Client portal
Available onBuilder
The client portal is a web page for your client about their job. You give them one link; on it they see what you have chosen to share, approve variations, download their progress claims, look at photos from site and send you a message. There is no login, no app and no password. The link itself is the key, the same way shared colour schedules and call-up confirmations work.
What the client sees: documents, selections, variations, claims, photos, the schedule, defects, upgrades and messages.
Give your client one address instead of a stream of emails, and the “can you send me the contract again?” calls stop.
What the client sees
Section titled “What the client sees”The link opens a sign-in page first: your company’s name, a password box and Open my job page. Then the page has these tabs. Each one shows only what you have shared or what belongs to that client, and you can hide any tab except Home.
| Tab | What is on it |
|---|---|
| Home | A welcome line you write, your contact details, and what is new: the latest documents, photos, variations, claims and messages |
| Documents | Every file in the job’s Client Documents folder, plus any other job file you ticked as shared. Open or download |
| Selections | A button into their colour selections page, if you have shared one, with how far through they are |
| Variations | Every variation sent to them with its status, opening the same approve / decline page as before, and a form to ask for a change |
| Claims | Their progress claims with the PDF, whether each is paid, part paid or awaiting payment, and the running totals: contract, claimed, paid, outstanding |
| Photos | Site-diary photos shared with the client, grouped by day - either every photo (the job’s share all photos switch) or only the ones ticked |
| Schedule | Only when you switch it on for the job: the stages and tasks with their dates and percent complete, a today line, and what is running late. Never cost, suppliers, call-ups or notes |
| Defects | On unless you switch it off for the job: the client reports something that is not right, with the room and up to six photos, and follows whether it is fixed. They see only what was reported through the portal. Never your own defects, the supplier, a dispute or your internal note |
| Messages | A chat with your team. What they write lands in Messages as a Client chat on the job, and on the team’s phones |
| Upgrades | Only when you switch it on for the job: the upgrade options with live prices, a way to ask you to update their proposal, and Accept and sign when you send one |
Money on the page is only ever the client’s own figures: their claims and their variations. Nothing about cost or margin leaves the server.
Setting a client up
Section titled “Setting a client up”Everything is on the Client portal tab of the estimate, under Estimates on the project page, beside Summary, Price and contract, and Settings. Links belong to an estimate, which is why it is there. Each client of the project gets their own link for that estimate.
Each client, their link and their password, under the estimate.
- Add the client (name and email) under Clients if they are not there yet. Their link is made the moment you add them, so they appear under Clients and their links straight away, ready to send. Nothing is emailed yet.
- Press Set password. SmarteBuild suggests a strong one, three groups of four such as
Xk7m-Qr3t-Hn9w. Press Suggest another, or type your own of at least 8 characters. Leave Email it to … ticked and press Save and email. - Press Send invitation. Write a personal line for the email if you like. The email goes (you are copied in), and the block shows when it was sent. A client with no password yet has one made and emailed separately.
Each client’s block shows the link with Copy and Open, whether a password is set and when it was emailed, when they were invited, and when they opened the page.
Open shows the client’s page as a read-only preview, with a banner saying so. Approving, signing and sending are refused, so nobody approves a variation for the client from the office.
Stop link stops a link working immediately; anyone opening it sees “this link is no longer valid”. Deleting a client from the project stops their link too.
The Variations page still has its older card, which can invite and copy the link. Passwords and tabs are only on this tab.
The password
Section titled “The password”
What the client sees first when they open their link.
The password goes in its own email, without the link, and nobody is copied on it; the invitation has the link. It is stored scrambled, so it cannot be shown again. If it is forgotten, set a new one. Changing a password signs out anyone using the old one.
The client can also look after it themselves. On the sign-in page, Email a new password to (with their address partly hidden) sends a new one to the address on their client record and nowhere else, at most 3 in 24 hours. With no email on file it says to ask you. Five wrong tries stops it for 15 minutes. Once signed in, they stay signed in on that browser for 14 days. A variation’s own link in an email goes to the sign-in page first, then straight back to the variation.
What the client sees: switches
Section titled “What the client sees: switches”There is a switch per tab, for everyone with a link on that estimate: Documents, Colour selections, Variations, Progress claims, Photos, Schedule, Defects, Upgrades (when the job has options) and Messages. A hidden tab is gone completely: the tile, the counts, the recent activity and the page itself, not just the button. Home is always there. The Contract tab appears on its own when something is sent to sign.
What the old variation portal became
Section titled “What the old variation portal became”Before September 2026 the same link opened a page that listed only variations
(ClientVariation.aspx?p=). Those addresses still work: they redirect to the new page. The
per-variation links (?t=) are unchanged and are what the Variations tab opens.
In this section
Section titled “In this section”Selections in the portal
Section titled “Selections in the portal”The Selections tab is the client’s selections schedule, shown inside the portal as soon as the job has one. The client makes and confirms choices there exactly as they would through a separate selections link, each confirmation lands in the chat, and the home page shows the latest selection activity. There is nothing extra to set up: the portal link is the key.