# Creating Your Account

This guide takes you from nothing to a working restaurant account with your team invited. It takes about fifteen minutes. New to ForkLine? Read [What Is ForkLine?](/what-is-forkline) first.

## Step 1: Sign in

1. Go to **forklines.com** and choose **Sign in**.
2. Choose **Continue with Google** or **Continue with Apple**.
3. Approve the sign-in with your provider.

There's no separate ForkLine password to create or remember — your Google or Apple account *is* your login. Use the account you actually check email on; order alerts and billing notices go there.

## Step 2: Set up your restaurant

The first time you sign in, ForkLine doesn't yet know which restaurant is yours, so it takes you straight to setup.

1. Enter your **restaurant name**. This is what customers see on your ordering page and receipts.
2. Review the suggested **web address**. ForkLine proposes one based on your name — for example, "Rosa's Taqueria" suggests `rosas-taqueria`, giving you `forklines.com/menu/rosas-taqueria`. Edit it if you'd like something shorter.
3. Enter your **address and phone number**. These appear on your ordering page, on receipts, and in the structured data search engines read, so use the details customers should actually use.
4. Set your **opening hours**. You can set these roughly now and refine later — see [Store Hours](/store-hours) for split shifts and after-midnight closing.
5. Finish setup.

You're now the **Owner** of the restaurant — the role that can change any setting, invite staff, and manage billing.

> **Pick your web address carefully.** It appears on printed materials, in search results, and in links customers save. Changing it later breaks every existing link.

## Step 3: Connect Stripe so you can take payments

You can't accept card payments until Stripe is connected. This takes about ten minutes and needs your business details and a bank account.

Go to **Settings → Payments** and follow [Setting Up Stripe Payments](/stripe-connect-setup) — it covers what Stripe asks for and why, and what to expect for your [first payout](/payouts).

## Step 4: Build your menu

Go to **Admin → Menu** and add your categories and items. See [Managing Your Menu](/menu-management) for the full walkthrough, including modifiers, photos, and [combos](/bundles-and-combos).

## Step 5: Invite your team

Go to **Admin → Users** and invite the people who'll use ForkLine. Each person gets a role that controls what they can see:

| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| **Owner** | Everything, including billing and settings |
| **Manager** | Operations, menu, settings, and orders — no billing |
| **Staff** | View and update orders |
| **Kitchen** | Kitchen display only, moving orders through prep |
| **Cashier** | Register, card readers, kitchen display, and counter orders |

Full detail — including how to invite people and change roles later — is in [Users & Roles](/users-and-roles).

If several people share one register, you'll also want [Register Accounts](/register-accounts), which identifies each cashier by a short passcode without giving everyone their own login.

## Step 6: Go live

Work through the [Go-Live Checklist](/going-live-checklist) before you take real orders. It catches the things that are easy to miss — hours, prep time, a test order end to end.

## Where to go next

- [Go-Live Checklist](/going-live-checklist) — everything to confirm before your first real order
- [Managing Your Menu](/menu-management) — categories, items, modifiers, photos
- [Setting Up Stripe Payments](/stripe-connect-setup) — take card payments
- [Using the Register](/register-pos) — the counter POS
- [Frequently Asked Questions](/faq)