How your client gets their link
Two ways in: the private link you email them, or an account they create themselves. Both open the same page.
The moment you send an engagement, your client receives an email from you with a link to their own private page. That page is the portal: it lists what you need, and it is where they upload it.
They do not have to sign up
This is the part clients usually brace for, and it does not have to happen. There is no account to create, no password to choose, and nothing to install. They click the link in the email and they are on their page. That is the whole thing.
The link is private and specific to that client and that engagement. It is not a public address someone could guess, and it does not show anyone else's documents.
They can also create an account, if they would rather
Some clients would rather have somewhere to sign in than go hunting for an old email, and some firms want a Client Portal button on their own website that actually leads somewhere. So a client can create an account with their email address and a password, and sign in at any time to the same page.
An account is matched to your client records BY EMAIL. Whatever address you have on a client is the address that opens that client's portal, so you grant access by recording the right email and revoke it by changing it. There is no second switch to remember.
Someone who signs up with an address you have never recorded sees nothing at all. They are told their accountant has not added them yet, and that is where it ends until you add them.
You get your own sign-up link from Settings, beside your logo and brand colour. Put it behind the Client Portal button on your website: everyone who signs up through it lands in your client list, and sees your name and logo on the way in.
Both doors stay open. The links you have already emailed keep working exactly as they did, and a client with an account can still use one.
What the page says when they arrive
The top of the page greets them by name and tells them who is asking:
- Hi Marie,
- Here's what Lavoie CPA needs from you.
- Your files are private and shared only with Lavoie CPA.
Underneath is the checklist you built, with a progress counter so they can see how far along they are.
If they lose the email
Clients lose emails. It is the most ordinary thing in the world. You can resend the link from the engagement, and Vylan's automatic reminders each contain the link again, so a client who ignored the first email gets another route back in without having to ask you.
Reminders go out by email on their own schedule until the documents are in. See how automatic reminders work.
Your branding, not ours
The portal carries your firm's name, your logo, and your brand colour, which you set once in your firm settings. The same accent colour is used in the emails your clients receive. To your client, this reads as your firm asking, because it is.