Guides and tutorials

Apply for an account

Every operator account is reviewed by our team, so you start with an application.

1. Open the application form and enter your business and contact details.
2. Submit it. We review every application, usually within 1–2 business days.
3. Once you're approved, you'll get your sign-in details and your 21-day free trial starts.

First sign-in and account setup

The first time you sign in, a short setup secures your account before you reach the dashboard.

1. Go to Operator sign in and use the email and temporary password we sent you by email and SMS.
2. Verify your phone. Enter your mobile number and tap Send code.
3. Enter the code. Type in the 6-digit code from the SMS.
4. Choose your password and a security question. Replace the temporary password with one that meets the rules on screen, then pick a question and answer it. The answer isn't case-sensitive. Tap Finish setup.

Set your security PIN

Sensitive actions, like changing payment settings or managing users, ask for a PIN as well as your password.

1. Open Security in the sidebar.
2. Under Security PIN, choose Set PIN, then enter and confirm your new PIN.

You can also change your password, your verified phone number and your security question on the same page.

Organise towns and sites

Every router belongs to a site, and every site belongs to a town. Set these up first.

1. Open Towns & Sites and choose Add Town. Give it a name and region.
2. Inside the town, choose Create Site for each location, such as a hostel, a shop or a campus block. Add its address.

Connect a MikroTik router

Routers connect to IpAdmin over a private WireGuard VPN tunnel. That's the only connection method, and it works even when your router is behind NAT with no public IP. You need RouterOS 7, the first version with WireGuard. General MikroTik guidance

Open Routers and choose + Add Router. The wizard has four steps.

1. Basic info

Enter a Router name and choose the Site it belongs to. The NAS identifier fills itself in from the name as you type, and the NAS shared secret comes pre-filled with a random value. You can change either, but you don't need to.

2. Connect via VPN

1. The wizard generates the router's tunnel settings and shows a block of MikroTik commands. Copy them all.
2. On the router, open a New Terminal in WinBox or WebFig and paste the commands. General MikroTik guidance
3. Wait. The tunnel usually comes up within about 2 minutes, and the page checks every 5 seconds. When it shows VPN connected, choose Next.

3. Credentials and hotspot

1. Enter the RouterOS username, password and API port, then choose Verify connection. RouterOS uses port 8728, or 8729 with SSL, unless someone changed it. General MikroTik guidance
2. When the interfaces load, pick the Hotspot interface your customers connect to. Then set the Captive portal DNS name, and a Config template if you have one.

4. Provision

Check the summary and start provisioning. It starts straight away, and the log updates every 2 seconds. When it finishes, choose View router to see its health and active sessions.

Create plans

A plan is what your customers buy: an amount of time, data or both, at a price and speed you choose.

1. Open Plans and choose Add Plan.
2. Give it a name customers will understand, such as “Daily 2 GB”, and choose a type.
3. Set the Price (GHS), the limits that apply to the type, and the Download and Upload Speed in kbps.

A voucher's time starts the first time a customer signs in with it, not when it's printed or sold. The countdown keeps running if they disconnect and reconnect.

Take mobile money

Customers pay into your own Paystack or Flutterwave account. You'll need a business account with one of them first.

1. Open Payments and choose your provider. You'll be asked for your PIN.
2. Copy your keys from the provider's dashboard and paste them in.
   • Paystack: Public key, Secret key and Webhook secret.
   • Flutterwave: Public key (FLWPUBK-…), Secret key (FLWSECK-…) and Webhook secret hash.
3. Choose Save & activate. Then choose Test connection to check that the keys work.
4. Copy the Webhook URL the page shows you, and paste it into the webhook settings in your provider's dashboard. That's how we find out a payment went through and release the voucher.

Send vouchers by SMS

After a mobile money purchase, the buyer gets their voucher code by text message.

1. Open SMS and choose a provider.
   • Arkesel (platform gateway): nothing to enter. Choose Use this SMS provider. Each SMS segment is added to your monthly invoice at the rate shown on the page.
   • Your own Arkesel account: enter your API key and Sender ID, choose Save & activate, then Test connection.
   • Your own Hubtel account: enter your Client ID, Client secret and Sender ID, then choose Save & activate. Hubtel has no Test connection button, so send yourself a test purchase.
2. You can also edit the text of the voucher SMS on the same page.

A Sender ID is the name shown as the sender. Most SMS providers in Ghana need it registered before you can use it. General guidance

Brand your login page

The login page is what customers see when they join your Wi-Fi. Make it look like your business.

1. Open Branding.
2. Set your Display name and write a short Welcome message.
3. Add a Contact phone and Contact email, so customers can reach you if something goes wrong.
4. Pick a Template. The phone preview shows your changes as you make them.
5. Choose Save changes. Until you do, customers still see the old version.
6. Upload a Logo (PNG, JPG or WebP, up to 2 MB). The logo is saved as soon as it uploads, without Save changes.

Generate and print vouchers

Pre-printed vouchers are for cash sales at a counter, or for handing out yourself.

1. Open Vouchers and choose Generate Batch.
2. Choose the Plan, the Quantity and the Code Length.
3. To print, choose Print vouchers, then pick a Plan and a Quantity. It prints that plan's oldest unsold vouchers that haven't been printed before, on A4 sheets.
4. When the sheets have come out, choose Yes — confirm printed, so those vouchers aren't offered for printing again.

How many devices can use one voucher at the same time is set on each router: open it in Routers, then Setup → Hotspot → Addresses per MAC (2 by default).

Each voucher shows a status: Unused, Active (in use), Exhausted (data used up), Expired (time ran out) or Disabled. To stop a lost or stolen voucher, use Disable. Reactivate undoes that.

Make a test sale

Before you open to customers, go through a purchase yourself.

1. Connect a phone to the hotspot Wi-Fi. Your branded login page should open. If it doesn't, open any http:// website.
2. Enter a printed voucher code and check that you get online.
3. On another phone, choose a plan, pay with mobile money and approve the prompt on the handset.
4. Check that the voucher arrives by SMS and works, and that the sale shows in Billing → Transactions and in Analytics.

Sessions and analytics

• Dashboard gives you a quick overview when you sign in.
• Analytics shows revenue and voucher redemptions for the last 30 days, this week and this month. It also shows your top package, active sessions, which routers are online or offline, and unredeemed stock.
• Sessions lists who is connected, with their device, IP address and data used.
• Routers shows each router's live reachability and last contact time. From there you can open diagnostics or reboot a router.

Team members and roles

The account owner can add admins and staff from Users → Add user. The new user's temporary password is sent to their phone by SMS, and they do the same first-sign-in setup you did.

To stop someone signing in, turn off their sign-in from the Users page. The owner can see who changed what, and when, in Audit log.

Your subscription

IpAdmin costs GHS 80 a month after your 21-day free trial.

• Billing shows your billing status and your invoices.
• To pay an invoice, choose Pay Now and pay by mobile money or card.
• The SMS Usage tab shows messages sent through the platform's SMS gateway. That usage is added to your invoice.
• Keep your invoices paid. An account with unpaid invoices can be suspended.

Resellers

Resellers are agents who sell your vouchers for you, such as shops near your hotspot. You add them yourself and give them codes to sell. They sell the codes for cash and pay you what they owe, less their commission.

Set up

1. Choose your defaults. Set the commission resellers earn, either a percentage of the plan price or a fixed amount per code. You can also set how many days they have to sell a code.
2. Add a reseller with their name, email address, phone number and a password for them to sign in with. You can give a reseller their own commission instead of your default.

Give them codes

1. Choose a plan and how many codes to give. Each code's price is fixed when you hand it over, so a later price change doesn't affect codes already given out.
2. If you like, set a sell-by date. A code that isn't used by then expires and earns no commission.

Reseller codes are numbers with a check digit, so most typing mistakes are caught straight away.

When a code is used

A reseller earns commission only when a customer first signs in with one of their codes, at the rate that applies at that moment. The reseller then owes you the code's price minus that commission.

Get paid

• Each reseller has a running account: codes used, commission earned, what they owe you and what they've paid.
• When a reseller hands over money, record the payment. This needs your PIN.
• Recorded payments can't be edited or deleted. If one was recorded by mistake, reverse it in full and record the right amount.

Take codes back, or stop a reseller

• You can take back a reseller's unused codes. They stop working straight away, for good.
• Disabling a reseller stops them signing in and getting new codes. Codes they already hold keep working, so take those back first if you need to.

The owner and admins can manage resellers and give out codes. Recording or reversing a payment also needs the PIN. Staff can't manage resellers. Every change is recorded in the audit log.

Troubleshooting

The VPN never connects (step 2) General MikroTik guidance

• Check that the router has internet access and runs RouterOS 7.
• Make sure all of the commands were pasted, with none cut off. Then wait a couple of minutes.

Interfaces won't load (step 3) General MikroTik guidance

• Check the RouterOS username and password, and that the API service is turned on in IP → Services on the port you entered.

A customer paid but got no voucher

• Look the payment up in Billing → Transactions. A pending payment is checked with your provider automatically, within 25 minutes of the purchase.
• Check that the webhook URL from the Payments page is saved in your Paystack or Flutterwave dashboard, so the next ones arrive straight away.