Your first week on Teja

The fastest way to make new software feel overwhelming is to open every settings page at once. The fastest way to feel at home in it is to do things in the order you’ll actually use them.

So this isn’t a feature tour. It’s the order we’d set up your practice if we were sitting next to you — front-of-house first, paperwork second, the nice-to-haves last. Most of it is an afternoon. The rest is a calm week.

Day 1 — Be reachable and be bookable

Before anything else, make sure a client can find you and book you. Everything else can wait; this can’t.

1. Confirm your profile and practice details. Name, credentials, address, the basics a client sees.
2. Set your availability. Your real working hours, in your real time zone — Teja generates bookable slots from this, so get the time zone right the first time.
3. Turn on the client portal and your booking link. This is your new front door. Put the link on your website and your directory profiles.
4. Set your services and fees. The appointment types you offer, their length, and their price. Booking and billing both read from this.

By end of day 1, a new client can land on your booking page and request a session. That’s the only thing that’s genuinely urgent.

Day 2 — Make documentation feel like yours

Notes are where you’ll spend real time, so make the tool fit your hand before you’re under session pressure.

1. Pick or build your note templates. Start from a Teja template and adjust the fields and prompts to match how you actually write. Future-you, writing a note at 7pm, will thank present-you.
2. Set your intake forms. What you want a new client to complete before the first session — consents, history, the measures you use.
3. Try the AI scribe on a mock session. Run it once on a practice recording so its draft-then-you-edit rhythm is familiar before it matters. You stay the author; it just removes the blank page.

Day 3 — Get paid without thinking about it

Billing setup is boring for exactly one afternoon and then quietly runs itself.

1. Connect your payment processing so clients can pay through the portal.
2. Add your insurance payers if you bill insurance, and confirm a test client’s coverage.
3. Set your invoicing defaults — when statements go out, what they say, whether autopay is on.
4. Send yourself a test invoice and pay it as if you were a client. Watch the whole loop once; trust it after.

Day 4 — Turn on the quiet automation

These are the things that reduce no-shows and admin without you touching them.

1. Appointment reminders — set the timing and channel (email/SMS) that fits your clients.
2. Portal messaging — decide how clients reach you between sessions, and set expectations in your welcome note.
3. Recurring appointments for your standing weekly clients, so your calendar fills itself.

The rest of the week — settle in

Nothing here is urgent; it’s the polish that makes the practice feel finished.

• Personalize your client welcome message and portal branding.
• Review the reports you’ll actually look at (income, outstanding balances, upcoming sessions) so you know where they live before you need them.
• Add any team members and set their access, if you’re not solo.
• Pick one real session this week and run it end-to-end in Teja — book, see, note, bill — so the full loop is muscle memory.

A sane order, not a sprint

If you only remember one thing: bookable on day 1, documenting on day 2, paid on day 3, automated on day 4. Front-of-house before back-office. Everything else is optional polish you can add the moment you want it, not a gate you have to clear first.

And you’re not doing it from a cold start — your first three clients are on us while you find your footing, and a real person is on the other end of the chat if a step doesn’t behave.

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Just arrived? If you haven’t moved your data yet, start with switching from SimplePractice or leaving TherapyNotes — then come back here for day one.