Your five setup steps, start to live.

Signing up and paying

Create your account with your work email and a password of at least 8 characters. Then fill in Tell us about your business.: business name, your name, your role, the calendar or CRM you book jobs in, your business phone (the number Sarah will answer), an emergency phone, and your website if you have one. Tick I only have one phone number if your business phone and emergency phone are the same. Ansa works with US and Canada phone numbers.

Continue to paymenttakes you to checkout. There is no free trial: you pay the first month today, and it's refundable for 14 days. If the calendar or CRM you picked isn't open yet, you aren't charged. You join a waitlist instead, and we email you when a spot opens.

After you pay, you'll see Getting Sarah readywhile Ansa reads your website, your reviews and your Google profile. Then setup starts. On the Self-serve plan, Ansa also gets you a new phone number, matched to your business phone's area code where possible. That's the number your business line will forward to.

The setup overview

Setup lives on one page that greets you by name and lists the five steps. Each shows Not started, In progress, Skipped or Looks good. Your answers save as you go, so you can stop at any point and pick up later. Until setup is finished, the rest of the dashboard stays locked. The one exception is the test call page, which you can use any time.

The five steps

1. Tell us about your business

   Address, hours, services, service area, plus license, brand voice and customer texting if you want them. Anything Ansa found online is already filled in under Confirmed for you to check. Anything missing is asked one question at a time: answer it, press Looks right, next, or Skip this one. Your address sets your time zone, so get it right.

2. The judgment calls only you know

   Your dealbreakers (four starter rules you can edit, up to 20), the 3 to 10 topics callers ask about most, and what Sarah does after hours: Take a message and send it to you, Book for the next open slot, or Page me when it sounds like an emergency. These are the same three options as the Hours page.

3. Where bookings should land

   Connect the calendar or CRM you book jobs in. The one you chose at sign-up is already selected. You can skip this for now, but you can't go live without a working connection. See connecting your calendar or CRM.

4. Forward your number

   First choose what Sarah answers: Every call (the default, marked Recommended: your phone won't ring and Sarah answers 24/7) or Only calls I miss (your phone rings first). Then pick your phone carrier and follow the steps to forward to your Ansa number. Full details are in how to forward your business line.

5. Activation

   On Self-serve, you see Take Sarah live. and a summary of the four steps before it. Press Activate Sarah. On Done-for-you, you press Submit for review and our team turns Sarah on for you within one business day.

What Activate checks

Before Sarah can go live, all of these have to be true:

1. Your payment went through.
2. Your Ansa number is ready.
3. Your calendar or CRM is connected and its connection check passed.
4. You have at least one service.
5. Ansa knows your time zone (from your address).
6. You have at least one open day in your hours.
7. You confirmed forwarding in step 4.

Anything missing shows as a row with a button to fix it, for example Finish forwarding first. When everything passes, you see Sarah is live. and get a Your receptionist is live alert. From then on she answers the calls that reach your Ansa number, and the full dashboard opens up.

Once you're live, read your first day live for a short checklist.

Troubleshooting