Need to help your clients run a new store here is a key of what is where and how to use it.
Sections of Magento and what they are for:
Dashboard:
the Dashboard has a snapshot of what is happening in the store, it will list things like last 5 orders, last 5 search terms, top search terms, and revenue.
Sales:
the Sales section is where you will process transactions once the credit card nonsense is worked out, it’s also where you can issue refunds and partial credits.
Sales -> Orders:
Lists All pending, and completed orders, for more details click on “View” to view any given order
from the order view you can change the status, email the customer, print packing lists, invoice the order or add shipping info
The rest of the sales section will mostly be avoided, unless tax rates change or you start invoicing people to pay after the fact
Catalog:
the Catalog section allows you to manage the products and categories as well as moderate product reviews and ratings.
Catalog -> Manage Products: (Add/Edit/Remove)
on the Manage products view you can type in any of the search fields at the top to perform a search; this helps to locate an item that you are updating.
Updating products is pretty simple, open the product by clicking the row or “Edit” once you’re done making changes press save product
Adding Product
Step 1: Attribute Set (Each type of product has a custom set of attributes to select the type of product your adding)
Step 2: Product Type (You use simple products)
[Continue]
The next section is broken down in to parts such as General and Prices where you click on each before pressing save.
General: Name, Description, Short Description, SKU etc…
Prices: Enter a price and select Tax Class of Taxable
Meta Information: This is for optimization and should be similar to the product title, description and keywords
Images: provides a simple image uploader, for the selections
(Base Image is the first shown on the product page, Small is for cart, and thumb is for the category pages)
Categories: Select where the item belongs.
for the most part you will not need to do anything with recurring profile, design, gift options
When you are done updating the info press Save to save the product and make it live on the site.
Catalog -> Manage Categories: (Add/Edit/Remove)
I would recommend asking before making any changes in this section.
** The rest of the Catalog links are of no real use to you
Customers:
the Customers section allows you to make changes to the customer entities, along with exporting customer lists for email marketing
Promotions:
in the promo’s section you can setup specials like add a Meto 722 and Save X on XX labels for it, however, I would recommend having me help with these as they can be very tricky.
Newsletter:
You can setup and manage a newsletter from the store admin section
CMS:
CMS -> Pages: This is where most of the static pages like about us are stored and updated.
CMS -> Static Blocks, nothing here for you
CMS -> Widgets, avoid this as well
Reports:
Some basic date selectable reports such as Sales, Cart Abandonment etc…
System:
I’d say your best bet is to avoid the system area as well, and ask for help before making any changes