Overview
Tern now supports the ability to create agencies, pay for seats with discounted rates, and manage your team's access!
Please note that additional features - like commission reconciliation, reporting, and more, will be available over the coming weeks. The main reason to set up a Tern Agency account now is if you'd like to pay on behalf of your agents to use Tern and receive a discounted subscription rate.
We'll start by covering pricing & billing policies. If you are already comfortable with our cost structure, feel free to jump ahead to Agency owner sign-up. Or if you have an existing Tern account, jump right to Creating an agency.
Pricing
Agencies can manage their seat subscriptions and invoicing within Tern. There are two stackable mechanisms to reduce the cost of Tern. Collectively, this gives agencies a pathway to a nearly 50% discount on Tern for their advisors.
Subscription duration: By purchasing a seat for the year or quarter we are able to give a discount of up to 25% off the list price.
Seat volume: The more seats you purchase the greater the discount. Volume discounts can be up to 30% off the Tern list price.
Pay upfront discount: Seats that are purchased at the time of signing via bank transfer are eligible for an additional 5% discount.
Billing, refunds, and prorating
As an agency in Tern you have full control over who is allocated to your purchased seats. There are a few important things to note:
Seats can be reassigned. If you have an advisor that leaves the agency you can replace their seat with another advisor. An empty seat is not eligible for a refund or extension.
Seats do not equal accounts. When you add a new advisor to a seat they have no access to the previous advisor’s content, contacts, etc.
We are unable to offer refunds for quarterly and annual seats. We’re able to discount these because of the consistency they offer from an accounting perspective. Refunding them on request negates that benefit.
During implementation you will set up recurring billing in the Tern application. Your first bill, as calculated above, may be paid through ACH transfer or via credit card.
Agency owner sign-up
If you are new to Tern, you will go through our sign up process normally. Get started now by going to https://app.tern.travel/signups/new
A few things to keep in mind as you go through our regular sign-up process:
You'll sign up as a regular advisor account, and set up your agency later
You will choose a regular advisor subscription plan, before moving to Agency pricing if you choose to do so. This allows you to do our regular 2 week trial and get a feel for our product before purchasing seats in bulk.
That's it! Once you have set up your subscription, you will have full access to Tern's regular advisor product to start familiarizing yourself with before setting up your agency.
Creating an agency account
To set up an agency, start by selecting 'Settings' under your profile drop-down
Next, click on Agency Details and select 'Set Up Agency'
Fill out your basic agency details
Select the number of seats you'd like to purchase
Or, skip this for now. Please note that if you do skip purchasing seats you will still be able to invite agents to your team in Tern, but they will cover the full cost of their Tern subscription (and not receive a discounted price point).
Enter payment details in Stripe checkout
You're all set up! You'll be launched onto your Agency team management page
Moving your subscription over
If you'd like to add yourself as a paid seat under your agency, select 'edit details'
Then toggle yourself to a paid seat type -
You'll also be prompted to cancel your existing personal subscription, so you aren't paying twice
Inviting teammates
First, select the 'Invite Teammates' button
Next, copy and paste in the email addresses of the agents you'd like to invite
Please note that as of right now, you'll need to format this as a comma separated list. Let us know if you have any difficulties there by contacting support!
Tip: you can use a service like this to help: https://convert.town/column-to-comma-separated-list
You'll also be able to toggle between whether this is a paid or free seat.
As a reminder, if you select a 'free seat', your agent would need to set up their own subscription through Tern directly, and would not receive the volume discounted rate outlined above
You'll see the list of agents you invited, with an 'invited' status
Managing your team
As your team accepts your invite to Tern, you'll see their status update to 'active'
To make changes to your team, click the action menu from their row on the table
From here you can update their commission split, toggle whether their seat is paid or not, and change their role
Deactivating agents
If you choose 'remove from agency', you'll see a confirmation modal with additional information
The agent will receive an email once you confirm deactivation
Roles in Tern
Owner: the first person who sets up the agency (permissions are the same as 'admin')
Admin: can manage team members and access/edit billing
Agent: as of right now, agents will just show up under your team, and you can optionally manage their subscription through Tern. As we build out more features, they'll be able to sync activity data to your for commission reconciliation & reporting
New agent sign-up
If an agent does not have a Tern account, they'll receive an email with context on Tern + your invitation
If you are not paying for their seat, they'll receive an email that looks like this -
If you are paying for their seat, they'll receive an email that looks like this
They will go through a streamlined version of Tern's onboarding flow
If you are paying for their seat, this includes completely skipping the Tern subscription step of onboarding
If you are not paying for their seat, they will set up a subscription normally
And that's it!
Once commission reconciliation is available, they'll be able to start using these features automatically through Tern :)
Agents with existing Tern accounts - joining your agency
If an agent already has a Tern account, they'll just need to click 'Accept Invitation' to join
Note: in order for them to join your agency with their existing Tern account, the invited email will need to match. As you can see below, we direct them to contact you if they need this changed on your side
If you are not paying for their Tern subscription, the email will look like this:
If you are paying for their subscription, they'll be notified that they can cancel their existing subscription at any time
They'll be able to see their affiliation with your agency on the Agency Details page
If you are not paying for their Tern subscription, no other action is needed from your agent
If you are paying for their subscription, they can cancel their existing Tern subscription from here
And that's it!
Once commission reconciliation is available, they'll be able to start using these features automatically through Tern :)