Customer portal

While agreeing with most of your points. I put it in a different way to disagree with certain points.
In short, what we expect from the customer portal is:
1.The Customer shall know electronically and precisely where he stands with us in regards to business transactions in between us
At this point, I think the customer should be able to see a copy of the invoice if needed.
There is nothing wrong with showing the overdue status as he would have agreed upon the due date in advance. And also it may be helpful to his cash flow arrangements

2.The Customer should be able to order whatever his requirement, be it a service or goods via the portal.
For this purpose, we cannot expose everything internal

My proposals for this question:we shall have a folder which contains the list of products or services without details of pricing and an order form to list out his requirements.
After we scrutinize his order form
Let us create the quote and let him see that and approve

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Is there a way to enable Customer Portal for all existing customers at once? I have over 300 customers in the database.

Batch Update.

Done. Thanks

I have not yet introduced this version to our server system as yet, primarily because I understand that internal documents such as Sales Orders can be viewed via the portal. Can someone confirm that internal documents have been suppressed from portal viewing or an option in place to be turned off at least?

I presume that it’s of limited use to users of the desktop edition, since the files are stored locally and are not accessible by a remote customer?

This is exactly the key point of the portal. This is essentially my aim as well. I a bit undecided about showing overdue dates for invoices. I get where Tut is coming from.

I like this idea. Perhaps using the inventory price list this could be achieved. For me this while a nice feature is a low priority compared to enabling clients to approve quotes and contracts electronically.

I am not understanding the logic of exposing the sales orders either as I was always taught that it is an internal document. Also there is (in the future), going to be linkage between the sales orders and purchase orders etc. The client just needs to approve the quote and upload their PO number which could be added to the sales quote.

Regarding overdue days, if the developers can introduce “Days since invoice” will be more polite if Tut feels it other way.
The words also may work the magic

Neither is currently possible. Nor is there a definition of “internal documents.” Transaction availability is exactly as described in the first message in this topic. No more, no less.

As I understand it, they can only be accessed via the portal if you activate the portal for a particular customer and provide them with the link. If you don’t take both of these steps you are not exposing anything, so there is no risk in updating to the latest version.

Wow! Totally unexpected. Love it!

Looks like the date format is not respected. My business’ date format is set to YYYY-MM-DD, but this is showing in MM/DD/YYYY format.

Screen Shot 2021-06-08 at 12.03.00 am

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Wow @lubos - you continue to exceed our expectations! Thank you.

Agree that the dates should be consistent with settings. I can replicate this issue in Server (Ubuntu 20.04) and macOS Catalina for Manager v21.6.6.

Yes this is a very good feature. While the link sent to Customers will be unique to that customer there could be a chance of the link falling into the hands of someone else. It may be worthwhile having a password or PIN option for each customer. Perhaps one that they the customer can set and manage?

I also see this as a concern. However, a password or PIN is no more secure than a link you email to a customer. All of these measures require physical or electronic security at the customer’s site to protect the access credentials, whatever form they take. Common sense tells us they will have to be recorded somewhere. And someone must have access to whatever is recorded. That means the record of link/password/PIN is inherently subject to compromise.

Whether access by unauthorized customer personnel to a portion of your accounting records is of concern to you depends on many factors. Likewise, unauthorized access may be of concern to your customer’s management, possibly for different reasons.

The option to introduce customer portals will seem like a step into the future (or out of the stone age) to some. But I urge caution. This is not a step to be taken lightly, and certainly not without careful consideration of the security, marketing, business intelligence, and customer relationship ramifications. I do not believe there is any question that well-designed communication options between customers and suppliers can be beneficial, saving a great deal of time and effort. I have used them successfully in both roles. But they have never involved direct access—even if only in a viewing mode—to an accounting system. Instead, they have involved specialized presentation of carefully curated information through customized systems developed at considerable expense.

My personal viewpoint is that we so far have inadequate information to answer important questions. How, for example, can a customer see their transactions if I am using the desktop edition and have not launched the program? Data must be stored somewhere, but where? And what control do I have over it? What happens to that data if I disable the portal for that customer? What if I only want a customer to see unpaid invoices? Right now, I cannot limit them to those.

Discussion on this topic, both in this thread and earlier ones, suggests there will be demand for customers to be able to accept quotes, upload purchase orders directly, and make other interventions. That may be fine in a dedicated supply chain management system. But it is questionable practice when the functionality is merged with your accounting system.

We have become used to integrated online activities, where we search for restaurant reviews, get directions to the establishment in a map application, and book a reservation, all on our smartphones. But none of those actions involve the restaurant owner allowing us into the accounting system. Even if we order a takeout meal and pay for it online, we have only dealt with order-taking and receipt management software, not the accounts of the business we are patronizing.

Customer portals in Manager might look like an answer to your dreams. For some, they will be. The capability is now there. But step carefully.

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I do not think this feature belongs with the free desktop version in my humble opinion as it is a defining point of value for the paid versions. However debatable for the powers that be. Once again I agree all customer external documents be made available by default and internal documents selectable on a case by case basis. This whole thing sounds simple to achieve but there must be a lot happening behind the scenes.

Xero for example send a link with their invoices as well but the link offers access only to that invoice in their portal. (I understand that Xero are working on a more complete customer portal). In my view what Manager is offering here is superior by showing full invoice and historical activity.

My final point will be that it is only superior if you want to share all that information with people not under your control. You need to regard everything available through the link as public information.

Instead of PINs and passwords, how about expiring links after a preset number of days (eg., at end of each month) or resetting links manually like Whatsapp to add a small amount of security to the feature?

A new link could then be sent to the default email address in customer contact details.

Hey @ShaneAU, Try version 21.6.7 as it seems to be ok in this version.

Any notice that the logo does not load on the Invoice display?

This is great, and dream come true. I am looking forward to vendor portal as well. I had mentioned about having a portal or allowing vendors to be able to enter their invoices/quotes which threw up some dust. Now the developers have provided my need. Kudos!
However I will request that the link url be shortened and that there be a way for the business name to show on the portal…maybe before the customer name.