One-minute client portal overview
What the client portal offers
Share project access to your clients in an interface with your own branding.
Give an easy-to-use interface for clients to see their project's invoices, documents and past activity timeline.
Share key documents and links with Clients. Learn More
Let clients easily upload files to share with you on your project. Learn More
Collaborate with your clients on tasks. Learn More
How to enable your client portal
You can enable your client portal from your Client Portal page:
How clients can access your client portal
Clients can easily access your Client Portal anytime from the proposals/contracts or invoices you send them:
Additionally you can easily link to your Client Portal by copy/pasting the link from your Client Portal page:
How to display the progress of a project
In Bonsai, you can create a budget and track the progress of your projects with ease. You can share the status of a project with your client by navigating to the Client Portal page, selecting the 'Preferences' tab and selecting your preference for project progress visibility:
You have the option to showcase the amount progressed through the budget cycle, the percentage of completed tasks completed, or based on the length of time between the start & end dates of the project.
How to show your client who is working on a project
If you would like to showcase who on your team is working on a specific project, you can enable this option by navigating to the Client Portal settings, clicking the 'Preferences' tab, and toggling on the 'Project Team' setting:
How to update your client portal branding
First, make sure that you have enabled "Whitelabeling" in your Brand settings so that it is set to "Show Your Brand". Save your changes and this will ensure that clients see your branding in your emails to them, as well as on all client-facing pages.
From there, make sure your "Company Logo" has been saved in order to ensure your correct logo is used.
To update the background image on your Client Portal, go to your Client Portal settings page and click on the 'Preferences' tab and upload a new image:
You are also able to change the banner that is displayed on the login page, by navigating to the Client Portal settings (Under the 'Access' tab) and selecting the option below:
How to enable client messaging
You can enable client messaging in your client portal to communicate directly with your clients through the platform.
To get started, navigate to Client Management in the left-hand navigation bar and select the Client Portal page. Here, click on the 'Preferences' tab and you'll find an option to enable 'Client Messaging'. Simply toggle this setting to turn the feature on:
Once client messaging is enabled, you'll notice a 'Messages' tab within your individual projects. This is where you can send and receive messages with your clients:
In the 'Messages' tab, you'll be able to draft and send a message to your client:
Both you and your client can include links, files, images, etc. when send messaging back and forth.
After you've sent the message, your client will receive an email notification letting them know they've received a new message:
When they click on the email notification, it will redirect them to the 'Messages' tab in the client portal, where they can read your message and respond:
If they wish to reply, they can draft a response directly within the portal and send it back to you:
Once they click 'Send Message', their response will be added to the message thread.
This feature helps you maintain easy, centralized communication with your clients directly within the platform.
Please note that Collaborators cannot access the 'Messages' tab on projects. Additionally, any Owner, Partner, or Project Manager who is not listed on the project’s 'Team' page can view the messages, but they cannot send messages.
Note: To confirm if your paid subscription has access to this feature, visit our pricing page.
Client's view: logging into your client portal
Once you've updated your settings you can be sure that your client will see your Client Portal all within the context of your brand.
Your clients can log in using the email you've set as their primary contact email:
Client's view: within your client portal
After opening your portal through the secure link, they will see their active projects with you:
Your clients can pay their invoices, upload and view documents under in each project by default.
If you've enabled your clients to view tasks, they'll also see a Tasks tab within their portal.
General view
Within each project, your clients will see an 'Overview' and a 'Billing' tab. 'Billing' will display any invoices that the client has already received from you, and display their status. Your client will be able to pay their outstanding invoices from this view.
The 'Overview' section offers timestamped activity details and the ability to view and upload documents to their project:
View with tasks enabled
If you choose to share any level of visibility with your clients around tasks, they will have a 'Tasks' tab that will become visible. From here, they'll have access to the tasks you've chosen to share with them:
The setting to share visibility into tasks with your clients is universal and will apply to all clients that you invite to your portal.
If you choose to deactivate task visibility for your client portal, the task tab will cease to be visible to your clients. They will only see the 'Overview' and 'Billing' tabs:
FAQ
Can I revoke access to the Client Portal for one client? If that client is archived will they still have access?
If you archive them or change the email address on the client, they will no longer have access to your client portal.
Is the log in process for clients always a secure link, as opposed to a username and password?
At this time, we always use a secure email link as a means to access the client portal both for security reasons for sensitive client project data and for convenience.
If a client has several contacts, can all the contacts use the portal?
Every contact on a client in your account can access the client portal. So, if you have a project with Smith & Co and there are 2 contacts (John and Jane) in their client file, then both of those contacts will be able to log into your portal.