Complete setup walkthrough — new account to first booked call

This is the long version of the setup checklist that lives on your dashboard. If you follow it top-to-bottom, you'll go from a fresh account to a real customer booking on your calendar with nothing missed. Most contractors finish in under an hour spread across two sessions.

Phase 1 — Business basics (everyone, ~10 min)

Get the foundation right first. Every downstream feature reads from these — wrong timezone means appointment reminders fire at the wrong hour, missing services means the receptionist can't quote a duration, no business hours means smart-slot has nothing to anchor against.

1. 1
   Set timezone + business name

   Settings → General. Confirm timezone (defaults to America/Phoenix on first signup — change it). This drives every report's day boundary, every reminder's send time, every schedule's display. Business name shows on every customer-facing email and the receptionist greeting.

2. 2
   Set global business hours

   Settings → Business hours (its own page, separate from General). Pick "Mon-Fri 8a-5p" or customize. This is the fallback for smart-slot booking and the digest delivery anchor. You can override per-tech later.

3. 3
   Add your locations

   Settings → Multi-location (owner-only). If you only have one shop, skip this — Plyrium auto-creates one location. If you run 2+ shops, add each one here. Techs, customers, and reports filter per location.

4. 4
   Seed your services catalog

   Services. Click "Seed services from industry" if your catalog is empty — it pre-fills 8-12 starter services tuned to your industry. Edit prices to match what you actually charge. Each service has min/max price + estimated duration + required skills (those drive smart booking).

Phase 2 — Team & operations (everyone, ~15 min)

1. 1
   Build your skills & certifications catalog

   Operations → Skills & Certifications. Click "Seed from industry" to get a starter library (CPR, OSHA-10, EPA 608 for HVAC, journeyman license for electrical, etc.). Each entry can have an expiration toggle so the system can warn you 60/30/7 days before a tech's cert lapses.

2. 2
   Add your field techs

   Team. For each tech: name, email, phone, location, skills (multi-select from the catalog you just built), certifications with real expiration dates, daily capacity in hours (e.g. 8 for full-time).

3. 3
   Set per-tech weekly schedules

   Team → Team scheduling. Mike works Mon-Fri 8-5; Sarah works Tue-Sat 10-6. Smart-slot won't suggest Mike for a Wednesday slot if he's marked off. Days you don't customize fall back to the global business hours from Phase 1.

4. 4
   Invite teammates with the right roles

   Team → Invite. Owner sees everything. Dispatcher sees the kanban + schedule + leads but not billing. Tech only sees their own day-view + status flow. Billing only sees money. Viewer is read-only across the board.

Phase 3 — Tier-specific setup

Only do the sub-section that matches YOUR plan. If you have Front Office, do all three.

3a. Voice / Front Office — AI receptionist

1. 1
   Pick the receptionist's voice + name

   Receptionist. Default is "Jessica" with a friendly female voice. Change name + voice — this is what your callers hear.

2. 2
   Edit the greeting

   Receptionist → Greeting editor. Default opens with "[Receptionist] from [Business] — how can I help?". Customize tone (warm vs. snappy), length, and any qualifying questions you want her to ask up front.

3. 3
   Set urgent escalation

   Settings → Urgent escalation. Pick how she reaches you when a caller has an emergency (no heat in winter, gas smell, water everywhere). Owner SMS + email is default; on-call windows let dispatchers cover nights/weekends.

4. 4
   Forward your business number

   Settings → Call forwarding. Walk-through for major U.S. carriers (Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, Spectrum). After this saves, real callers hit your AI receptionist.

3b. Visibility / Bundle / Front Office — Google Business Profile + reviews

1. 1
   Connect Google Business Profile

   Integrations → Google Business Profile. OAuth flow, takes 30 seconds. Unlocks GBP posts, review reply drafts, photo refreshes, Q&A seeding.

2. 2
   Add your business URLs

   Settings → Lead sources or Integrations. Yelp URL, Facebook URL, your website. Reviews scrape nightly and the AI drafts replies for any rating ≤ your threshold (default 3 stars and below).

3. 3
   Pick your review reply tone + threshold

   Reviews → Settings. Threshold = star rating below which you want the AI to draft a reply. Tone = warm-and-personal vs. concise-and-professional. You always approve before publish.

4. 4
   Set GBP posting cadence

   Content → Settings. Visibility plan = 4 posts/mo. Front Office = 8 posts/mo. The AI generates topic ideas; you approve or skip each one.

3c. Bundle / Front Office — lead handling + smart booking

1. 1
   Connect your calendar

   Integrations → Google Calendar OR Microsoft 365. Once connected, every booking the AI takes lands directly on your calendar — no double-booking.

2. 2
   Set up your lead form

   Settings → Online booking widget. Embed code goes on your website. Same booking pipeline the receptionist uses, but customer-driven through your site.

3. 3
   Configure lead categorization

   Marketing → Sources. Tag each inbound channel (Google Ads, Yelp, Angi, organic). The AI tags every lead by category + urgency; this lets you measure ROI per channel later.

4. 4
   Smart-slot test

   Schedule → Book new. Pick a customer + service. The slot picker should now surface real options based on tech availability, skills match, and route distance. If it shows "no slots", the most common cause is daily capacity = 0 — recheck Phase 2.

Phase 4 — Money (recommended, ~10 min)

Skip if you only do cash/check on-site. Otherwise the payment surface unlocks online quotes, online invoices, save-card-on-file, and recurring autopay.

1. 1
   Connect Stripe

   Integrations → Stripe Payments. OAuth-style connect — Stripe handles compliance, you keep your bank info on Stripe. Customers pay invoices online; money lands in your bank in 2 business days.

2. 2
   Set invoicing defaults

   Settings → Invoicing. Default tax rate (state + local combined), payment terms (Net 15 / Net 30), invoice subject line, branding (logo + accent color).

3. 3
   Card surcharge (optional)

   Settings → Card surcharge. Pass card-processing fees to customers when they pay by card; cash/check unaffected. State legality varies — check your state before enabling.

4. 4
   Bring-your-own-pay-link (optional)

   Settings → Invoicing → External pay link. If you'd rather use Cash App / PayPal / Venmo, paste your link pattern (supports {amount}). Public invoices show both Stripe AND your pay link side by side. Mark paid manually after.

Phase 5 — Customer-facing surfaces (everyone, ~5 min)

1. 1
   Customize email templates

   Settings → Email templates. Every customer-facing email (appointment reminder, on-the-way alert, review request, quote, invoice) has editable copy with live preview. Default copy works fine; tweak tone to match your brand.

2. 2
   Test the customer portal

   Customers → pick any customer → "Send portal link". Customer gets a magic-link email; click it as them to see the read-only view they see — appointments, quotes, invoices, save-card option, billing portal.

3. 3
   (Optional) Wire your booking widget

   Settings → Online booking widget. Copy the script tag onto your website. Customers can self-serve a booking through your site using the same smart-slot pipeline as the receptionist.

Phase 6 — Advanced ops (Bundle/Front Office, ~20 min)

Powerful features that aren't required for go-live but pay back fast once dialed in.

1. 1
   Fleet — trucks, maintenance, parts

   Operations → Fleet. Add each service truck, assign a default tech, log maintenance history, track parts inventory per truck. Compliance dates (registration, inspection, insurance) get reminder emails 60/30/7 days out.

2. 2
   Customer agreements (BYO templates)

   Customer agreements. Upload your existing maintenance agreement / service contract templates with mad-libs variables. Send for native e-sign — customer signs in browser, you get an audit-trail PDF with timestamp, IP, and SHA-256 body hash.

3. 3
   Recurring service contracts

   Contracts. Weekly / biweekly / monthly cadences. 3 collection modes: auto_invoice (cron creates a draft invoice each cycle), manual_collect (you handle billing), autopay_stripe (Stripe Connect subscription on customer's saved card).

4. 4
   Pricing book + parts

   Operations → Pricing book + Parts. Pre-built line-item catalog with markup math, parts inventory with low-stock alerts. Shows up in the quote builder for one-click line-item add.

5. 5
   Maintenance reminders

   Settings → Maintenance reminders. Cadence-based 'time for your annual AC tune-up' SMS + email to past customers. Auto-suppressed if a future appointment is already on the calendar.

Phase 7 — Test it end-to-end (everyone, ~15 min)

Before you turn on real call forwarding or send your first invoice link to a customer, run the full pipeline yourself with test data. This catches the "oh I forgot to set X" gaps that would otherwise surface as a bad first customer experience.

1. 1
   Book yourself

   Schedule → Book new. Use your own name + phone + email. Pick a service. Confirm the slot picker surfaces real options (not "no open slots"). Save it.

2. 2
   Send yourself a quote

   Quotes → New. Auto-fills price + duration from the services catalog. Send it to your own email. Click the public link, accept it, watch it convert to an invoice.

3. 3
   Send yourself an invoice + pay it

   Invoices → the converted-from-quote one. Send. Open the public link in incognito and pay with YOUR REAL CARD for $1 (or whatever small amount you like — set the invoice total before sending). Plyrium runs on Stripe live mode, not test mode, so a real charge actually moves real money into your bank. Refund yourself afterward from /admin or the Stripe dashboard. End-to-end this confirms Stripe Connect is wired correctly and money lands in YOUR account, not Plyrium's.

4. 4
   Call your AI receptionist

   (Voice/Front Office only) Receptionist → "Call your assistant". She rings you. Talk to her like a customer would. Confirm she books a real slot. Hang up, go to /portal/calls — your transcript and recording are there.

5. 5
   Verify the audit log

   Profile → Activity. Confirms every action you just took is logged with timestamp + actor + IP. This is your defense if a customer ever disputes "I didn't authorize that."

Common stumbles and how to fix them

• Smart-slot says "no open slots" — most likely cause is daily_capacity_minutes = 0 on every tech, or business hours not set. Open the booker; the empty-state callout will tell you exactly which gate is failing.
• AI receptionist greets with the wrong name — Receptionist → name field. Defaults to "Jessica" until you change it. The {Receptionist} tag in the greeting auto-substitutes from this field.
• Customer didn't get an email — Settings → Email templates. Check the template is enabled, then check Profile → Activity for a delivery event. Resend recipients in your domain might be soft-bouncing while DNS verifies.
• Stripe says "customer not found" on a contract — the customer has no saved card on file. Customers → pick the customer → "Send save-card link". They click it, save their card, then re-attempt the contract.