Getting started

Accept your invitation

Bouncer emails you a personal invitation link. To set up your account:

1. Open the link. The page says Welcome to Bouncer KYB, greets you by your first name and shows your Email address, already filled in. You cannot change it.
2. Type a password in New password, then type it again in Confirm password.
3. Select Save password and sign in. You are signed in straight away and land on Check a company.

Your password needs at least 12 characters. That is the only rule: there is no required mix of letters, numbers or symbols, and every character counts, spaces included. The page suggests three random words, which make a password that is long, easy to remember and hard to guess.

About the link:

• It is valid for 7 days.
• It works once: saving a password uses it up.
• It is personal. Whoever uses it chooses the password for your account, so do not forward it.
• Opening it does not use it up; only saving a password does. A link that your email security filter has already opened still works.
• Only the newest link works. A new invitation cancels any unused older link.

If the passwords cannot be saved, the page tells you why:

Your browser may stop a password that is too short before it is sent, with a message of its own.

When the link no longer works

An expired or used link shows This link no longer works: "Invitation links can be used once and expire after 7 days. If you have already chosen your password, sign in instead. Otherwise, ask your Bouncer contact for a new link."

• If you have already chosen your password, select Go to sign in and sign in.
• If you have not, ask your Bouncer contact for a new invitation.

Forgotten your password

There is no reset link on the sign-in page. Ask your Bouncer contact for a new invitation, open it and choose a new password. It works like the first one.

• Your current password keeps working until you use the new link.
• When you save the new password, every other session of your account ends, on every device.
• The panel has no account settings. To change your name or email address, ask your Bouncer contact.

Sign in

1. Go to kyb.bouncer.digital. Without a session you see the Sign in page.
2. Type your Email address and Password. Capital letters in the email address do not matter.
3. Select Sign in. You land on Check a company.

The sign-in page also shows Continue with Google. It works when the email address your invitation was sent to is also a Google account (Google Workspace or Gmail); otherwise use your email address and password. Google always asks which account to use: pick the one with the email address your invitation was sent to, and finish within 10 minutes of selecting the button.

If you open a link to a check while you are signed out, the panel opens Check a company after you sign in, not the check. Open the link again.

The sign-in and invitation pages, and their messages, are in English only, whatever language you choose in the panel.

If you cannot sign in

How long you stay signed in

A session lasts 12 hours from the moment you sign in, whether or not you use the panel. Activity does not extend it.

• After 12 hours, the next thing you do on a page that is already open shows Your session has expired. Sign in again., in most places with a Sign in link. Reloading or opening a page takes you straight to the sign-in page.
• Nothing you recorded is lost. A decision you were still typing is not saved, though: copy your comment before you sign in again.
• A session also ends early when you save a new password from an invitation, or when Bouncer ends your access.

Sign out

Select Sign out, the icon of an arrow leaving a box at the far right of the top bar, next to the circle with your initial. You go back to the sign-in page.

Signing out ends the session in that browser. On a shared computer, always sign out when you finish. If you think someone else has used your account, ask your Bouncer contact for a new invitation: saving a new password ends every session of your account.

The circle in the top bar shows your initial, and your email address on wide screens. Hover over it to see Signed in as followed by your email address.

The home screen

After signing in you land on Check a company, the screen where every check starts. It shows:

• Market United Kingdom and Companies House official register, live: the panel covers the United Kingdom only, and queries Companies House live through its API.
• The search bar: Country, with one option, United Kingdom; Company name or registration number; and Search. See Running a check.
• Under the search bar, official register, live, a link to Companies House, ticks for Officers, Beneficial owners and Filings, and Source notes, which opens a short note about identity verification and the AWRS register.
• Recent checks.

Help in the top bar opens the user guide in a new tab.

First-run help

Until someone in your organisation has run a check, the space for recent checks shows How a check works, with three short steps, a button and a link:

• Try an example: Tesco PLC opens the search results for Tesco PLC's company number, 00445790. It does not run the check: you still select Run check, and that check is then recorded in your organisation's history like any other.
• Getting started guide opens this getting-started guide in a new tab.

The card is replaced by recent checks, for everyone in your organisation, as soon as the first check is recorded.

Recent checks

Recent checks shows the five latest checks in your organisation, whoever ran them. Each card shows:

• the country code, GB;
• the latest decision: approved, rejected, escalated or not decided;
• the company name, or no company if the register had no company for that number, or register unavailable if the register did not answer;
• Suggested: followed by the recommendation, for example Suggested: review;
• how long ago the check was run, and who ran it. Hover over the time to see the exact date and time.

Select a card to open its check. Full history opens the whole history.

Language and theme

• EN and ES, in the Language group of the top bar, switch the panel between English and Spanish. The panel starts in English whatever your browser's language. The page reloads, and your browser remembers the choice. Dates and numbers follow the language.
• The sun and moon buttons switch between Light and Dark. Until you choose, the panel follows your operating system's setting. Your browser remembers the choice.
• On narrow screens such as phones, these buttons are hidden. To change the language or the theme, use a wider window; the choice then stays.

Find a past check

Select Check history in the top bar, or Full history next to Recent checks. The Check history screen lists every check in your organisation, newest first, 50 at a time.

On narrower screens Search and User are hidden.

• Select a row, or the company name, to open the check. Selecting text in a row to copy it does not open the check.
• Load older checks, at the bottom, adds the next 50. When there are no more, the list ends with a line such as 120 checks shown. There are no older ones.
• There is no search box, filter or sorting. To find a company, select Load older checks until it appears, then use your browser's find (Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on a Mac).
• Every check is its own row: a company checked three times appears three times.
• Nothing can be deleted from the history.

Who can see your checks

Your organisation is the part of your email address after the @. Everyone signed in with an address at the same domain sees the same checks. If you are jane@example.co.uk, that is everyone at example.co.uk.

• Within your organisation, everyone can open every check and its printable report, run it again and record a decision on it. Each decision records who made it.
• The domain must match exactly. jane@uk.example.com is in uk.example.com, not example.com.
• The panel does not show which organisation you are in. It is always your email domain.
• Other organisations never see your checks. A link to another organisation's check shows This check does not exist.
• Bouncer staff signed in to the panel see only their own organisation's checks.

Personal email addresses

For the common personal email services below, your organisation is your own full address, so only you see your checks:

gmail.com, googlemail.com, outlook.com, outlook.co.uk, hotmail.com, hotmail.co.uk, live.com, live.co.uk, msn.com, icloud.com, me.com, mac.com, yahoo.com, yahoo.co.uk, ymail.com, aol.com, aol.co.uk, proton.me, protonmail.com, gmx.com, gmx.net, gmx.co.uk, mail.com, btinternet.com, btopenworld.com, sky.com, virginmedia.com, ntlworld.com, blueyonder.co.uk, talktalk.net, tiscali.co.uk.

To give a colleague access, ask your Bouncer contact to invite them. Each person gets their own account.