Customer Portal
What Customers See in the Portal
The Customer Portal gives your customers a self-service dashboard where they can view their documents, track job progress, and communicate with you.
Jobs: Active and completed jobs are listed with status, scheduled dates, notes and any photos you have added to the job.
Invoices: All invoices are visible with their payment status. Customers can pay outstanding invoices online through the portal if Stripe Connect is enabled.
Appointments: Upcoming and past appointments are shown with date, time, and details.
Messages: Customers can send and receive messages with you through the portal. This is the only place a customer conversation can start.
Contracts: Legacy contracts, if the account has any, are listed and readable here.
Not estimates: Estimates are not in the portal. A customer views, accepts and e-signs an estimate from the link you email them — no login needed, which is why signing works for every customer whether or not they ever set up a portal account.
Getting a Customer Into the Portal
There is no Invite to portal button on a customer record. The only invitation control in ServeHub hangs off a contract, and contracts are a legacy part of the product that most accounts never produce — so for a lot of owners the portal is, in practice, unreachable. Better you know that here than after promising a customer a login.
The one way in: A contract is created for you when a customer accepts an estimate — but only if your account has at least one contract template saved. Open the customer under Customers, click the contract listed on their page, and the Invite to portal button is there. They get an email with a link to set a password.
When that button is missing: It only shows while the contract is unsigned, and only if the customer has an email address and has not already set up a login. After the contract is signed it is gone.
The other way in: A customer who opens a contract-signing link and signs it is offered a portal account on the confirmation screen and can create one themselves.
No contract, no portal: If you have no contract templates, nothing will ever create a contract, so there is no invitation to send. There is no way to invite a customer straight from their record.
You do not need the portal for the things customers most often ask for. Signing an estimate and paying an invoice both work from the link you email — no login, no account. Treat the portal as a bonus for repeat customers, not as the way you deliver documents.
Portal Login & Credentials
Each customer has their own login credentials for the portal. Access is tied to their email address.
Email-based login: Customers log in with the email address associated with their customer record. They set their own password during the invitation process.
Password reset: Customers can reset their password from the portal login page if they forget it.
Security: Each customer can only see their own documents, jobs, and messages. There is no cross-visibility between customers.
Revoking access: There is no switch for this. Once a customer has a portal login it stays active, and nothing in the dashboard disables it. If an account genuinely has to be shut off, contact support — it has to be done by hand on our side.
Photo Galleries on Jobs
Share before-and-after photos and progress images with customers through job galleries visible in the portal.
- Open a job and scroll to the Photos section.
- Choose the stage — Before, After or General — add a short note if you want one, then pick the files.
- Photos are automatically visible in the customer's portal under that job, for customers who have a portal login.
Progress updates: Upload photos at each stage of the job to keep customers informed without needing a phone call.
Before and after: Document the starting condition and final result. This is great for customer satisfaction and for showcasing your work.
Tip: since most customers never get a portal login, do not rely on the portal to deliver photos. On the job's Photos section, tick the ones you want, add a line of text, and email them to the customer directly — that reaches everyone with an email address.