> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://acoservice.gitbook.io/acoservice-documentation/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://acoservice.gitbook.io/acoservice-documentation/getting-started/what-it-is.md).
# What ACO Service is
How ACO Service works — a website per group, a Discord bot attached to it, and the three kinds of people who use it.
ACO Service gives an automated-checkout group its own members' website. Members sign in, see what was checked out for them, save the profiles used to check out, and pay what they owe — on the site. A Discord bot sits alongside it, catching checkout notifications, sending DMs, and handling a handful of commands.
If you have used a group that ran entirely out of Discord tickets and spreadsheets, the mental shift is this: the site holds the records, and Discord is where the group already talks.
## The site is where the work happens
Every group gets its own site. A member's whole relationship with the group lives there:
| What a member does | Where |
| -------------------------------------------------- | -------- |
| See recent activity and outstanding balance | Overview |
| Sign up for the sites/drops the group is running | My sites |
| See what was checked out for them | Orders |
| Store addresses and cards used for checkout | Profiles |
| Store retailer account credentials the group needs | Accounts |
| See charges and pay the tab | Billing |
| Change notification preferences | Settings |
The member Overview — the first thing a member sees after signing in.
Admins get a second area on the same site, the admin console, for customers, products and pricing, tabs, invoices, stores, forms, the checkout feed and branding. See [Finding your way around](/acoservice-documentation/getting-started/navigation.md).
## What a tenant is
A **tenant** is one group. Each tenant has:
* **Its own site** — `yourslug.acoservice.app`, or a custom domain you point at us.
* **Its own branding** — logo, colours, landing-page copy, light or dark default.
* **Its own members, orders, profiles, tabs and invoices.** Data never crosses tenants.
* **Its own Discord server, and its own Discord bot.**
That last point is the one people get wrong. There is no single shared ACO Service bot that joins everyone's server. Your group runs a bot that is yours: your Discord application, your bot user, your bot token. It appears in your server under your own name.
The public landing page is per-tenant too — the wordmark, colours and copy are the group's own.
## The three credentials
A tenant's Discord application supplies **three** values, and the site needs all three:
| Credential | Where it comes from in the Discord developer portal | What it does |
| ------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| Client ID | OAuth2 / General Information | Identifies your app when a member signs in |
| Client Secret | OAuth2 | Completes the sign-in exchange |
| Bot token | The **Bot** tab — a different tab | What your bot logs into Discord with |
{% hint style="warning" %}
Client ID and Client Secret alone give you a site that works perfectly and a Discord server with no working bot. Nothing about the sign-in flow will look broken, because sign-in does not use the bot token. What breaks is everything the bot does: no DMs, no checkout feed, no slash commands, and no way to run `/aco-member add` to register members. This is the most common onboarding failure. Full walkthrough: [Your Discord application](/acoservice-documentation/setting-up-your-tenant/discord-application.md).
{% endhint %}
## What Discord still does
Discord is not the interface, but it is not decoration either. The bot:
* **Reads checkout notifications** posted into your server by checkout bots (Shikari, Refract/Prism, Stellara, HiddenAIO) and turns them into orders and tab charges.
* **Reposts them** to a public feed channel, if you enable the checkout feed.
* **Sends DMs** — invoices, reminders, and notifications.
* **Answers slash commands** — `/help`, `/submit`, `/my-submissions`, `/tab view`, plus admin groups like `/billing`, `/permissions`, `/checkout-feed`, `/aco-member`, `/release` and `/setup`.
See [How Discord fits in](/acoservice-documentation/discord-integration/discord.md) and the [slash command reference](/acoservice-documentation/reference/slash-commands.md).
## The three audiences
| You are | You use | You get there by |
| ---------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **A member** of a group | The member area of your group's site | Signing in with Discord at your group's URL |
| **A tenant admin** — you run a group | The member area plus the admin console at `/admin` | Being registered as a tenant admin, or being granted bot permissions in your Discord server |
| **A platform operator** — you run ACO Service itself | The platform console at `/platform`, on the admin subdomain | Being the platform admin |
Members never see the admin console. Tenant admins never see the platform console. Nothing is hidden by CSS — the routes themselves are guarded, and a direct URL you are not entitled to redirects you back.
## Features can be switched off
Not every tenant runs every feature. Billing, forms, profiles, the checkout feed and SKU management are each per-tenant flags. When a flag is off, its navigation entry disappears **and** the route stops working — typing the URL redirects you to your Overview. So if this handbook describes a page you do not have, the feature is off for your tenant, not missing from the product. See [Feature flags](/acoservice-documentation/setting-up-your-tenant/feature-flags.md).
## Next
* [Signing in](/acoservice-documentation/getting-started/signing-in.md) — what Discord asks for, and what "access denied" means.
* [Finding your way around](/acoservice-documentation/getting-started/navigation.md) — the three navigations and who sees which.
---
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