MapFirms User Guide

1. What is MapFirms and what is it for?

MapFirms is a Windows program that makes it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to find new customers and keep track of them. It comes with the MapFirms Mobile phone app, which puts the same companies in your pocket. It works whatever industry you are in: you type what you are looking for, and the program does not assume an industry.

The workflow has five steps:

1. Find — You type a term such as "furniture manufacturer", "hotel" or "CNC workshop", and select a country, region and city. The program searches the sources you select: the open-data sources Overture Maps and the countries' official company registers are selected by default; OpenStreetMap and (for Türkiye) B2B directories are also in the list. It adds the companies it finds to your list with whatever details it can find, such as name, phone, address, website and location.
2. Qualify — E-mail addresses, extra phone numbers and the contact person's name are read from the companies' websites; each company is given a priority score from 0 to 100; you narrow the list down with filters.
3. Get in touch — The Contact screen brings the companies up one after another: you call, open a WhatsApp or e-mail draft, and record the outcome with a single key.
4. Quote — You enter the line items and produce a printable quote; quotes are tracked as open / won / lost.
5. Follow up — On the Pipeline screen the companies sit in columns according to their status; follow-ups that are due appear on the Today screen.

All of this is at your fingertips on your phone too: you call the company, write on WhatsApp, save it to your contacts, get directions, and even start a new search from the phone (see Section 11).

What does the program not do?

• It does not send messages on its own. WhatsApp, e-mail and SMS always open in your own app, at your touch; you are the one who presses "Send". The bulk send pages, too, only offer ready-made links.
• It does not guarantee that the data is accurate. The information is what is visible in public sources at that moment; it may be incomplete, outdated or wrong. The program does not make up information; you can see where each value came from in the Where from? window in the company details.
• It does not "verify" e-mail addresses. "Check e-mail domain" only looks at the spelling of the address and at the domain's mail server (MX) record; it does not show that the address really exists or is read.
• It does not solve security checks (CAPTCHA) or try to get around access limits. If a source limits access, the program waits or pauses that source for a while; it does not get around the limit by changing the IP address, the proxy or the browser identity. It does not enter closed pages or pages that require membership.
• It does not browse accounts on social networks. The program sends no request at all to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, LinkedIn, X or TikTok; if the company's website links to these networks, only the link itself is kept (Section 6).

Your responsibility

How you use the program is up to you. Complying with the terms of use of the platforms you search; complying with the rules that apply in your country and in the recipient's country when you process the contact details you collect and when you send commercial messages (for example KVKK and the commercial message legislation in Türkiye, the GDPR in the EU); and obtaining the recipient's consent where required are the user's obligation. You confirm this with two statements at installation and at first launch (Section 2). Mark a company that tells you it does not want to hear from you as Do not contact (Section 8). This guide is not legal advice; if you are unsure, consult a specialist.

2. Installation

Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and an internet connection. The default sources (Overture Maps, the official registers, companies' own websites), OpenStreetMap and the B2B directories do not need a browser. If you turn on the optional map services (Google, Bing, Yandex), they are read through Google Chrome; if Chrome is not installed, the program does not start these services and tells you why.

1. Download the setup file (MapFirms-Setup-….exe) from the download page of our website (mapfirms.com) and double-click it.
2. Windows may show a blue "Windows protected your PC" window and list the publisher as "Unknown publisher". This is because the setup file does not yet carry a digital signature. If you downloaded the file from the download page on mapfirms.com (the file's address starts with app.mapfirms.com/indir/), press More info › Run anyway. If the file came from anywhere else, do not run it.
3. In the wizard, select the language (the language you select also becomes the program's interface language).
4. On the Terms and policies page, the License Agreement, the Acceptable Use Policy and the Privacy Notice can be read in tabs; Open in browser opens the same text in your browser. To continue, tick both statements: "I have read and accept the License Agreement and the Acceptable Use Policy." and "I accept that I alone am responsible for having the required permission or legal basis before contacting businesses, and for complying with the applicable rules (İYS/ETK and KVKK in Türkiye, local rules elsewhere)." The Privacy Notice is information; it does not ask for consent. At the bottom there is an optional third box: "Also use Google, Bing and Yandex maps as sources". It is unticked and not needed to continue; if you tick it, these services are listed in Find Companies alongside the other sources. Data from these services is subject to their own terms of use. You can change your choice later under Settings › Search › Map Services.
5. Confirm the installation folder; if you wish, leave "Create a desktop shortcut" checked. Press Install; when it finishes, open the program with Launch now.

Your acceptance is recorded on this computer when the installation finishes successfully: which document versions you accepted, when, in which language and with which program version (no personal details such as your name or e-mail are written). Your choice in the map services box is written to the same record with the date, language and program version. If one of the documents changes to a new version, the program shows the Our terms have been updated window at launch: it says what changed; you tick the same two statements again and press Accept and continue, while Quit the program closes it without accepting. You can reread the texts at any time under Settings › Account › Legal documents.

The installation is made only for your own Windows user; no administrator permission is required. Your data (companies, quotes, settings, backups) is kept separately from the program folder, in the %LOCALAPPDATA%\MapFirms folder, and is preserved during updates.

Uninstalling: Windows Settings › Apps › MapFirms › Uninstall. The uninstall wizard does not delete your data by default; check the "Also delete my user data" box only if you want to delete everything permanently.

3. Account: purchase and sign-in

The full version of MapFirms works with a yearly subscription and is tied to a personal account. When no account is signed in, the program runs as the free version (see Free version and full version).

Buying the full version

1. In the program, press Settings › Account › Buy the full version (the same button is also in the free version window). The purchase page opens in your browser, in your interface language (mapfirms.com).
2. Payment is made through Paddle: Paddle is the Merchant of Record for our orders and e-mails you the receipt. The price is shown on the page for your country. The subscription is yearly and renews automatically every year until you cancel it. Before going to payment, you tick the two boxes on the page: that you accept the License Agreement, the Refund Policy and the pre-contract information, and that you want immediate access to the full version and understand that your statutory right of withdrawal ends once access begins (the 30-day money-back guarantee still applies).
3. After payment, the Your account page (app.mapfirms.com/hesap/) opens in your browser. The e-mail address you used at purchase is your username: type your password twice and press Create my account. Do not close this tab until it has finished. If an account already exists for this e-mail, the page asks for its current password and links the payment to that account with Add the payment to my account; your password does not change.
4. In the program, sign in with your e-mail address and password under Settings › Account › Sign in. The companies you added in the free version stay as they are.

The password must be at least 10 characters long and contain at least two kinds of characters such as letters and digits; sequences such as "1234…" and the name part of your e-mail address are not accepted.

Signing in

1. Type your e-mail address in the E-mail or user ID field and your password in the Password field, then press Sign in.
2. You sign in once; on later launches the program renews your session by itself.
3. If support has reset your password, you sign in with the temporary password you were sent; you are asked to set your own password at the first sign-in, and this step cannot be skipped. If your account was opened with a user ID (by support, or in an earlier version), type that user ID in the same field; when you sign in with a newly issued temporary password, you set your own password at the first sign-in.

When there is no internet: If the server cannot be reached, the program works offline for up to 7 days with your last authorization token; the account chip in the sidebar shows "Offline". Connecting to the internet once before the 7 days are up is enough. (Searching and sending to the phone need the internet anyway.)

Forgot password: Passwords are not stored on the server in readable form, and the program does not send reset e-mails by itself. Write to destek@mapfirms.com from your account's e-mail address (if your account was opened with a user ID, include that ID); you will be sent a one-time temporary password, and when you sign in with it you set your own password.

Managing your subscription

The Settings › Account card shows the USER (your e-mail address), PLAN (for example "Yearly subscription · active · renews …"), EXPIRES and THIS DEVICE lines.

• Manage subscription opens Paddle's subscription page in your browser: you cancel the subscription, update your card and download your invoices there. The button appears only for accounts opened through a purchase.
• Cancelling stops the next renewal; the full version continues until the end of the paid period, and the PLAN line shows the end date.
• If a payment is overdue, the PLAN line says so; update your card with Manage subscription.
• Refunds: within 30 days of a payment you can ask for a full refund without giving a reason (through paddle.net or by writing to destek@mapfirms.com). The details are in the Refund Policy.
• If the subscription ends or is refunded, the program returns to the free version; your data is not deleted.
• A subscription can be used on at most 2 computers. If you see the device limit warning, write to the support address to have a computer you no longer use removed from your account.
• Refresh account renews the authorization token from the server right away; Change password changes your password; Sign out ends the session on this computer, and the program switches to the free version.

If you see "Account closed", write to the support address; if you see "Expired", renew your subscription.

Free version and full version

When no account is signed in, MapFirms runs as the free version. Every screen and feature works in the free version; the only limit is this: while in the free version, at most 30 new companies can be added on this installation. MapFirms Mobile is not available in the free version, because sending to the phone requires a valid account session.

• What counts: every company that enters your list for the first time uses one of your 30. Filling in missing details of a company you already have (for example with Find e-mail), or finding the same company again in another source, does not count. Companies added while in the full version do not count either.
• Deleting does not give it back. The counter only goes up: deleting a company, moving it to the trash or restoring it from the trash does not change it. The allowance does not renew over time either.
• When the allowance is used up, no new companies are added; you carry on with your saved companies — follow-ups, contacts, quotes and exports.
• Tip: a single search can bring in more than 30 companies. To spend your allowance where you are most curious, keep the first search narrow: one term, one city.

Full version: when you sign in with your account, the company limit is lifted and MapFirms Mobile becomes available. If you have no account, buy one with Buy the full version (above); to sign in, press Settings › Account › Sign in. The companies you added in the free version stay as they are.

If your session ends (the subscription ended or was refunded, the account was closed, or the 7-day offline period ran out), the program returns to the free version and tells you why at launch. All your saved companies, notes and quotes stay where they are; you can view, edit and export them. Only adding new companies is tied to the 30-company free allowance; if you have already used it, no new companies are added.

4. First-run setup wizard

When the program is opened for the first time, a wizard with six short steps appears. You can reopen it later from the command palette (Ctrl+K › "Setup wizard").

5. Find Companies

The ＋ New Search button in the sidebar (Ctrl+N) opens this screen. There are three tabs at the top: Targets (the search form), Live scan (the counters of the running search) and History.

Searching step by step

1. What are you looking for? — Type one term per line: furniture manufacturer, hotel, CNC workshop… Each line becomes a separate search. If Vary in every language is on, a single word is enough: the program multiplies the term according to the language of the target country ("furniture" → furniture manufacturer, Möbel Hersteller…). Preview shows which queries will be generated; Dictionary lets you add your own translations; + Product profile makes your terms permanent.
2. On which networks? — Check the sources. In a new installation Overture Maps (open data) and Official company registers (open data) are checked (the registers stay checked only when one covers the target country and, if it needs a key, the key has been entered); OpenStreetMap (open data) and B2B industry directories are also in the list. If you turned on the map services (during installation or under Settings › Search › Map Services), Google Maps, Yandex Maps and Bing Maps appear at the end of the list like the other sources. All sources checks every source that works for this selection with one click. The note on each row tells you whether that source works in the countries you selected: the B2B directories are for Türkiye only today, and the official registers work only in the countries they cover. The map services need Google Chrome; the other sources do not open a browser. More sources mean more companies and a longer run.
3. Where? — Check one or more countries in the list on the left (you can search by name or by code: DE, US…). When you check a country, its regions open on the right; if you select no region at all, the country is scanned as a whole.
4. Depth — Determines how far below the selected region the search goes: Whole region (a single query, the fastest) · Top 10 cities · Top 20 cities · All cities · Districts (where data is available). The deeper you go, the more companies are found and the longer it takes. City lists are fetched from OpenStreetMap when needed.
5. Industrial zones — If on, the region's organized industrial zones are also scanned one by one (for Türkiye only, for now).
6. The summary line at the bottom of the form tells you how many targets, how many queries and what estimated duration will result. Press Start scan. For a very large selection the program asks for confirmation first.

While the search is running, you follow the query, found, added, duplicate / skipped and remaining-time counters on the Live scan tab; Stop finishes the active query and stops. When it is done, View new companies shows only those added in this search, and View results on map opens the map. The same company is not added a second time; if there is new information, the existing record is enriched.

Live scan: the radar

The scene on the Live scan tab shows the search like a radar:

• The globe turns to each new target; a sweep arm turns over the target, and range rings labelled in km appear.
• If the target is a region, a city or a nearby scan and map tiles arrive, the view switches to a real map. For a country-level target the globe stays: a country's center is not a "place".
• Each company found lights up as a red dot at its own location and stays for the whole scan.
• In a nearby scan, the scan's real search radius is drawn on the map as a labelled ring ("search radius 10 km", for example).
• Records from sources that give no coordinates are not placed on a made-up point; they are gathered in the "N without location" counter at the edge of the dial.
• The info box in the corner shows LIVE or DONE with the elapsed time, the range (the radius in a nearby scan), the number of companies found at this target and the finding rate per minute; when the scan finishes it shows the total.

Radar ping under Settings › General plays a short sound for each new company (when sounds are on). If Animations are off, the scene appears still, in its final state. While the program is minimized or another screen is open, the radar does not draw; the scan continues in the background.

Open-data sources: Overture Maps and official registers

These two sources do not browse map websites; they read openly licensed data through official channels and do not need Chrome.

• Overture Maps (open data) — worldwide, openly licensed business location data from the Overture Maps Foundation; no key is needed. The program downloads the data for the target area from the internet in parts. For a very large target (a whole country), the parts near the center are read because of the data limit; selecting a city or a region gives more complete results. Coverage varies from country to country.
  • Your terms are matched with Overture's category vocabulary. The note on the source row tells you how each term will be read; clicking the note opens the How Overture reads your terms window: the reasoning, the confidence and category suggestions you can pick. A term that cannot be matched with certainty is searched in company names; if you pick a suggestion, the term is searched with those categories. The choice applies only to that term and is saved; Remove choice undoes it. The category names come from Overture's own vocabulary (in English).
  • The parts that were read are cached on this computer, so the same area is scanned faster the second time. The cache limit and Clear cache are on the Settings › Search › Overture Maps card; clearing the cache does not affect your company records.
  • Each record's note gives the Overture release, the source and the license; the Source line in the detail panel shows it.
• Official company registers (open data) — the countries' official or openly licensed company registers. Today: France (SIRENE), Norway (Brønnøysund), Finland (PRH / YTJ), Czechia (ARES), the United Kingdom (Companies House), Mexico (INEGI DENUE) and the worldwide GLEIF (LEI). The note on the source row tells you which register will work in the countries you selected.
  • Companies House and INEGI DENUE need your own free API key: type it in the API key box under Settings › Search › Official company registers (Get a free key opens the application page). The key is stored only on this computer; it is not written to the log or to exports. Without a key, that register is skipped during the scan.
  • On the same card you choose which registers are used. The GLEIF name search is off by default; you mostly use GLEIF through Look up LEI (GLEIF) in the company details.
  • The registers provide different fields: some give a phone number, e-mail address or website, most give only the legal name, address and registration number. Each record is saved with the register's name, the ID and a license / attribution line; Open register entry in the detail panel opens the record in the register in your browser.

Commercial directory sites whose terms of use forbid automated collection have deliberately not been added.

Nearby scan and City focus

• Nearby scan scans the companies within a certain radius of a point. You choose the center in one of three ways: Scan nearby in a company's details, Address… or My location (if it is defined under Settings › Contact). While nearby scan is on, the country / region selection is ignored.
• City focus scans a single city very thoroughly: district by district, industrial areas, quarter by quarter. Select the country and the region / city and press Prepare plan; select the layers (All / Recommended / Quick); the plan shows how many targets, how many queries and roughly how long it will take. You run it with Start scan, or save it as a "city watch" and repeat it every week / month. City focus scans with Overture Maps; if you turned the map services on, Google, Yandex and Bing can also be selected alongside it. The window opens with the sources selected in Find Companies.

Save / schedule and History

Save / schedule saves the selection in the form under a name; you can repeat it Daily / Weekly / Monthly. Scheduled searches start by themselves while the program is open; the "Also add to Windows Task Scheduler" option makes them run even when the program is closed. The History tab lists each search's date, source, scope, terms, and found and added counts; double-clicking a row loads that search into the form, and Repeat sets it up again with one click. If a saved scan includes map services and they are turned off in Settings, the scan runs with the other sources (with Overture Maps and the official registers if the saved scan has no other source); a short note appears once in the Activity panel, and the saved scan is not changed.

Tips

• Type what your customer calls itself ("office furniture manufacturer"), not your own product.
• Try Whole region first; if there are few results, increase the depth. The Coverage layer on the map shows which targets came up empty.
• For other countries, keep Vary in every language on; the term is searched in the language of the target country.
• So that the computer does not go to sleep during long searches, sleep is prevented for as long as the program stays open; plug your laptop in.

Limits and etiquette

The program browses the sources like a person, at intervals: it waits a random time between two queries (2.5–7 s by default) and reads a limited number of results per query (40 by default). You can change these values under Settings › Search; shortening the waiting times too much may lead the source to block you temporarily. If a source shows a security check (CAPTCHA) or limits access (HTTP 403/429), the program does not solve it or try to get around it: it waits without changing its identity (IP address, proxy, browser identity); if the same source blocks it three times within an hour, it pauses that source for 6 hours and the search continues with the other sources. The Activity panel shows when the source will be tried again; in the scan summary a paused source is marked with ⏸. The pause applies while the program is open; when it is over, the source is tried again automatically. Not every verification page can be recognized; results from a source may also simply decrease — in that case, wait a while and try again. Complying with the sources' terms of use is the user's responsibility.

Your computer during a scan

To run a scan without overloading your computer, the program does the following:

• The open-data sources do not open a browser. If you turned on the map services, these sources that need a browser (Google, Yandex, Bing) share a single Chrome during a scan. Chrome runs hidden and with low priority in Windows, so it does not get ahead of the other programs you are working with.
• When MapFirms closes — even if it closes unexpectedly — all the Chrome processes opened by the scan are closed. Chrome's temporary files are written to the program's own folder and deleted when the work is done.
• If memory is low (free memory below 1 GB; on computers with less than 10 GB of memory, below 10% of total memory, at least 512 MB), the scan waits up to 3 minutes without opening new pages, then continues with a warning. The memory warning never stops the scan. Closing other programs speeds this up.
• If the internet connection drops, the scan waits without closing Chrome and retries at increasing intervals; when the connection is back, it continues from the query where it stopped. If the outage lasts more than 30 minutes, the scan stops; the companies found so far have been saved.
• If Chrome crashes or stops responding, the program restarts it (at most three times in 10 minutes); if it happens again, it stops the scan so as not to overload the computer. The companies found so far have been saved.

Each of these situations appears as a plain-language line on the Find Companies screen and in the Activity panel. If the computer shuts down during scans, see Section 14.

6. Companies

All the companies you have found are kept in this table. Clicking a row opens the detail panel on the right; you edit by double-clicking a cell (F2), mark a favorite with ★, and sort by clicking a column header.

Filters and chips

The top bar contains the search box (company, address, number, e-mail — Ctrl+F), the country, region / province and status menus, and the Filters drawer. The groups in the drawer:

Active filters appear as chips; Clear removes them all. The summary line below the table tells you how many companies have a mobile number and an e-mail address.

Detail panel

At the top of the panel are the priority score and data quality rings, and below them the quick actions: Open in WhatsApp, Call, Copy number, Send e-mail, Website, Show on map. These are followed by the profile (mobile, landline, e-mail, address, distance, hours, contact person, site languages, the Source the record came from…), the social links, the Talking points (observed information only, such as "The site mentions 'export'" or "+12 Google reviews in the last 90 days"), the CRM section (the Next step date — +3d / +7d, and an .ics file with To calendar — and the Do not contact switch), Tags, Notes and the Timeline.

For a record from an official register, the Source line shows the register's name and the company's registration ID, the LEI if there is one, and the license / attribution line; for a record from Overture it shows the Overture release and the licenses.

Tools:

• Find e-mail — reads the company's website (up to 7 pages: home, contact, about and up to two product pages): e-mail, extra phone, WhatsApp link, social network links (company pages only; personal profiles and share links are not taken), contact person's name. Only information that is openly stated on the site is taken.
• Check e-mail domain — asks DNS about the spelling of the address and the domain's mail server (MX) record; nothing is sent to the address. The result is "domain valid / invalid / unknown".
• Look up LEI (GLEIF) — searches GLEIF's open LEI database for this company. An LEI is saved only if the legal name matches exactly and the address (postcode or city) agrees with the GLEIF record; if it is unclear, nothing is saved. An address and a country are required.
• Open register entry — for a record from an official register, opens its page in the register in your browser.
• Scan nearby · Find similar — sets up a nearby scan centered on this company, or a new search in the same category and region.
• Where from? — the evidence log: on which page and when each value was seen.
• Company sheet — a one-page printable summary. Directions — a Google Maps route from your own location.
• Prepare quote · Quotes — see Section 10.

Social links

The social network links found on the company's website appear in the detail panel, one line per network. The status next to each link tells you how far it can be trusted:

• Found on website — the link is on the company's own website; no further check has been made.
• Verified both ways — the profile also links back to the company (for example the website in the profile points to the company's domain, or the account name is the company's domain itself).
• Could not be verified — a check was made and the profile does not link back to the company.

Verification is optional and off by default; you turn it on under Settings › Contact › Social link verification. When it is on, the links on the selected networks are checked through public APIs after Find e-mail has finished; the same link is asked again at most once every 30 days. Verify in the detail panel checks a single company right away. The networks that can be checked: Bluesky and Mastodon (public API), GitHub (organization accounts only; at most 60 requests per hour without sign-in) and YouTube (YouTube API Services, through the MapFirms server; you must be signed in with your MapFirms account; YouTube data is kept for at most 30 days and then deleted). The optional Search Bluesky by company name only produces suggestions: a suggestion does not count as the company's link unless you accept it with Add; Dismiss rejects it.

MapFirms does not sign in to any account. It sends no request at all to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, LinkedIn, X or TikTok; links to these networks stay "Found on website" only and open in your own browser when you click them. Personal profiles and share links are not shown. If a company page is found to replace an old link, the old address is not deleted but archived.

Bulk actions

Find e-mail in the header reads the sites of all the companies in the filter (or the selected ones) one after another; press Stop whenever you like. Export… saves the companies as an Excel, CSV or Contacts (Google Contacts / vCard / Outlook) file; you choose the scope: current filter, selected records or all. Excel and CSV are data exports; every company is written. Contacts is a messaging export: companies marked Do not contact are not written to the file (the window tells you how many were left out), and before the first contacts file the pre-contact reminder is shown once (Section 8).

In the ··· menu: Import… (your Excel / CSV list; columns are recognized from their headers, and if the same number exists the record is merged), Check e-mail domain, Duplicates, Trash, Clear list.

• Duplicates shows candidate pairs saved with the same website, the same landline or a very similar name. Merge gathers the information in a single record; the other one goes to the trash, and no data is lost.
• Trash — deleted records wait here for 30 days (can be changed under Settings › Data); you can restore them.

The right-click menu offers the same actions. With multiple selection using Ctrl / Shift, you get bulk status change, favorite, adding a tag, visit pack, directions / visit route and deletion (Delete).

7. Map

Companies appear on the map as markers, and as regional clusters when viewed from a distance. The filters at the top (country, region, status) are the same as those on the Companies screen; you select the tile type as Map / Satellite / Dark. Clicking a marker opens the company card on the right, and clicking a cluster opens the list of companies in that region.

• The shape of the marker shows how precise the location is: exact location, address location, or region / country center (approximate). Approximate locations are not real addresses.
• Locate from address — converts records that have an address but no exact location into coordinates using OpenStreetMap (one query per second; it may take a long time and can be stopped).
• Coverage — draws the search targets of the last 60 days as circles: red came up empty, yellow few added, green companies added. Clicking a circle shows that target's query, found and added counts.
• White space — marks with a dashed circle the regions where you have no records at all or are below average: it shows where the next search should go.

Map tiles come from the internet; when you are offline the tiles do not load, but the markers keep working.

8. Contact

The Contact screen is a call queue: the companies come up one by one, you call or write, and you record the outcome with a single key.

1. Select the filters on the left (status, priority, distance, country, region, tag; Mobile numbers only, Skip those contacted today, Favorites) and press Build queue. Companies marked Do not contact do not enter the queue; the number left out for this reason is shown below the filter bar.
2. The order is as follows: follow-ups that are due → favorites → those open now → priority score. The Nearest first switch sets the order according to your location. "Open now" is worked out, for companies with known opening hours, in the company's own country time.
3. Call on the card hands the number to the Windows phone app (Phone Link, Teams…); WhatsApp and E-mail open a draft filled in with the selected template. Sending is always up to you. Before your first call or your first message draft, the program shows a short reminder once (see below).
4. When the conversation is over, select the outcome:

You can also write a note together with the outcome (N). Every outcome is recorded on the company's timeline. The other keys are in Section 16.

Message templates and placeholders

In the Message templates window you keep ready-made texts for WhatsApp and e-mail; the program comes with a few examples for your language. The program's ready-made templates end with a short opt-out line in the template's language: "If you would prefer not to receive messages like this, simply reply and let us know." You can turn it off with Settings › Contact › Message templates › Add an opt-out line to templates; templates you wrote or changed yourself are not touched. In many countries, giving the recipient an easy way to say no is a legal requirement; if you turn the line off, provide one in your own text. The placeholders in the text are filled in for each company:

Click a placeholder under the text to insert it at the cursor. The original Turkish names ({firma}, {kurum}…) also work in every language, so older templates keep working. The Preview on the right shows the text with a sample company.

Bulk send page

Bulk send page in the header produces a WhatsApp page or an E-mail page that opens in the browser for the companies in the queue filter: next to each company there is a ready-made link filled in with your template. When you click the link, WhatsApp or your e-mail program opens with the message written to that company; you send each message yourself, one by one, from your own account. The program sends nothing on your behalf. Companies marked Do not contact are not put on the page at all; how many were left out is shown at the top of the page and in the program's notification when the page opens. Before sending commercial messages, respect the recipient's consent and the applicable rules.

The Do not contact flag and the pre-contact reminder

A quick reminder before you send: before your first call, your first WhatsApp or e-mail draft, your first bulk send page or your first contacts file, the program shows a four-point reminder once: permission or legal basis, introduce yourself, an easy way to say no, don't write to anyone who has said no. Once you tick Got it, don't show this again and press Continue, it is not shown again; if you press Cancel, nothing is done.

Do not contact: if a company tells you it does not want to hear from you, turn on the Do not contact switch in the CRM section of the detail panel; you can add a reason if you wish (for example "said on the phone they don't want messages"). For a flagged company:

• a red band appears in the detail panel, and the Call, WhatsApp and E-mail buttons are disabled;
• the company is left out of the Contact queue, the Contacts export and the bulk send pages, and it cannot be called or messaged from the right-click menu of the Companies table either;
• its phone numbers and e-mail addresses are not sent to MapFirms Mobile; on the phone the company shows a Do not contact label;
• other records with the same phone number, e-mail address or website are flagged too; even if the company is deleted and found again later, it is flagged again because these details stay on the list;
• the record is not deleted; it still appears in Excel / CSV exports.

Removing the flag asks for confirmation; remove it only if the company has withdrawn its objection. The copy on your phone is updated at the next Send to phone; until then, do not call or write to the company from your phone either.

9. Pipeline

The Pipeline screen shows your sales pipeline in five columns: New → Contacted → Quote stage → Deal agreed / Not a fit. You change a card's status by dragging it from one column to another; the change is written to the company's timeline. At the top are the search box, the country and tag filters, and the Favorites switch; clicking a card opens the company on the Companies screen.

Follow-ups that are due (those whose "Next step" date in the company details is today or in the past) appear in the Today's follow-ups card on the Today screen and at the very top of the Contact queue. That way, the answer to "who was I going to call?" is ready every morning.

10. Quotes and Catalog

Preparing a quote

Select a company in Companies and press Prepare quote in the detail panel.

1. If you wish, type a subject; select the currency.
2. Enter the line items: description → quantity → unit → unit price; Enter in the price box opens a new row. If you click a line item in the Catalog list on the right, it drops into the row.
3. Enter the VAT rate, whether the prices are VAT included, and, if any, the Discount % and Validity (days) values. The Note field (delivery, payment terms) appears on the quote and comes pre-filled on the next quote.
4. Create quote produces a printable quote file and opens it in the browser; from there you print it or save it as a PDF. The company moves to the "Quote stage" status.

Quotes screen

Quotes in the sidebar has two tabs. The Quotes tab lists all your quotes as All / Open / Follow-up due / Won / Lost; at the top you see the open, won and lost amounts and the win rate. On a quote, Open opens the file; with Follow-up ▾ you set a reminder for +3 / +7 / +14 / +30 days later; Won also sets the company to "Deal agreed"; if you closed it by mistake, use Reopen.

The Catalog tab remembers every line item you write on a quote, with its unit and last price. You can add a line item, correct the price, or remove it from the list with Archive (it is not deleted; typing the same name again brings it back). The product, unit and price are always what you typed; the program does not suggest prices.

11. MapFirms Mobile

What is it?

MapFirms Mobile is a web app: you do not download it from an app store; it opens in your phone's browser and, once added to the home screen, works like a normal app. It works on Android and iPhone. The data is stored on the phone; your company list opens even when there is no internet.

Your computer and your phone do not talk to each other directly. The desktop encrypts your companies and leaves them on a server; the phone downloads this encrypted package and opens it on the device itself. Because only you have the key, the server cannot read the content (see "Security" below).

Leaving the package on the server requires a valid account session; that is why MapFirms Mobile is available in the full version only (see Free version and full version).

Pairing with QR — step by step

1. On the desktop, open the Mobile page from the sidebar and press Pair (QR). A large QR code appears on the screen.
2. Scan the QR with your phone's camera and tap the link that comes up. MapFirms Mobile opens in the browser and says "paired".
3. Add the app to the home screen:
   • Android (Chrome): browser menu (⋮) › Install app or Add to Home screen. If you opened the link inside WhatsApp, choose "Open in Chrome" first.
   • iPhone (Safari): Share button › Add to Home Screen. On iPhone, the app on the home screen cannot see Safari's storage; that is why you need to carry the code over once: before adding, tap ⋯ Menu › Copy pairing code in the app, then open the app on the home screen and press Paste. (The Copy code (iPhone) button on the desktop gives the same code.)
4. On the desktop, press Send to phone. All your companies, your searches and your message templates are encrypted and sent; when you open the app on the phone, they download by themselves.

Afterwards: if the Send automatically after each search switch is on (after the first manual send), new companies go to the phone in the background. At any time you can press the Send to phone chip at the bottom of the sidebar or the button on the Today screen. For a second phone, Add phone (QR) shows the QR of the same pairing again.

What can you do on the phone?

There are five tabs at the bottom of the app: Companies · Searches · New Search · WhatsApp · E-mail. The ⋯ menu at the top right contains the sync, contacts, appearance and language settings.

• Find and filter — search by company, address, phone or category. Quick filters: Favorite · Follow-up due · Never contacted · WhatsApp · E-mail · Acted on by me; status, country, region and more under Filters; arrange the list with Sort. The Searches tab shows the companies by the search they came from.
• Call — your phone calls with a single tap from the company card.
• WhatsApp — a chat opens without saving the number to your contacts; if you select a template, the message comes ready. Sending is up to you.
• E-mail and SMS — open in your phone's own app, with a template if you wish.
• Save to Contacts — a single company: Save to Contacts on the card. In bulk: check the companies with Companies › Select and then Save to Contacts (n), or get them all as a single .vcf file with ⋯ Menu › Contacts. Companies with no phone and no e-mail are skipped.
• Directions — the company's location opens in your maps app.
• Statuses and history — you see each company's status on the desktop (New, Contacted, Quote stage…), its note and its history, and you filter by status. The actions you take on the phone (called, WhatsApp opened…) are marked on the card and collected under the Acted on by me filter. You make status changes on the desktop; they are reflected on the phone at the next send.

WhatsApp and E-mail tabs: sequential send

These two tabs list the companies that have WhatsApp (or an e-mail address) and offer sequential send: you select a template and the recipients and press Start sequential send; the app prepares the message on the screen for each company, you tap the Open in WhatsApp (or Open e-mail) button, send the message yourself, and move on to the next company. If you stop halfway, you continue with Resume. Templates come from the desktop (read-only); you can also write new templates on the phone.

The app does not send messages on its own: only the links you tap open in your phone's own app. Before sending commercial messages, respect the recipient's consent and the applicable rules.

New Search from the phone

A search comes to mind while you are in the field: on the New Search tab, type the term, select the country / region and the depth, and send it. This is what happens:

1. The phone leaves the request on the server in encrypted form.
2. If MapFirms is open on your computer at the office and Accept search requests from the phone is checked on the Mobile page, the program usually picks up the request within a minute, fills in the Find Companies form for you and starts the search. If another search is running at that moment, your request joins the queue.
3. The status is followed live on the phone: Waiting for computer → Queued → Running → Finished (or Failed / Cancelled / Rejected). You can cancel the request from the phone.
4. When the search is finished, the results are sent to the phone; View results opens the new companies.

The search is always carried out by your computer; the phone only passes the request on. If the computer is off, the request waits and starts when the program is opened. On the desktop you see incoming requests in the Search requests from the phone list on the Mobile page and in the Mobile card on the Today screen.

Security — in plain terms

• End-to-end encrypted. Your companies are encrypted on your computer and opened only on your phone.
• The key is only in the QR. The key is in the part of the QR link after the # sign; browsers do not send this part to the server. The key is kept only on your computer (protected by Windows) and on your phone.
• The server cannot read it. The server holds only meaningless, encrypted bytes; neither company names nor phone numbers are visible. Whoever operates the server cannot read the content either.
• If the phone is lost / stolen: on the desktop, press Mobile › Reset pairing. All the phones you have paired lose access and the encrypted copy on the server is deleted. Then pair your own phones again with a new QR. Always protect your phone with a screen lock; the data downloaded to the phone depends on the phone's own protection.
• When handing the phone over: in the app, ⋯ Menu › Remove pairing deletes the data and the key on that phone.

Troubleshooting

12. Settings, language, backup and updates

Settings has six tabs; changes are applied with Save, and Undo returns to the previous values.

Your country, currency and VAT: MapFirms detects which country you are in from the Windows region setting (Settings › Contact › My location › Country: "Automatic (detected: …)"); if the detected country is wrong, pick yours from the list. Your country comes first in the country list on Find Companies and is the first selection; the map opens there; the quote defaults are derived from it: for example $ and no VAT in the USA, € and 19% in Germany, ₺ and 20% in Türkiye. In countries whose standard rate is not a well-known whole number, VAT comes up as 0; type the rate yourself under Settings › General › Quote defaults. A currency and rate you chose explicitly do not change when the country changes.

Network proxy: only for networks without direct internet access (company, school, hotel), you enter a single address (http://user:password@ip:port); Test proxy tries it. The map sources (Chrome) and the B2B directories use this one address for the whole session; other connections go out through the Windows network settings. The program does not rotate proxies: the address does not change even when an error or a block occurs. A proxy may not be used to get around blocks or rate limits. Of a proxy list left over from older versions, only the first address is used; the other addresses are not deleted but moved to an archive when you save. The username and password are not written to the log.

Language: Select it under General › Language, save, and press Restart. There are six languages: Türkçe, English, Deutsch, Français, Español, العربية. The language of the phone app is selected separately from the ⋯ Menu.

Backup and restore: On the first launch of each day the program takes an automatic backup of the database and keeps the last 7 backups (the number can be changed). Back up now produces a manual backup; you select a backup in the Manage / restore backups window; the backup first goes through an integrity check and is put in place when you restart the program. A safety copy of the current database is also taken; if you selected the wrong backup, you can go back to it. Open data folder shows the folder where the backups are kept; at important times, copy this folder to an external disk as well. When moving to a new computer, it is enough to move the same folder.

Danger zone: "Clear company list" and "Clear search history" are permanent; nothing goes to the trash. Export to Excel or take a backup first.

Update: Once a day at launch, the program checks whether there is a new version; you can also ask manually with Check for updates under Settings › Account › Update. If there is a new version, Download downloads the new setup file; you close the program and run the setup. Your data and settings are preserved.

13. Administrator: Accounts

The Accounts screen is a support tool, not a sales tool: customers open their own accounts when they buy (Section 3). The screen lists the accounts: ID, name, company, role, status (active / closed / expired), expiry date, number of devices and last sign-in.

Common support tasks

• A customer who has reached the device limit: in the row's Devices window, press Remove next to the computer the customer no longer uses.
• A customer who forgot their password: the Accounts screen does not show e-mail addresses, so before resetting, confirm in the Paddle dashboard that the account belongs to the sender. Search the Paddle dashboard (Customers) for the address the customer wrote from: for an account opened by purchase, NAME in the list is the customer name in Paddle (or the e-mail address itself if there is no name), and ID starts with the part of the e-mail before the @ (its letters and digits only, at most 12; 4 digits are added at the end). If both match, press Reset password and send them the new temporary password yourself (the program does not send e-mails); the customer sets their own password at the first sign-in. If the address is not in Paddle or you are not sure which row it is, do not reset. An account you opened by hand has no e-mail address; check your own records to see whom you gave it to.
• Misuse: Close account (Acceptable Use Policy).

The temporary password is shown once on the sign-in details card and is not shown again; the card closes after a short time or when the screen changes. Copy puts the details on the clipboard; the clipboard is also cleared after a short time. ＋ New customer (opening an account by hand, for example a test account) shows the same card; an account opened this way is not linked to a subscription, and you set its expiry date and device limit.

Row actions

An administrator cannot delete their own account. Customers' company lists, quotes and phone pairings are kept on their own computers; the administrator cannot see them.

14. Frequently asked questions and troubleshooting

Activity panel

Activity replaces the terminal strip at the bottom of older versions. The single line at the very bottom of the sidebar tells you the program's state in plain language: "Ready", "Finding companies" with a percentage, "2 jobs running" or "2 problems". Clicking the line (or pressing Ctrl+J) opens the Activity panel from the right; Esc, a click outside the panel or Ctrl+J again closes it.

• Running jobs appear as cards (scan, e-mail finding, e-mail domain check, address geocoding, sending to the phone, update download, list import): progress, counters, Show and Stop.
• The timeline shows this session's events grouped as NOW / LAST HOUR / TODAY; the All / Problems switch filters warnings and errors only. Unread problems appear as a number on the bell in the sidebar.
• Error pop-ups do not flood the screen: errors that arrive close together are combined into a single pop-up, and the details stay in the panel.
• Copy for support puts the version, system information and recent entries on the clipboard; phone numbers and e-mail addresses are masked. Open log folder shows the permanent log files; Clear empties only this session's timeline, and the log file remains.

Questions and answers

The search finds no companies at all, or very few. Simplify the term (add a general pattern such as "manufacturer" or "production"); check one more source (including the open-data sources); increase the depth. If you use the map services, make sure Chrome is installed and up to date. If a source is showing a verification screen or has been paused (the Activity panel says so), take a break for a while; the other sources keep working. Settings › Data › System check (Diagnostics) shows missing components.

The search takes a very long time. The number of targets × terms × sources determines the number of queries; look at the estimated duration at the bottom of the form. Scan the regions piece by piece, or schedule it for the night as a saved search.

Some companies have no mobile number. The source may list only a landline. Find e-mail also brings in the extra phone numbers and the WhatsApp link stated on the site. You can turn off saving companies with only a landline under Settings › Search › Saving policy.

The "Call" button does nothing. If the company is marked Do not contact, the call and message buttons are disabled on purpose. Otherwise there is no app on Windows to open the tel: link: pair Windows Phone Link with your phone, or change the protocol under Settings › Contact; until then the number is copied to the clipboard. The easiest way: call the company from your phone (Section 11).

The WhatsApp draft does not open. WhatsApp Desktop must be installed on the computer, or WhatsApp Web must be open in the browser.

The same company appears twice. Merge them with Companies › ··· › Duplicates.

I deleted something by mistake. Restore it from Companies › ··· › Trash (30 days). For anything older, restore from a backup under Settings › Data.

I cannot sign in. Make sure you typed the e-mail address you used at purchase (if your account was opened with a user ID, type that ID). After repeated wrong attempts the account is temporarily locked (starting at 15 minutes); wait. If you forgot your password, see Section 3. If it says "Cannot reach the server", check your internet connection and your network filter, if any.

The computer shut down or restarted by itself during a scan. If Windows recorded an unexpected shutdown, MapFirms shows a calm warning titled Previous session at the next launch and writes it to the Activity panel: the time of the Windows record, the stop code if there is one and — if the shutdown appears to come from the graphics driver — the advice to update your driver (with the address of the driver page when the maker is known to be NVIDIA, AMD or Intel). The program only reads the Windows record; it does not change any system setting. Shutdowns like this usually come from the graphics card driver and can also happen while the program is closed: update your graphics driver from the maker's website. MapFirms also reduces the load on the computer during scans (Section 5, "Your computer during a scan").

The program does not open / unexpected error. If the program is running, open the Activity panel (Ctrl+J) and press Copy for support. Command palette › Diagnostics produces the system summary and has the same button. If the program does not open at all, the log files are in the logs folder inside the data folder. When asking for support, send the copied text and a screenshot taken at the moment the error appeared.

How do I cancel my subscription, and can I get a refund? Settings › Account › Manage subscription (Section 3). Cancelling stops the next renewal; within 30 days of a payment you can ask for a full refund. When the subscription ends, the program returns to the free version; your data is not deleted.

Where is my data, and who can see it? Your companies, notes and quotes are kept only on your own computer (%LOCALAPPDATA%\MapFirms). Only your account sign-in, the unreadable encrypted mobile package if you have paired a phone, and the ID or handle of the channel to be checked if you turned on YouTube verification go to the server. Your official-register API keys are stored only on this computer.

Support: destek@mapfirms.com.

15. Limitations

• The Arabic desktop layout is left-to-right. In the desktop program the Arabic texts are translated, but the window layout (menus, columns) stays left-to-right; this is a limitation of the interface framework used. MapFirms Mobile works with a right-to-left layout in Arabic.
• Unsigned setup warning. The setup file is not yet digitally signed; Windows SmartScreen shows an "Unknown publisher" warning (Section 2). Run the file only if you downloaded it through the download link on mapfirms.com (the file's address starts with app.mapfirms.com/indir/).
• Map services and directories may change. The optional map services (Google, Yandex, Bing) and the directory sites may change their page structures and terms without prior notice. After such a change, a source may temporarily return fewer results or none at all; this is fixed with an update. Use the other sources in the meantime.
• The coverage of the open-data sources varies by country. Overture Maps is a worldwide dataset, but it is not equally complete in every country. The official registers cover France, Norway, Finland, Czechia, the United Kingdom and Mexico today (GLEIF worldwide); two of them need your own free API key. The B2B directories are for Türkiye only.
• The data is only as good as the public sources. Not every company's phone, e-mail or correct location may be available; "approximate" locations show the center of the region.
• The computer must be on for searching. Scheduled searches and searches requested from the phone do not run while the computer is off or asleep.
• Windows only. The desktop program is for Windows 10 / 11; the phone app works on Android and iPhone.
• The phone is for viewing and getting in touch only. Editing company information and statuses is done on the desktop. Phone numbers and e-mail addresses of companies marked Do not contact are not sent to the phone; the company appears there with its label.
• The free version is limited. Without an account session, at most 30 new companies can be added on this installation and MapFirms Mobile cannot be used (Free version and full version).

16. Keyboard shortcuts

Everywhere

Companies table

Contact queue

MapFirms 8.2.0 · This guide comes with the program: command palette › Guide.