Client portals for small business

What a client portal is

Picture an accountant's inbox in tax season. One client has sent bank statements as photos, another has replied to the wrong email thread, and a third has sent the same document twice with different names. Somewhere in there is a signed form, probably.

Those messages are a sign of the problem a client portal solves. A portal is a private, logged-in area of a website. Each customer signs in and sees only what relates to them: their documents, their jobs, what's still outstanding, what they've approved and what they owe.

You may hear it called a client portal, a customer portal or a member area. When it's for your team rather than your customers, it's usually called a staff portal. The idea is the same: one place for the things that otherwise get scattered across email, texts and group chats.

A portal can work on any phone. It can run in the web browser and be added to the home screen like an app, so nobody has to download anything from an app store.

Do you need a client portal?

A portal is a tool, not a badge of a modern business. Some businesses get a lot from one. Others would be adding a login nobody uses. This comparison is a good starting point:

If most of your answers sit in the right-hand column, a portal could save real time. If they're mostly on the left, start by tidying how email and folders are used. That costs little and may solve most of the problem.

When email is still the better choice

It's worth being honest about this. A portal asks every customer to do something new: sign in, find their way around and come back next time. If a customer only deals with you once a year, they may forget how. If your customers are mostly older or not confident online, a portal can feel like a barrier rather than a help.

Email also has real strengths. Everyone has it, it needs no training and it already sits on every phone. Some simple habits get you a long way:

• One shared business inbox, rather than documents landing in personal accounts
• A standard checklist email that lists exactly what each customer needs to send
• A consistent way of naming and filing documents as they arrive
• Automatic, polite reminders until everything is in

That last one can be automated without a portal at all. Many businesses start with automated reminders and add a portal later, once they can see where email still falls short.

What goes in a client portal

The best portals do a few jobs well rather than everything at once. These are the features small businesses most often start with:

Other common features include progress photos for a building job, intake forms and upcoming appointments for a clinic, and notes the business wants a client to read on their file.

Our industry pages show how portals fit different kinds of work, from advisers and accountants and clinics and salons to trades and building and transport and delivery.

Things to leave out at first

Live chat, discussion boards, detailed reports and long settings pages can all wait. Each extra screen is something to build, explain and keep up to date. If customers ask for more once they're using the portal, that's a good sign, and a much better guide than guessing up front.

Customer portals and staff portals

Many businesses find the same thinking applies on the inside. A staff portal gives your team one place for the day's jobs, notes, photos, checklists and rosters, instead of a group chat.

The two often work best together. A building crew uploads photos against a job in the staff portal, and the client sees progress and approves a variation in the customer portal. Because both read from the same records, nobody has to forward photos or retype approvals.

If you're unsure which to start with, ask where the most chasing happens. If it's with customers, start there. If it's within your own team, a staff portal may give you more time back first.

Connecting a portal to the tools you already use

A portal is most useful when it's joined up with the rest of the business, so information is entered once and used everywhere. For example:

• A job approved in the portal creates a draft invoice in your accounting software, such as Xero.
• Documents uploaded by a client are filed into the right folder, such as in OneDrive, SharePoint or Google Drive.
• A completed checklist updates the customer's record, so the reminders stop on their own.
• The portal's jobs and approvals feed a dashboard, so you can see what's waiting without opening every file.

What's possible depends on the tools involved and how they connect. Our guide to connecting your business apps explains how information moves between systems and where it can go wrong.

Client portal security and privacy

A client portal usually holds personal information: names, contact details, and often financial, health or identity documents. Under the Privacy Act 2020 you're expected to keep personal information reasonably safe from loss, misuse and unauthorised access, and what's reasonable depends on how sensitive it is.

A well set up portal can be safer than email, because documents live in one controlled place rather than as copies in several inboxes. But only if the basics are right:

1. Separate logins for everyone. Each customer and each staff member has their own, so access can be removed when someone leaves or a job ends.
2. Permissions that match the role. Each customer sees only their own information. Staff see only what their role needs.
3. Two-factor authentication for wide access. At the very least for you and anyone on your team who can see many customers' details.
4. Know where it's hosted. Find out where the portal's data is stored, and who at the provider can see it.
5. A plan for old records. Decide how long documents are kept, and remember copies in other places. Businesses generally need to keep business records for seven years for tax purposes, and your accountant can tell you which records that covers.
6. Test that one customer can't see another's files. Check it before launch, and again after any change.

If something does go wrong, such as a document shown to the wrong customer, and it has caused or is likely to cause serious harm, the Privacy Act requires you to notify the Privacy Commissioner and the people affected as soon as practicable. Our guide to the Privacy Act 2020 and automation covers this and has a checklist to run through.

When we build portals, they're set up so each person sees only what they should, and you control who has access. Data we store for you is hosted in New Zealand or Australia, and only Ambs works on your project and sees your data.

What makes customers actually use a portal

A portal nobody opens is just another login. The ones that get used tend to share a few traits:

• It works well on a phone. Many customers will only ever open it on one.
• Signing in is simple. Fewer steps mean fewer "I can't get in" calls, while still keeping it secure.
• It saves the customer effort too. Uploading a photo of a document, or approving a quote with one tap, should be easier than finding the right email.
• Notifications bring people back. A short email or text with a link, such as "your quote is ready to approve", is usually what gets someone to open it.
• It looks like you. Your logo and colours reassure customers that they're in the right place.
• Your team uses it consistently. If staff still send documents by email "just this once", customers will too.

If many of your customers are more comfortable in another language, it helps if the key screens and messages are in that language too. Have translations checked by a fluent speaker.

How to start a client portal: one feature first

1. Pick the one job that causes the most chasing. Often it's document collection, approvals or status updates.
2. Write down what done looks like. For example: "clients see their checklist, upload each document against it, and we're told when everything is in."
3. Decide who can see what. Before anything is built, list the people who'll use it and what each needs to see.
4. Try it with a few friendly customers. Watch where they get stuck and fix that before you invite everyone.
5. Make it the normal way. Point every request to the portal, and stop accepting the same thing three different ways.
6. Add the next feature once it's used. Let real use, not a wish list, decide what comes next.

Questions to ask before you build or buy a portal

• Which job will it take off us first, and how much time does that job take now?
• Who owns the portal, the data and the logins?
• Where is the data stored, and who can see it?
• Can each customer only ever see their own information, and how is that tested?
• Does it connect to the tools we already use, such as our accounting software and file storage?
• Can customers use it on a phone without downloading an app?
• Can we export our data and keep everything if we change provider?
• Who do we call when a customer can't sign in?

If you'd like a second opinion on whether a portal is worth it for your business, or which feature to start with, that's what our free session is for. We look at how documents, approvals and updates move through your business today and leave you with a written plan that's yours to keep. See our websites, portals and dashboards service for how we build them.

Common questions