Great question! When setting up an agency in Tern, you get to determine the roles for each of your team members.
An Agency Owner is the first person who sets up the agency. This person has the same permissions as an Agency Admin, but they also have the ability to transfer ownership of the agency to another team member.
An Agency Admin has the ability to manage team members and access/edit billing information. They can also perform all tasks that an Agency Owner can. This is a great role for your agency bookkeeper, Virtual Assistant, or anyone that you trust within the team to manage the sales and commission details of your team.
Agency owners can customize individual admin permissions to fine-tune what each admin can do. For example, you might give a VA full trip access while limiting their ability to invite new members or manage your billing plan. See the section below on custom permissions for details.
An Agency Collaborator can view and edit all trips and contacts that are shared with their agency, but cannot access the agency's settings, commissions, or reporting. By default, collaborators can view full payment card details on trips they have access to — agency admins can turn this off per-collaborator from the team member settings.
An Agent is a member of your agency's team in Tern. Agents plan and manage trips on their own Tern account, without access to any agency-level details or settings. Their subscription can optionally be managed by the agency.
In your Tern settings under the Agency section > Team & Billing tab, you can determine an agent's role on the team:
Custom member permissions
Agency owners can go beyond role defaults to fine-tune what individual admins and collaborators can do. Custom permissions are set from the team member's edit drawer — click any member's row on the Team page to open it.
The following permissions can be adjusted:
Permission | Who it applies to | What it controls |
View full credit card details | Admins and collaborators | Whether the member can see full card numbers and CVV codes in payment authorizations. Turned off, the card number is masked except for the last four digits. |
Manage agency suppliers | Admins | Whether the member can add, edit, and archive agency suppliers in the Library. |
Manage team members | Admins | Whether the member can invite, edit, and remove team members, and assign seats. |
Manage billing | Admins | Whether the member can change the agency's subscription plan or purchase additional seats. |