Get started

Key concepts & glossary

The words you will see around Tornaly, in plain language.

Website

Template: One of 9 ready-made designs for appointment businesses. You can switch templates later. See Website overview & templates.
Section: A building block of a page: services, about, gallery, hours and map, and so on. Pages are made of sections, never custom code.
Draft / Published: Your edits stay in a draft until you choose Publish. Clients only see the published site. See Publishing & SEO.
AI edit: One change you ask the AI to make to your site, like “make it black and gold”. Each plan includes a number per month. See Editing with AI.
Booking button: What your site’s Book button does: Tornaly booking, your Booksy, Fresha or Square link, or nothing. See Booking button.
Free address / own domain: Every site has a free address like yourname.tornaly.site. Paid plans can connect a domain you own, like yourshop.com. See Domains.

Booking page: The page where clients pick a service, a time and confirm. See Booking page.
Hold: A time kept aside for a client for a few minutes while they decide (10 minutes by default). Nobody else can take it. If the client doesn’t confirm, it is released automatically.
Awaiting deposit: The client picked a time that needs a deposit. The time is held while they pay (30 minutes by default). Paying confirms it; not paying releases it.
Request: A booking that needs your approval before it counts ("Awaiting your approval"). You can require this for new clients, or for everyone. See Booking rules.
Confirmed: A real appointment on the calendar.
Completed: Marked automatically about an hour after the appointment ends.
No-show: The client didn’t come. Your team marks this once the appointment has started.
Late cancel: A cancellation inside your free-cancellation window (24 hours by default). See Cancellations & no-shows.
Block / time off / closure: Time when someone (or the whole shop) can’t be booked. Adding one never moves or cancels existing appointments.
Walk-in: A client who shows up without booking. Your team adds them on the calendar in one tap.
Buffer: Prep time before, or clean-up time after, an appointment. The calendar keeps it free, but clients only see the appointment time.

Inbox: Every conversation from every channel, in one list.
AI front desk: The AI that answers and books for you on Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS and web chat. In the app it is called the assistant. It comes with the Front Desk plan and works with Tornaly booking.
Hand-off: The assistant passes a conversation to your team and stops replying there until someone hands it back. See Hand-offs & pausing.
Take over / Hand back: Buttons in the Inbox to pause the assistant in one conversation, and to let it answer again.
Needs you: Conversations waiting for a person. They sort to the top of the Inbox.
Guided mode: A button-based version of the assistant that works without AI — clients can still book. Used when your plan has no AI front desk, when the month’s AI conversations are used up, or when one conversation or the whole business reaches its daily AI limit.
Try it: The built-in simulator where you chat with your assistant as if you were a client.

Proven vs. claimed: A phone number is proven when the client messages from it (SMS, WhatsApp) or confirms it with a code. A number typed into a chat is only claimed. See Identity & matching.
Merge: Combining two records of the same person. You can undo a merge for 30 days.
Consent: Permission to message a client, kept per channel and per address, for two purposes: service messages (reminders) and marketing (comebacks).

Due back: When a client would normally return, based on their own visit rhythm or the service’s “comes back every” setting.
Comeback: A friendly message to a client who is due, offering a few real open times.
Win-back: One last note to a client who is well overdue (45 days by default).
Comparison group (holdout): A small share of due clients (10% by default) who are deliberately not messaged, so you can see how many came back because of the messages.
Lift: How much more often messaged clients came back than the comparison group.
Direct / Influenced: Direct: the assistant or a comeback made the booking. Influenced: a message helped, but your team made the booking. Only Direct is the headline number.

Stripe: The payment company that processes deposits. See What is Stripe.
Connected account: Your own Stripe account, linked to Tornaly so deposits can be taken. You are the merchant; the money is yours from the start.
Plan: Your Tornaly subscription: Free, Website, Booking or Front Desk. See Plans & pricing.
Text: One SMS sent to a client. Replies from clients are free, and WhatsApp, Instagram, web chat and email never use texts. See Texts and AI conversations.
AI conversation: All the messages with one client over 24 hours, on any channel, where the AI replied at least once.
Keep going: An optional setting that keeps texts and AI replies going after your monthly allowance runs out, at a small price each, up to a monthly limit you set.