. If your working conversations happen in WhatsApp, a Telegram bot you check twice a week won’t make the assistant part of your routine — and the reverse holds too.\n2. How do you feel about managing a bot token? WhatsApp asks nothing of you outside the Vio view: scan, done, and re-scan if it ever drops. Telegram hands you a credential you create in BotFather and store somewhere safe. If you’re comfortable pasting a token and rotating it when needed, that control is a feature. If credentials make you uneasy, the QR flow is friendlier.\n3. Do you want a phone-number identity or a bot identity? Your WhatsApp channel is anchored to a real phone number, shown in the workspace next to its connection status. Your Telegram channel is anchored to a named bot with an editable token. Neither is better — they just feel different to work with day to day.\n4. Are you splitting assistants by job? One assistant per channel lets you keep roles separate: an assistant tuned for daily store work on one channel, a different one for another job on the other. If that separation appeals, the question stops being “which app” and becomes “which app for which assistant”.\nOur recommendation by owner type You’re a solo owner living in WhatsApp all day. Connect WhatsApp first. Pairing is a single scan with the app you already have open, and the workspace keeps showing you the status and the number behind the channel. You’re the ops-minded owner who wants a dedicated bot. Connect Telegram. You set the bot up once in BotFather, hand the token to your workspace admin, and from then on the credential is editable and rotatable from the channels view. You want both. Do it. Two channels, two assistants — each bound to the assistant that fits its job — side by side in one channel list, each with its own live status badge. Whichever you start with, nothing is locked in. Adding the other channel later is one more admin action in the same view.\nFrequently asked questions Is one channel better for the assistant? No. The same assistant — its persona, skills, and workspace data — reaches you over WhatsApp and over Telegram. The channels differ only in how you connect them and manage their credentials, not in how the assistant works.\nCan I connect both WhatsApp and Telegram to Vio? Yes. A workspace can have more than one channel, and each channel is bound to one assistant, so you can run different assistants for different purposes on different channels.\nWho can create and manage channels? Admins only, consistent with the rest of your workspace settings. An admin creates channels, reopens WhatsApp pairing, edits Telegram bot tokens, and deletes channels from the same view.\nWhat do I need before connecting either channel? An assistant in your workspace to attach the channel to, plus the WhatsApp app on your phone for WhatsApp, or a bot token from BotFather for Telegram. Both are created from the same Channels view in Vio.\nDoes the channel affect my AI usage budget? No. The daily AI usage budget is measured per workspace, so it doesn’t matter which channel you reach your assistant from — same assistant, same budget.\nConclusion: pick the channel that matches your habits The honest version of WhatsApp vs Telegram for a business assistant is short: the assistant doesn’t change, the plumbing does. Connect WhatsApp when you want QR pairing and a channel tied to your phone number. Connect Telegram when you want a dedicated bot whose token you manage yourself. Or run both and give each assistant its own channel.\nStart with the app you’ll actually open during the workday — you can always add the other one from the same screen.\nGet started with Vio\nRelated reading How to connect a channel to your assistant in Vio How to connect Vio to WhatsApp How to set up a Telegram bot for Vio ","date":"2026-10-20","summary":"You’ve set up an assistant in Vio, wired it into your orders and customers, and it genuinely helps. Then comes the practical question every owner asks: which messaging app should you connect first — WhatsApp or Telegram?\nSearch “WhatsApp vs Telegram” and you’ll mostly find feature fights about things that have nothing to do with running a business. None of that helps you decide. Here’s the honest answer, before anything else: in Vio, the assistant behaves the same on either channel. The real differences are in how you connect each channel and how you manage its credentials afterwards. This post compares exactly those things — nothing invented, nothing padded.\n","tags":["Channels","WhatsApp","Telegram","Tutorial"],"title":"Vio channels compared: WhatsApp vs Telegram assistant","url":"/blog/vio-whatsapp-vs-telegram-channel/"},{"content":"Orders are where everything comes together: a customer, the products they bought, shipping details, and payment. This is the heart of your back office — and in Vio it’s a single form.\nBefore you start, make sure the customer already exists in your workspace, since orders are attached to an existing record.\nThe Add Order form links a customer, line items, and shipping in one place.\nCreate an order step by step Open Orders in your workspace and click the + button. Pick the Customer with the searchable picker. Need someone new? Use the New action to add them without losing your progress. Set the order date and add a Reference ID if you need your own numbering. Add items: search for a product, and Vio fills in its name and price. Adjust quantity and price as needed. Add a discount and shipping cost if applicable. Fill in shipping details — date, courier, and tracking number — and choose your billing and shipping addresses. Save, and the order appears at the top of your list. When you select a customer, Vio loads their saved addresses, and their default address fills in the billing and shipping fields automatically — one less thing to type.\nThe order list tracks status and payment at a glance, from pending and unpaid through to delivered and paid.\nA few things worth knowing Once an order exists, you can update its status (pending, processing, shipped, delivered, cancelled) and payment (paid, unpaid, refunded) from the edit view. Orders are filterable by status and searchable, so finding a specific order stays fast. Item and customer pickers show human-readable identifiers — customer reference IDs and product SKUs — instead of internal IDs. Ready to take your first order? Add a customer, pick a product, and create an order end to end.\nGet started with Vio\n","date":"2024-08-24","summary":"Orders are where everything comes together: a customer, the products they bought, shipping details, and payment. This is the heart of your back office — and in Vio it’s a single form.\nBefore you start, make sure the customer already exists in your workspace, since orders are attached to an existing record.\nThe Add Order form links a customer, line items, and shipping in one place.\n","tags":["Orders","Shipping","Tutorial"],"title":"How to create an order in Vio","url":"/blog/how-to-create-an-order-in-vio/"},{"content":"Your assistant lives in the Vio app, but your customers don’t. Channels are how you bridge that gap — they link a messaging platform to one of your workspace’s assistants so it can keep working with you beyond the web and Android app.\nChannel creation is admin-only, and you can connect more than one platform to suit your business.\nThe Create channel dialog links a messaging platform to an assistant in your workspace.\nConnect a channel step by step Open Channels in your workspace and create a new channel. Select the Assistant the channel should be attached to. Each channel is bound to one assistant. Choose the Channel type. Telegram and WhatsApp are available today, with LINE marked as coming soon. For Telegram, paste your bot token. For WhatsApp, scan the pairing QR code with the WhatsApp app on your phone. Create the channel, and it appears in your list with a live status badge. Once connected, you can manage it right from the list: reopen the WhatsApp pairing view if a channel is still connecting or has disconnected, and change a Telegram bot token if you ever need to rotate it.\nA few things worth knowing Every channel is bound to one assistant and has a visibility setting (public or private). Pairing survives closing the view — if you close the dialog while WhatsApp is still connecting, the channel keeps its status in the list and you can reopen it. The pairing QR payload is treated as a sensitive credential and is only ever shown inside the admin-facing pairing view. Channel management is admin-only, consistent with other workspace settings. Ready to meet your customers where they are? Connect a channel, then let your assistant handle the conversation.\nGet started with Vio\n","date":"2024-08-23","summary":"Your assistant lives in the Vio app, but your customers don’t. Channels are how you bridge that gap — they link a messaging platform to one of your workspace’s assistants so it can keep working with you beyond the web and Android app.\nChannel creation is admin-only, and you can connect more than one platform to suit your business.\nThe Create channel dialog links a messaging platform to an assistant in your workspace.\n","tags":["Channels","Telegram","Integrations"],"title":"How to connect a channel to your assistant in Vio","url":"/blog/how-to-connect-a-channel-in-vio/"},{"content":"Products are the things you sell. Every order line item points back to a product, so a solid catalog — with prices and stock levels — makes the rest of your back office run smoothly.\nYou can add products by chatting with your assistant or by filling in the short form. Both give you the same clean record.\nThe Add Product form covers the essentials: name, SKU, pricing, and inventory.\nAdd a product step by step Open Products in your workspace and click the + button. Under Basic Info, enter the product Name and an optional SKU (stock keeping unit) to identify it. Under Pricing, set the Price you sell at and an optional Cost Price so Vio can track your margin. Under Inventory, enter the Stock on hand so low-stock items are easy to spot. Add a Description and, if you make items to order, use the made-to-order option with prep days. Save, and the product joins your catalog. Money fields use your workspace’s default currency, so prices are entered the way you actually think about them.\nThe product list shows price and stock side by side, with an Active badge for each item.\nA few things worth knowing Only a name and price are required — everything else can be filled in later. Products can be active or inactive. Inactive items are hidden from the default list, but you can reveal them with the Include inactive toggle and reactivate when needed. The list is searchable, so even a large catalog stays quick to navigate. Ready to stock your shelves? Add a few products, then create your first order to see them in action.\nGet started with Vio\n","date":"2024-08-22","summary":"Products are the things you sell. Every order line item points back to a product, so a solid catalog — with prices and stock levels — makes the rest of your back office run smoothly.\nYou can add products by chatting with your assistant or by filling in the short form. Both give you the same clean record.\nThe Add Product form covers the essentials: name, SKU, pricing, and inventory.\n","tags":["Products","Inventory","Tutorial"],"title":"How to add a product in Vio","url":"/blog/how-to-add-a-product-in-vio/"},{"content":"Every order in Vio starts with a customer. Before you can sell to someone, their record needs to exist — so setting up customers is one of the first things worth doing in a new workspace.\nThere are two ways to add one: ask your assistant in plain language, or fill in the form yourself. Either way, the result lands in the same place.\nThe Add Customer form keeps things short: name, an optional reference ID, contact details, and notes.\nAdd a customer step by step Open Customers in your workspace and click the + button. Under Basic Info, enter the customer’s Name. This is the only required field. Add a Client Reference ID if you track customers under your own numbering — it’s optional but handy for matching records later. Under Contact, add a Phone number and Email so you can reach them. Use Notes for anything else worth remembering about the customer. Save, and the customer appears at the top of your list. Prefer to skip the form? Just tell your assistant something like “Add a customer: Jane Doe, +54 11 1234-5678, jane@example.com” and it creates the record for you.\nYour customer list is searchable by name, with each record showing phone and email at a glance.\nA few things worth knowing Vio assigns a unique customer ID automatically when the record is created, so you never have to invent one. Customers can have saved shipping addresses (home, office, warehouse) with one marked as the default — those are managed separately from the customer record itself and can be reused on orders. Because orders require an existing customer, it’s good practice to set customers up first and search before adding to avoid duplicates. Ready to build your customer list? Add your first customer, then move on to products so you have something to sell them.\nGet started with Vio\n","date":"2024-08-21","summary":"Every order in Vio starts with a customer. Before you can sell to someone, their record needs to exist — so setting up customers is one of the first things worth doing in a new workspace.\nThere are two ways to add one: ask your assistant in plain language, or fill in the form yourself. Either way, the result lands in the same place.\nThe Add Customer form keeps things short: name, an optional reference ID, contact details, and notes.\n","tags":["Customers","Getting Started","Tutorial"],"title":"How to add a customer in Vio","url":"/blog/how-to-add-a-customer-in-vio/"}]