Customer Portal Overview (Customer Portal)
Last updated July 6, 2026 · Owners, admins, and office staff
The Customer Portal is a branded, self-service website where your customers (the homeowners and businesses you service) can sign in to view their invoices, pay online, approve estimates, and see documents and job photos you’ve shared with them. It cuts down on phone tag and “can you resend that invoice?” emails. This article is the quick tour of what the portal offers so you can decide what to turn on. To actually turn it on, see Set Up the Customer Portal.
Before you start
- The portal is a feature that has to be switched on for your account. If you don’t see Customer Portal and Stripe Connect under Settings in the sidebar, the feature isn’t enabled yet — contact support to have it turned on.
- Nothing about the portal is visible to your customers until you enable it and grant access per customer. It is off by default.
What your customers can do
You choose which of these are visible, section by section, in Settings → Customer Portal → Visibility. Turn any section off and both the menu item and the page disappear from your customers’ portal.
| Section | What the customer can do |
|---|---|
| Invoices | Browse their invoices and download a PDF of each one |
| Payments | See a history of payments you’ve recorded on their account |
| Payment Methods | Save a credit/debit card or a US bank account (ACH) for faster checkout |
| Estimates | Review an estimate and approve it with an e-signature (and pay a deposit if you require one) |
| Service Plans | See their active plan, term, and renewal date |
| Documents | View and download any document you’ve flagged “Show in portal” |
| Statement | Download a printable PDF statement of invoices, payments, and balance for a date range |
| Photos | See job photos you’ve marked as visible to them |
| Profile | Change their password and set which email notifications they receive |
What your customers cannot do (by design)
- Upload files — the portal is view-only for documents. Customers can’t send you files through it.
- Message you through the portal — there’s no in-portal chat. The portal points them to your support email/phone instead.
- Reschedule or request visits — scheduling stays in your hands.
- Auto-pay is not available yet. Customers can save a card and pay in two clicks, but they cannot set invoices to charge automatically. Don’t promise auto-pay to customers — see Portal Payments and Documents.
How sign-in works, briefly
Your customers sign in with their email and a password. You send each customer a one-time temporary password from their customer record; they set their own password on first sign-in. There’s no public sign-up — access is something you grant. Full walkthrough in Inviting Customers to the Portal.
What happens next
Once you understand what’s on offer, the setup flow is: enable the portal, pick your URL, connect Stripe for payments, add your branding, choose which sections customers see, then invite customers one at a time. Set Up the Customer Portal walks through each step.
Tips & best practices
- Start narrow. Turn on Invoices, Payments, and Estimates first. Add Documents and Photos once you’re comfortable with the flow.
- The portal is fully white-labeled. Customers see your logo, colors, and copy — never LandscapingSoftware’s. Nothing you do reveals which software you run.
- It’s mobile-friendly. Most customers will open it on a phone. Try the customer flow on your own phone before you announce it.
- Invite a couple of friendly customers first and get their feedback before you roll it out widely.
Troubleshooting
- I don’t see the portal in Settings — the feature flag isn’t on for your account. Contact support.
- A customer says a section is missing — check that section’s toggle in Settings → Customer Portal → Visibility, and that the customer’s own Portal access enabled is on. See the deeper checklist in Portal troubleshooting.
Related articles
- Set Up the Customer Portal — enable it, connect Stripe, add branding
- Inviting Customers to the Portal — grant access and send sign-in credentials
- Portal Payments and Documents — online payments, fee passthrough, sharing documents and photos, estimate approvals
- Operator setup guide (full) — the detailed end-to-end setup reference
- Branding and white-label (full) — everything you can customize
- Known gaps in v1 — an honest list of what the portal doesn’t do yet