Test mode and going live
Try everything safely, then turn test mode off when you're ready for real customers.
Every new company starts in test mode. While it's on, every email goes to your own address, marked as a test. Nothing reaches a customer or a water district. Test mode is free.
What test mode does
- Emails to customers and water districts go to your company email instead. The subject starts with [Test], and a banner says who it would have gone to.
- Texts to customers are held, not sent.
- Everything else works: booking, scheduling, the field app and filing.
- Filings shows a yellow banner while test mode is on.
Add a company email under Settings → Company → Identity. In test mode, a message with no company email to go to is held instead of sent.
Do a dry run
- Book a test on your own booking page.
- Schedule it on the schedule board.
- File it from the field app.
- Read what went out, in your inbox.
How to go live
- Go to Settings → Company → Test mode.
- Turn the switch off.
- If you don't have a plan yet, the app says Choose a plan to go live. and opens Settings → Billing. Choose a plan, then turn test mode off again.
The switch then reads Off — live. From now on, customers and districts get real mail.
- Going live starts your Backflow Base subscription. Setup and test mode are free.
- Only a person signed in can turn test mode off. An AI assistant's API key can set up everything else, but going live is the owner's decision.
- You can turn test mode back on at any time. That never needs a plan.
Your plan
Settings → Billing shows Your plan and its status. The owner can click Manage billing to change the card or see invoices in Stripe.