New agency owners can set up their agency through a guided conversation with Tern's AI, instead of scheduling a live walkthrough call.
What It Does
When you're setting up a new agency, the AI onboarding guide interviews you about how your agency works and helps you configure it. It covers your business settings, branding, team, commission splits, payout rules, and more. As you answer its questions, it creates tasks in Tern so you have a clear, personalized checklist to work through.
This replaces the live settings walkthrough call that new agency owners used to schedule with the Tern team. You can start whenever you're ready, at your own pace.
How It Works
The onboarding guide is a conversation inside AI Chat, not a form or a separate page. You tell it how your agency is structured (solo or a team, independent or under a host agency, which consortium you belong to, how you split commission), and it turns your answers into a setup plan.
The interview remembers what you tell it and creates tasks in your Tasks tab as you go. Those tasks are your checklist. You can stop at any point. Tasks you've already created stay in your Tasks tab, and you can reopen AI Chat later to keep going.
What It Covers
The guide walks through the areas a new agency needs to set up:
Your agency's structure (solo or team, independent or under a host agency, consortium memberships)
Your personal advisor settings (profile, notifications, two-step verification)
Business settings (agency information, branding, terms and conditions, trip settings, email and calendar)
Trip statuses
Agency controls and back office (booking requirements, credit card authorizations, unclaimed commission, service fees)
Commission rules (default splits, exceptions, mentor and mentee splits)
Payout rules (when commission is released, by supplier type)
Suppliers (preferred suppliers, and whether to restrict to your agency's list)
AI features you can turn on
Who Can Use It
Available to all agency owners. There's nothing to turn on. You need to have created your agency in Tern first.
Steps
Create your agency in Tern. If you haven't created your agency yet, do that first. The guide sets up an agency that already exists.
Open AI Chat from the top navigation.
Ask the AI to help you set up your agency. For example, type "Help me set up my agency" or "Walk me through my settings."
Answer the questions about how your agency works. The guide asks about your team, your host or consortium, your commission splits, and your payout preferences, then builds a setup plan from your answers.
Work through the tasks it creates in your Tasks tab. Complete them at your own pace. You can reopen AI Chat anytime to continue the conversation.
You'll Know It Worked When
Tasks appear in your Tasks tab reflecting the setup plan the guide built from your answers.
Common Issues
I don't see an onboarding call to schedule.
The AI onboarding guide replaces the live walkthrough call. Open AI Chat and ask it to help you set up your agency to get started.
I exited partway through.
Any tasks you already created stay in your Tasks tab, so nothing is lost. Reopen AI Chat and ask to continue setting up your agency.
I'd rather set things up myself.
You can. Work through your agency settings directly, or use the agency owner checklist at https://www.tern.travel/learn/checklist/agency-owners.
I still want to talk to a person.
Reach out through the chat bubble in Tern, or join office hours for live help. https://www.tern.travel/events?filter_eventcategory=office-hours