HelpGetting startedCreate your business
Create your business
Creating your account is one quick step from a signed-in session. You'll name your business, accept the data terms, and — importantly — save your recovery codes. The form is short — a business name, an optional recovery email, an optional partner code, and the terms switch — and this page also covers what to do when it won't let you finish.
Sign in first. Creating your business starts from a signed-in session, so you'll sign in with your email link before this step. The email you sign in with becomes your way in from then on.
Sign in first
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| "First, tell us your email." | You reached the set-up page before signing in. You don't get the form yet. |
| "There is no separate account step. On the next screen, type your email — the link we send opens your turnda account and starts setting up your business." | The reason, under the card. Tap Continue with your email, type your email, and open the link we send. |
- This is not an error and you have not done anything wrong. turnda needs to know which inbox the account belongs to before it will make one — that inbox is what gets you in afterwards.
- Nothing you typed is kept while you go and sign in, so sign in first and then fill the form.
- One sign-in email makes one business. If you genuinely want a second, separate business of your own, create it from a different email address.
- You can still be part of other people's businesses on the same email — they invite you in, and a Switch business control appears for you to move between them.
On a phone you will see “turnda works on a computer or tablet”. The sign-in and set-up pages are not for phones (a screen whose shorter side is under 600 pixels). A phone shows a notice with a computer, a tablet and a phone picture, and the line “Please open turnda on a computer or tablet to run your business. Your visitors can still join and track on their phones.” Open the email link on a computer or a tablet. Visitor pages, the lobby TV and the entrance tablet are not affected.
A screen that says turnda is opening soon While sign-ups are closed, this page shows turnda is opening soon instead of the form, and says we are not taking new sign-ups just yet. It is the same for everyone, and nobody can get past it, a reseller code included. The screen has Contact us to ask to hear when we open, Back to the website, and Sign in if you already have a business with us.
Already have a business? You'll never see this form. If the email you signed in with is already part of a business, the set-up page takes you straight into the app instead — no message, no form. Your account already exists, so there is nothing to create.
Where exactly you land depends on who you are
| Who you are | Where you land |
|---|---|
| Owner | Your dashboard |
| Staff | The serving console |
Name your business
- Enter your Business name — what your business is called; you can add locationsA physical place your business runs, with its own opening hours and lines. One business can have many locations. You may have seen this called a “branch”, “outlet” or “site”. afterwards. It's the only thing on this form you have to type, and it's marked Required.
- Partner code (optional) — only if the person who told you about turnda gave you a code. Leave it empty if you do not have one.
A name of only spaces doesn't count. Spaces at the front and back are trimmed off before anything is saved, so a box holding nothing but spaces counts as empty — the button stays grey and the line under it still asks for your business name.
Why That is deliberate — it's what stops a business being created with a blank name nobody can see.
The recovery email
- Recovery email (optional) is exactly what it says: optional. You can leave it empty and finish the form.
- The note under it is the important part: "Kept on your account's privacy page for your records. It is not a sign-in method — the one-time recovery codes you save when you finish are how you get back in."
The recovery email is not a second way in. Nobody can sign in with it, and losing your main email does not make it take over. Your recovery codes are the way back in — the ones on the very next screen.
The one thing to get right This is the one thing people get wrong here. If you only do one thing carefully on this page, do that one.
Two things stop the address being accepted — both shown under the box as you type
| What the screen says | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Enter a valid email address." | What's typed isn't an address yet. It's normal to see this halfway through typing; it goes as soon as the address is complete. An empty box shows nothing at all, because empty is allowed. |
| "Use a different email from your sign-in email." | You've typed the same address you signed in with. A recovery email that is the same as the sign-in one isn't any use, so turnda asks for a different one. Use a personal address, or a partner's. |
- While either message is showing, Create my account stays grey. Clear the box completely if you'd rather not add one — an empty box is fine and unblocks the button.
The data terms
- Tick I agree to the Terms of Service, the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement to finish. In plain terms: you're the data controller for your visitors' information and turnda is your processor — the same relationship every compliant tool has. The note under the switch says it outright: "Required to create the account."
- It really is a hard stop, in two places — the button won't work without it, and even if it did, the server refuses to make the account.
- There is no way to create a business without accepting these terms, and turnda records which version of the documents you accepted, and when.
- One switch names all three papers — the Terms of Service, the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement — and each name is a link that opens in a new tab, so nothing you've typed is lost. The Terms and Privacy links also sit in the footer at the bottom of the page.
- Each link opens a short, readable summary inside turnda — what the service does, what it costs, who owns what, how long visitor data is kept, and where it's stored. The summary shows the document's version and the date it was last updated (“Version … · Last updated …”), which is the version your acceptance is recorded against.
- From there, a link opens the full published document in a new tab — “Read the full Terms of Service” or “Read the full Privacy Policy”.
- Both summary pages carry one more link, lower down — "Every company that processes data on our behalf, and where that data is stored, is listed on our sub-processor page" — with a Sub-processors link that opens it in a new tab.
- It's the same page whether you got there from Terms or from Privacy, and it's where to point a visitor's IT team if they ask who else touches their data. The data processing agreement itself is published at turnda.com/dpa.
Your form stays where it is The Terms, the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement open in a new tab, so what you've typed is kept. Read them there, then close that tab and carry on with the form.
Close the tab rather than using Back to turnda The summary page's own Back to turnda link goes to your home screen, not back to the half-filled form. Closing the tab brings you back to the form exactly as you left it.
The button is grey — read the line under it
Create my account stays greyed out until the form is complete, and a small line directly underneath tells you what is still stopping you — one of two things
| What the line says | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Add your business name to continue." | The name box is empty. |
| "Accept the Terms of Service, the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement to continue." | The switch is off. |
- It names one blocker at a time, not all of them — the first one in the way. So fix that one and the line may change to the other.
- That's the form working, not a new problem. Once neither applies, the line disappears and the button comes to life.
- A problem with the recovery email never appears in that line. It appears under the email box itself, because that's where you'd look. So if the button is grey and the line under it has gone, check the email box.
When it doesn't go through
Tap Create my account and the button shows it's working — give it a moment, since on a slow connection this can take a few seconds. If it fails, a short message appears and you stay on the form with everything you typed still there
| What the screen says | What it means |
|---|---|
| "We couldn't reach turnda. Check your connection — this may not have been saved." | The request never got out. Check your signal and read the tip below before you tap again. |
| "Couldn't create the account — please try again." | Our side had a problem. Tapping again is the right move. |
| "We can't create accounts with this email service. Please sign up with your business or personal email address." | You used a temporary (throwaway) email address — the kind that gives out a mailbox for a few minutes. turnda does not open accounts on those, because nobody could ever reach you or recover the account. Use your business email or your own personal one — Gmail, Outlook and the like are fine. |
| "Please confirm your email address first: open the sign-in link we emailed you, then come back to create your business." | You signed in in a way that did not prove the inbox is yours. Sign in again with the link we email you (or with Google), then create your business. |
| "We couldn't check that you're a person. Please complete the check on the page and try again." | turnda can switch on a small “are you a person” check from Cloudflare on this form, usually invisible. When it is on and it did not finish, wait for it to complete on the page and press the button again. |
| "Too many new businesses have been created from this internet connection in the last hour. Please try again a little later, or contact us if you need help." | Only a few new businesses can be created from one internet connection in an hour (3 to start; we can change it). Try again later, or use a different connection. |
| "A business that used this email was closed recently. Use a different email address, or contact us and we can release this one." | A business on this email was closed and finally deleted. To stop a repeat free account, sign-up with that email is blocked for 6 months unless we release it on request. |
| "This email inbox already has a turnda business. Sign in to it instead, or use a different email address." | One sign-in email makes one business. Sign in to the one you have. |
| "We can't create new accounts for a moment. Please try again in a few minutes." | A short pause on our side. Wait a few minutes and press the button again. |
| A specific sentence about something you typed — for example the recovery email being the same as your sign-in email. | Fix the thing it names and tap again. |
Pressed it twice? You're fine — and you won't end up with two businesses. On a shaky connection the first tap can succeed while the reply never reaches your phone, so it looks like nothing happened. Tap again and turnda takes you into the account it already made, rather than showing an error or making a second one.
How to tell If you land on your dashboard after a tap you thought failed, that is what happened — your business was created on the first press.
But check for your recovery codes. The codes are shown once, on the screen straight after a successful create. If the first reply was lost and the second tap carried you into the app instead, you have gone past that screen without seeing it.
Don't leave it On your profile tap Generate new codes and keep that set. Only the main owner of the account can (a second owner cannot, and does not see the card), and only when signed in with their own email — not from a shared counter device. Recover your account explains what they're for.
Save your recovery codes
- turnda then shows your recovery codesOne-time codes shown once when you create your account. They're the only way back in if you lose access to your sign-in email. — once. These are the only way back in if you ever lose access to your sign-in email.
- Use Copy codes, or the TXT button beside the download icon (“Download your recovery codes as TXT”), and keep them somewhere safe, then tap I've saved them — continue. turnda can't show them again. There is no print button; copy them or keep the text file.
| What happens next | What it means |
|---|---|
| The next screen: “Set up your place, one easy question at a time” | turnda takes you straight into the guided set-up — not a dashboard. Full details on Set up your first line. The time zone you choose there is also your billing time zone, which the owner can change later on the Billing page. It also asks “Which country is your business in?”, guessed from the time zone, which you can change; turnda uses it to read local phone numbers and to know which messages it can send. |
| Once a line exists | That same address takes you to your dashboard from then on. |
| In your first week | After the welcome email at sign-up, turnda sends up to three short follow-ups to the owner (about days 1, 3 and 7): one to set up your first line, one to try it with one customer, and one with a tip and where to learn the rest. Each is skipped if you have already done what it asks, and they stop if you close the account. |
Don't skip past the codes. If you lose your sign-in email and haven't kept a recovery code, there's no back door — that's what keeps your account private. Store them where you'd store a master key.
One Free account per inbox
Sign-up keeps Free accounts fair.
- There is no free trial and no card at sign-up. Your business starts on the Free package (100 visits a month, for as long as you like). Paid packages start at US$49 a month, and you can choose one whenever you are ready.
- Extra visits are off to begin with. The form says so: nothing extra is ever bought for you, and you can turn them on any time on the Billing page.
- One email inbox can start only one Free account. Adding a plus tag (name+shop@…) or dots in a Gmail address does not make it a different inbox.
- Throwaway or disposable email addresses are refused. Use your real business email.
- If you already have an account, sign in instead. You can add more locations to the account you have.