Included with your Pearl system is an online area where your customers can view information about their account with you. This the "web portal". Depending on your Pearl subscription level, and the modules that you are using, your customers can access the following information:

Personal data; address, profile and password

You can choose to show any number of additional fields on this page using "custom fields". If a custom field is user editable, then it will appear on this screen for the customer to update themselves.

Orders, Quotes and Invoices

Only orders that are on a "public" status are shown in the customer portal. This allows you to build and edit orders in the pre-quote phase, then when you wish for the customer to approve a quote or add comments, you would update the status in Pearl admin, and ensure the customer is notified by email. There will be a hotlink at the bottom of the email.

Support tickets, if you have a helpdesk

You can keep on top of your customer service by using support tickets. Your customers raise and view tickets using this portal. Any ticket email update generated when you add a note to a ticket in the Pearl admin area will include a hotlink which will bring them directly to the online portal. Only public notes are visible to the customer in the portal. When you add extra users to a ticket, they will be able to see the ticket in their portal, even if the ticket was not raised on their account. This can be useful for keeping multiple people up to date on any one query.

Statement and payment history, if you are using Pearl accounts

A full transaction statement is available for viewing, as well as a print friendly version so that your customers can check their balance without needing to get in touch with you. Ensure that your customers know that they can access all the information they need online and your credit control, invoicing and finance should get a whole lot simpler.

Reprint invoices

Your customers can log in and download their PDF invoices and quotes at any time.

Add comments to quotes and orders

Your customers can view their orders and add comments. A copy of the comment is also emailed to the main contact account email as set up in your Company defaults screen.

Pay invoices online

Perhaps the most useful feature of the portal is that it allows your customers to pay their invoice balances online automatically. Currently PayPal and Protx are the two supported payment methods, with more coming soon. Throughout the portal customers will see "pay now" links, which will take them through the payment process. Once the payment is complete, a journal will be created automatically for you.

The customer has two choices for payment;

1/ Pay an amount against their total account balance, by clicking "pay now" in the Account Summary screen, or on the statement. This will create a payment on account that you can then allocate as you wish in the admin area.
2/ Pay an invoice in full. This will allocate the payment against that particular invoice and clear it down as paid. This "pay now" link is available from the statement as well as from within the order/quote detail screen.

Purchase Order acknowledgement

If you send a Purchase Order to a supplier, they can simply click the hotlink at the bottom of the email to be taken automatically into their portal account area. There they will see a list of their Purchase Orders, and can choose to acknowledge them online. You can set Pearl up to automatically progress thie Purchase order to a new status, as defined in your Setup->Company defaults screen. This is a great way to ensure that a strong, clear  audit trail is maintained.

Project and job information, if you use Pearl Project manager

Ensure that customers are kept up to date with project progression by giving them a login to their account area online. They can add notes to jobs, and upload files for development or review. The customer/client can only see jobs where they are a "client" on the job, which allows you to segment larger projects, and keep certain jobs private. Only public notes, and notes that the user has entered themselves, will be visible on any job.

Access

The portal is accessed by the customer using their email address and a password. It's quite likely that you have created them in your Pearl admin area, in which case they won't have a password. To generate a new password:

• Edit their contact in Pearl admin, and tick "send new password" in the password tab, or...
• Visit the login page on your website, click the password forgotten link, enter the customer email address and click submit

Portal hotlinks

Alternatively, your customers have direct access to the relevant page in your portal using hotlinks in the emails that are generated from within Pearl. These links can be clicked and the user is logged in without the need to enter their email address and password (they will still need an email address on their account, however).

Hotlinks are automatically added to the bottom of these emails:

• Order update
• Quote, invoice etc sending
• Invoice reminder
• Statement by email
• Project job update
• Helpdesk ticket update

Styling

If you already have a website with us, then the portal is an integral part of that website. If you host your website elsewhere, or you don't yet have a website, then you can still use the portal with our default layout (get the HTML file here). If you wish to use the portal and don't yet have the portal style applied to your account, please get in touch with Pearl.

A logo can be added, please just email it over to us and we'll drop it in.

Turning it off

... and if you really don't want to give your customers the opportunity to do the work for you, then you can turn the 1-click login link at the bottom of outgoing emails OFF, on the Setup->Company defaults screen.