HQ Connect (/app/hq-connect) is your shop's window into whatever your franchisor has sent down — announcements, assigned training, shared documents, your latest compliance audit, and your royalty statement. It's the franchisee-side mirror of the franchisor's own HQ dashboard; HQ Connect only shows your shop's side of the relationship, not any franchisor admin tools.
Four stat tiles across the top — Unread updates, Training todo, Last audit, Royalty due — aren't just summary numbers. They're buttons: clicking one jumps you straight into the matching tab below.
Announcements, training, and documents
The Announcements tab lists everything HQ has broadcast to your shop. Unread items get a red "New" badge and a highlighted border; pinned items get an amber border and a pin icon instead of the usual megaphone icon. A Mark as read button appears only on unread items — clicking it clears that item from your Unread updates count right away.
The Training tab lists courses HQ has assigned you, each with a status (Assigned, In progress, or Completed), a due date if one applies, and a Start/Continue/Review button whose label depends on that status. Opening a course shows its lesson list — Video, Article, or Quiz lessons. Video and article lessons just need a Mark complete click; quiz lessons require you to answer every question before Check answers unlocks, show you which answers were right or wrong, and only record your score once you click Submit. The course's progress bar reflects real per-lesson completion computed on the server, not a static placeholder.
The Documents tab shows files HQ has shared — tagged SOP, Marketing, Operations, or Other — each with a version number, file size, and last-updated date, plus a Download link when a file is attached.
Audits and royalty — two things worth knowing
The My audits tab shows only your most recent audit, not a history. You'll see the score out of the max, the auditor's name, the date, and — if anything failed — a list of flagged items with notes. There's no way to page back through older audits from this screen.
The Royalty & marketing fund tab shows your shop's current statement: gross basis, royalty owed, national marketing fund, and (only when they're actually nonzero) local marketing fund, technology fee, other fees, and credits applied, down to a total due and remaining balance. That's a real non-obvious detail — a statement with no local marketing fund charge doesn't show that row as $0, it just doesn't render at all, so don't read a missing line as a data error. A note at the bottom of the card explains how HQ actually collects what you owe — ACH on file, card on file, invoice, a QuickBooks bill, or a manual/direct arrangement per your franchise agreement — based on how your shop is set up.
The other gotcha is the Royalty due stat tile itself: it shows your current statement's remaining balance, not the original total due. If you've paid part of a statement, the tile only reflects what's left — check the Royalty tab for the full breakdown (gross, royalty, fees, total due, paid so far) if you need the whole picture. And if your shop doesn't have a royalty statement generated yet, both the tile and the tab say so plainly rather than showing a zero-dollar balance.