Help chat
The help chat answers questions about how FSMCore works, from these help pages. It never sees your company's records. When it cannot answer, it hands your question to a person at FSMCore support.
What it is for
Ask the help chat how to do something in FSMCore, for example "How do I invoice a deposit?" or "Where do I change the VAT rate?". It looks up the right part of these help pages and answers in a few lines, with a link to the help section it used.
Answers are short and direct: the answer first, a few lines or steps at most, then one link to the full help page for the details.
The help chat is not the AI assistant. The help chat only explains FSMCore. The AI assistant works with your own records, on your company's own AI account.
The help chat is shown only while FSMCore has it switched on. When it is off, none of its buttons are on the page.
Open the help chat
In the office, the crew app and the books:
- Open your account menu (your initials or photo, top right) and choose Help chat.
- Or press the chat bubble beside the grey question mark next to the page heading.
- Or press Help chat at the foot of the page, beside Help.
The chat opens as a panel on the right side of the page (the whole screen on a phone). Type your question and press Send or Enter. Shift and Enter starts a new line. Close or the Escape key hides the panel; your chat is still there when you open it again on another page. New chat starts again with an empty chat.
On the FSMCore website (the home, features, pricing and help pages), the button Questions? Ask us at the bottom right opens the same help chat for visitors who are not signed in. There it also answers questions about the plans and the free trial, from the pricing page.
What it reads
To answer, the help chat reads:
- your question;
- the parts of these help pages that match your question;
- the name of the page you are on (for example "clients, list"), never what is on it;
- your role in the company (owner, admin, supervisor, crew or accountant);
- which features your company has switched on (for example snags, RCT or time tracking).
On the website it reads your question, the help pages and the text of the website's own pages.
What it never reads
The help chat never reads your company's records: no clients, sites, jobs, estimates, invoices, amounts, hours, photos or people. It cannot look anything up for you and it cannot change anything.
The text you type is sent to Mistral AI, the AI provider FSMCore uses for the help chat (a French company). So do not type private details in your question. See Sub-processors and the Privacy notice.
Questions about your own records
If you ask about your own company's data, for example "Why is job X at a loss?" or "Which invoices are overdue?", the help chat says it cannot see your company's records and explains the AI assistant:
- When your company has not set up the AI assistant: an owner or admin adds an API key from an AI provider (such as OpenAI, Anthropic or Mistral) in Settings, AI setup. The provider bills your company directly. The assistant then answers questions about your own jobs, invoices and people, and asks before every change. Owners and admins get a link Open Settings > AI setup; everyone else is asked to speak to an owner or admin. Both get a link to AI setup.
- When your company has the AI assistant set up and you may use it: a link Open the AI assistant.
When an answer did not help
Under every answer there are two buttons:
- That helped: the chat notes it and shows "Glad it helped."
- That didn't help: the help chat tries again with a stronger AI model that reads more of the help pages.
The help chat also tries the stronger model by itself when the first one finds nothing in the help pages. If the stronger model cannot answer either, you see "The help docs do not cover this. Ask a person and FSMCore support will reply by email." with the button Ask a person.
Ask a person
Ask a person sends your question and the chat so far to FSMCore support. In the office, crew app or books it also sends the page name, your role, your company and your email address. On the website you type your email address first: it is required, so that support can reply.
Afterwards the chat says: "Your question has been sent to FSMCore support. We will reply by email."
The answer comes by email. It also shows in your help chat the next time you open it, under "FSMCore support replied:".
Ask a person is also offered when the help chat could not answer for a moment, and when you asked many questions in a short time.
Monthly limit
Each answer costs FSMCore a small amount at the AI provider. So every company has a monthly limit for the help chat: one third of what the company pays for its plan that month. A company on a free trial has the limit of the cheapest plan. All the company's people share it.
When the limit is reached, the help chat does not answer for the rest of the calendar month. Your question goes straight to a person and you see "Your question has been sent to FSMCore support. We will reply by email." There is nothing to buy and nothing to switch: the limit starts again on the first day of the next month.
The help chat on the website has its own monthly limit. When it is reached, the website chat offers only Ask a person, with your email address. Visitors can also ask only a few questions an hour and a day.
Who can use it
Everyone who can sign in to a company: owners, admins, supervisors, crew and accountants. On the website, anyone.