The client portal
Your clients see everything you share with them in one place: your requests, shared documents, questionnaires, documents to sign, messages, and the people at your firm who look after them. There are two ways in, depending on whether the client has their own Bokapsys workspace - but behind both doors is exactly the same page.
Two doors, one portal
Section titled “Two doors, one portal”The client signs in to the Bokapsys app and opens My Accountant in the sidebar. They get every tab described below, plus What they can do, where they control your firm’s access to their books. The page uses the client’s own branding, because it sits inside their workspace. If they work with more than one firm, they switch between firms at the top.
The client goes to your secure client portal and signs in with their email address and password. The portal shows your firm’s logo and brand colours, and who they are signed in as. Set your branding from Firm settings > Branding.
Which door a client uses follows from how you added them - see Clients. The Contacts tab on each client’s page tells you which one applies.
What your client sees
Section titled “What your client sees”| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Everything | All sections on one page. |
| Signatures | Documents you sent for signature, and a way to send you something to sign. While something is waiting for them, the tab reads To sign with a count. |
| Questionnaires | Organizers you sent, with Save for later and Send to my accountant. |
| What we need | Your open requests, one line per item, each with an Upload button and its own conversation. |
| In progress | Jobs you have written to the client about, with those messages. The tab appears once there is something to show. |
| Documents | Folders and documents you shared, plus the client’s own folders. |
| Messages | Every conversation they can see, as one inbox. |
| Your team | The people you show them on the Our team tab, with a button to message each one. |
| Your colleagues | The people at their company who can reach the portal. |
What your client never sees
Section titled “What your client never sees”- Internal notes and conversations you did not share.
- Folders and documents you have not shared.
- Your jobs and tasks themselves - their status, assignees and due dates. The In progress tab only shows the messages you deliberately sent to the client about a job.
- Time entries, rate cards and meeting recordings.
- Staff you marked Hidden on the Our team tab.
Invitations and passwords
Section titled “Invitations and passwords”Clients are never let in by a link. Every client - portal or app - joins with an invitation that carries a temporary password.
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You invite a contact from Add client or from the client’s Contacts tab.
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The contact receives an email with the sign-in address and a temporary password.
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They sign in with the email address the invitation was sent to and that password.
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Before they see anything else, they must choose their own password. The temporary one stops working once they do.
A temporary password expires after seven days if it is not used. Click Resend invitation on the contact to send a new one.
Every other email you trigger - a new request, a message, a questionnaire, a reminder - contains a link to the sign-in page, not a link that signs the client in. A forwarded email therefore never gives anyone else access. The only exception is a signature request: its private link opens that single document for signing and nothing else.
Forgotten passwords and lockouts
Section titled “Forgotten passwords and lockouts”On the portal sign-in page, Forgot your password? emails the client a link to choose a new password. The link expires after an hour. After several wrong passwords in a row, the portal blocks sign-in for that address for a short time.
Turning access off
Section titled “Turning access off”From the client’s Contacts tab:
- Turn off access - the contact’s password stops working immediately. Invite them again to let them back in.
- Deactivate contact - also turns off their access, through either door.
Colleagues at the client
Section titled “Colleagues at the client”A client without a workspace can bring colleagues into the portal themselves, with one rule: only the main contact can invite. You choose the main contact on the Contacts tab with Make main contact.
The main contact sees Your colleagues and clicks Invite a colleague. The colleague gets their own invitation and temporary password. Colleagues can upload documents, answer questions and read messages, but cannot invite anyone else. The main contact can resend an invitation or remove a colleague at any time.
Once the client has a Bokapsys workspace, the portal stops offering invitations. Colleagues join through the client’s own Team Management and reach the same page under My Accountant.
When a portal client gets a workspace
Section titled “When a portal client gets a workspace”If a client you have been tracking in the portal later opens their own Bokapsys workspace with the same email address and connects it to your firm, everything carries over. Their contacts, documents, requests, questionnaires and messages stay on the same client record, and they find them under My Accountant.
How clients are notified
Section titled “How clients are notified”- By email when you send a request, a client-visible message, a questionnaire or a document to sign, and when reminders fall due.
- In the app as well, if the client has a Bokapsys workspace: people there who can see My Accountant get a notification that opens the right tab.