# How the client portal works

What a portal account is, what the client's home page gathers and when each card appears, what decides which records reach a client, the links that open one document, and what the portal does not do.

The client portal is not an app the firm fills in. It is a set of pages of the website, under **My account**, to which each app adds its part: the legal apps their cases, hearings, consultations, executions, contracts, agencies and requests, accounting its invoices, sales its quotations and orders, projects their tasks and timesheets, the help desk its requests. Nothing is copied: a client reads the very records the firm works on, as far as the rules let them.

## A portal account {#account}

A portal account is a user of the portal kind, tied to one contact. Its login is the contact's e-mail address at the time the account was created (or the mobile number, for an account signed up with a mobile number only), and its password is chosen by the client. It opens no app of the back office: signing in leads straight to the portal home page, and the menu under the client's name offers **My Account** and **Logout**. Portal accounts are not internal users; [Create a user and set access rights](/docs/general-settings/create-a-user-and-set-access-rights) explains the kinds of users.

An account is born in one of two ways. The firm grants it from the contact, which sends an invitation, as [Give a client portal access](give-a-client-portal-access) shows; or, when the website allows **Free sign up**, a visitor creates it from the sign-in page ([Client portal settings](client-portal-settings)). Either way it copies the access rights of a default portal account. Revoking the access archives the account; nothing is deleted, and granting again brings the same account back.

The invitation and the client's pages follow the **Language** of the contact; the client can switch to another language of the website from its language menu at any time.

## The home page {#home-page}

The home page is the client's table of contents. At the top, two buttons send the firm a new legal request or a collection request. Below them, a band shows what waits for the client, such as a quotation to review or an invoice past its due date.

![The client's home page; what waits for him sits on top, here a quotation to review.](https://jaah.app/web/image/16712-ce691e2d/client-portal-how-the-client-portal-works-portal_home-en.png)

Then come the cards, one for each kind of record. A card appears only when the client has at least one record of its kind, so two clients of the firm rarely see the same page. Four cards are always there: **Your Orders** and **Your Invoices**, even when empty, and **Addresses** and **Connection & Security**, where the client keeps their addresses, password, two-factor authentication and passkeys. On the side, the client's contact card carries **Edit information**.

![The tiles of his legal records; each appears once he has at least one record of its kind.](https://jaah.app/web/image/16628-0b723c2a/client-portal-follow-your-cases-and-hearings-cases_tile-en.png)

Each card opens a list with its own search and sort, and each line opens the record's page. The pages for clients are described from their side: [Follow your cases and hearings](follow-your-cases-and-hearings), [Consultations and executions](consultations-and-executions), [Contracts and legal agencies](contracts-and-agencies), [Invoices, quotations and payments](invoices-quotations-and-payments), [Projects, tasks and timesheets](projects-tasks-and-timesheets), [Send a new request](send-a-new-request) and [Your account and security](your-account-and-security).

## What decides what a client sees {#rules}

Two things work together: on the server, access rules let a portal account read only certain records of each kind, and on the page each card lists the records that name the client. The result is set out kind by kind in [Choose what a client sees](choose-what-a-client-sees). The short version: cases and consultations need a visibility that names portal users and the client among their followers; contracts, executions, legal requests and agencies follow the exact contact named on them; invoices, quotations, orders, projects and help desk requests follow the client's whole company.

## Links that open one document {#document-links}

When the firm e-mails a document from its record, such as an invoice or a quotation, the e-mail carries a link with a key that opens that one document, even for a reader who is not signed in. The portal account gathers all of a client's documents in one place and keeps them reachable after the e-mails are gone.

## What the portal does not do {#what-it-does-not-do}

- It opens nothing of the back office, and it has no per-document switch: the rules decide, so a posted invoice of the client's company always shows.
- It does not tell the client when their access is revoked, and the contact's chatter records the grant but not the revocation.
- It does not list a contract still in **Drafting**, and it shows the collection cards only to a contact who is the debtor or the owner of a collection contract.
- It does not list a colleague's legal records: a person of a company sees the company's invoices, not the contracts named on another person.

The scheduled jobs and e-mails behind the portal are listed in [Client portal automations](client-portal-automations).

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- Source: https://jaah.app/docs/client-portal/how-the-client-portal-works
- Updated: 2026-10-29
- Version: Client portal 19.0.1.0
- Verified: 2026-10-29