Customer Portal - Overview & Setup

The Customer Portal is a self-service portal for your customers, which they can use to manage their subscriptions, accept quotes, pay for invoices, update their information and much more.

Learn about the basic setup needed to get the Customer Portal up and running. You can learn more about functions in the Customer Portal , as well as Customer Portal preferences , to make the portal work just the way you need it to.

Enable the Customer Portal

To provide your customers or their contact persons with access to the Customer Portal, you will have to send each of them an invite email.

Note:

The Customer Portal is enabled for your organization by default, and the URL to access it is auto-generated based on your organization’s name. You can view the portal URL and change it if necessary, before starting to invite your customers to the portal.

There are 3 ways to invite customers to the Customer Portal:

Prerequisite:

The Customer Portal can be configured only for customers who have an email address.

Enable the portal for existing customers

You can enable the Customer Portal for existing customers and their contact persons. To do this:

Log in to your Zoho ERP organization.
Go to the Sales module in the left side bar and click on Customers in the modular bar at the top of the page.
Select a customer for whom you’d like to provide portal access.
Click the More dropdown and select Configure Customer Portal.
Select the contact persons for whom you want to enable the Customer Portal.
Click Save.

Now, an invite email will be sent to your customers, which they can use to access the Customer Portal.

Pro Tip:

You can invite multiple customers to the Customer Portal at the same time using Bulk Actions. To do this, go to the Customers module, select one or more customers from the list view, and click Enable Portal from the Bulk Actions dropdown. Now an invite email will be sent to the Primary Contact of the customers that you had selected.

You can also configure the language that’s used in the Customer Portal for individual customers. Here’s how:

Log in to your Zoho ERP organization.
Go to the Sales module in the left side bar and click on Customers in the modular bar at the top of the page.
Select a customer for whom you’d like to configure language for the portal.
Click Edit.
Select a Portal Language in the Other Details section.
Click Save.

Enable the portal while adding new customers

To enable the Customer Portal while creating new customers in Zoho ERP:

Log in to your Zoho ERP organization.
Go to the Sales module in the left side bar and click on Customers in the modular bar at the top of the page.
Click + New to add a new customer.
Enter the details as required.
Mark the Allow portal access option in the Other Details section.
Select the Portal Language, which will be used for this particular customer.
Click Save.

Now, an invite email will be sent to your customer, which they can use to access the Customer Portal.

Configure portal to be enabled automatically

You can configure the Customer Portal to be enabled automatically for new customers who complete their subscription payments from the Hosted Payment Pages. To do this:

Log in to your Zoho ERP organization.
Go to Settings > Customer Portal > General.
Mark the Enable the portal for customers automatically option.
Click Save.

Now, an invite email will be sent to new customers whenever they purchase a subscription via the Hosted Payment Pages.

Functions in the Customer Portal

You can manage the various functions available in the Customer Portal, including how customers can use the Home Dashboard to track invoices, credits, payments, and pending approvals, manage their personal details, and control their subscriptions. It also covers trial management actions such as converting trials to live, extending trials, and cancelling subscriptions, helping customers handle billing and subscription activities independently. **Learn More**

Customer Portal Activity Updates

Enabling the Customer Portal for your customers is a great way to stay in the loop about customer activities, with regard to your business.

When your customers view an invoice for the first time in the Customer Portal, there will be a Viewed (eye) icon near the invoice in Zoho ERP. You will also receive an in-app notification when your customers view an invoice for the first time.

Apart from invoice updates, you will also receive in-app notifications for other important customer activities that take place from the portal, such as making payments and updating or cancelling subscriptions. You can choose whether you want to be notified about these events via email as well, in the Customer Portal Preferences.

Pro Tip:

The Portal Activities report can give you a full, module-wise breakdown of your customer’s activities. To access this report, go to Reports > Select Portal Activities from the Activity section

Customer Portal Preferences

You can manage all customer permissions and control how they access information in the Customer Portal from Customer Portal Preferences. **Learn More**

Disable the Customer Portal

To disable the Customer Portal for a customer:

Log in to your Zoho ERP organization.
Go to the Sales module in the left side bar and click on Customers in the modular bar at the top of the page
Select a customer for whon you’d like to disable the portal.
Click the More dropdown and select Configure Customer Portal.
Deselect the contact person for whom you want to disable the Customer Portal.
Click Save.

Now, your customer will no longer be able to access the Customer Portal.