Here's how to create a new Agency in Tern. First we'll cover how to create an agency if you are new to Tern and do not yet have a subscription. If you already have a Tern subscription, skip to this step!
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
Any Tern advisor can set up an agency. You don't need an active subscription to create one, and you become the agency's owner automatically.
Go to Settings under your profile drop-down.
Select "Agency affiliations" in the left sidebar, under the Business group. Then click "Set Up Agency."
Fill out your agency details. These fields are required:
Agency name
Number of employees (how many advisors are in your agency)
At least one accreditation. Choose a type (IATA, TRUE, CLIA, or IATAN) and enter its ID number. Select "Add accreditation" to add more than one.
You can also add your website and a default agent commission split (%), but these are optional.
Select "Create agency." You're now the owner of the agency, and you'll land on your agency team management page.
Note: If you leave out the agency name, the number of employees, or an accreditation, the form won't submit. Add the missing field and try again.
Purchasing seats
After your agency is created, you'll be prompted to purchase seats for your team. You can do this now or skip it for later.
If you purchase seats, enter your payment details in Stripe checkout to buy them at the volume-discounted rate.
If you skip for now, you can still invite agents, but they'll cover the full cost of their own Tern subscription instead of the discounted rate.
Moving your subscription over
If you already have a personal Tern subscription, you can move yourself (or any teammate) onto a paid seat under your agency so the agency covers the cost instead.
Before you start:
Your agency needs at least one open paid seat. If you haven't purchased seats yet, buy them first. If no seat is available, the Assign paid seat option won't appear.
You need team-management permission. Agency owners and admins have this by default.
Go to your agency's team table in Back Office > Team & billing.
Open the action menu (the ⋮ icon) on the row of the person you want to move onto a paid seat.
Select "Assign paid seat."
You're all set. If that person had an active personal Tern subscription, Tern cancels it automatically. You don't need to cancel it yourself, and there's no separate Stripe step.
If they already paid for time they won't use, Tern issues a prorated refund to their original payment method.
Note: The cancellation runs in the background and can take a few minutes. Tern doesn't show an in-app confirmation for it, so to verify, check that the personal subscription shows as canceled in your billing records.
To move a paid seat back off someone, open the same action menu and select "Remove paid seat."
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
Re-inviting Agents
If you need to re-send an agency invite you will need to first remove the agent from your agency which will send them an email
This will send them an email that they have been removed from your agency
Then you will have the option to re-invite to agency which will send them another invite email to join your agency.
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