Your account: two-factor authentication

Protect your account with a code from your phone as well as your password, and know what to do when you change or lose that phone.

Overview

With two-factor authentication on, signing in takes two things: your password, and a six-digit code from an app on your phone. Someone who learns your password still cannot get in without the phone.

It is optional, and it is the same for everyone: deal teams, participants and administrators turn it on for their own account, from their own profile. Nobody can turn it on for you.

What you'll learn

Turning it on with an authenticator app
Signing in once it is on
Moving it to a new phone
Turning it off
What to do if you lose your phone

Before you start

Install an authenticator app on your phone: Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, 1Password, or any other. Kapitable does not send codes by text message or email; the app creates them, even with no signal.

Steps: turning it on

At the top right of the screen, select your name. Your profile opens.
Open Security.
Under Two-factor authentication, switch the toggle on. The section changes to Set up your authenticator app.
In your authenticator app, add an account and scan the QR code on the screen. If you cannot scan it, choose to enter a key instead and type the key shown under Can't scan it? Enter this key in your app:.
Your app now shows a six-digit code for Kapitable, which changes every 30 seconds. Enter it under 2. Enter the 6-digit code your app shows.
Confirm with Turn on. The message Two-factor authentication is on appears, and the section shows Authenticator app with On.

Nothing changes until the code is accepted: if you press Cancel or leave the page before then, two-factor authentication stays off.

Signing in once it is on

Enter your email and password as usual.
The next screen asks you to Enter your verification code. Open your authenticator app and enter the six-digit code shown for Kapitable.
Confirm with Verify. You arrive where you always do.

Enter the code within a few minutes of your password. After that the sign-in times out and you start again from your password: Your verification step timed out. Sign in again to get a new prompt.

Moving to a new phone

Do this while you still have your old phone, because you need a code from it to sign in first.

Sign in, open your profile, then Security.
Choose Set up on a new phone.
Scan the new QR code with the authenticator app on your new phone, and enter the code it shows.
Confirm with Turn on.

From then on only the new phone works; codes from the old one are refused. If you cancel part-way, nothing changes and your current phone keeps working. The old entry stays in the app on your old phone, which you can delete once you are sure the new one works.

Turning it off

Open your profile, then Security.
Switch the Two-factor authentication toggle off.
Confirm with Turn off, or keep it with Keep it on.

Once it is off, you sign in with your password alone.

If you lose your phone

Without the phone you cannot sign in, and there are no backup codes. On the verification screen, use Contact support, under Lost access to your authenticator app?.

Support resets your two-factor authentication once they have confirmed it is really you. Expect that check to go beyond an email, such as a call, or confirmation from someone who knows you on the transaction. That is deliberate. If a reply from your mailbox were enough, anyone who took over your email could remove the protection this lesson sets up.

After the reset, you sign in with your password only. Turn two-factor authentication on again with your new phone.

Common problems

"That code didn't match." The usual cause is a phone clock that is a little out. Set your phone's date and time to update automatically, then try the newest code.

"That code has already been used." Each code works only once. This is typical just after turning two-factor authentication on, when the code you typed is still showing. Wait for your app to show the next one.

The QR code will not scan. Enter the key shown beneath it by hand instead. It is grouped in fours to make it easier to read; if your app refuses the spaces, type it without them.

You changed phone without moving it first. The new phone cannot produce the codes your account expects. If you still have the old phone, sign in with it and follow Moving to a new phone. If not, contact support as for a lost phone.