The client portal is a website your clients can log into to do the following:

• View their proposals online
• View multiple images of an item
• Ask questions that are sent directly to the designer
• Approve proposals
• View invoices
• Pay invoices and deposits online
• View documents (mood boards, floor plans, care and use manuals...)

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Your firm will be assigned a portal address with the format: YourFirmName.designsmart.tech

We recommend that your firm add a “Client Login” or “Client Portal” to the menu of your website. When the client clicks on this menu option it will take them to your log in page.  Your web designer only has to add one or two lines of code to make this work. 

The login page will have your logo and the log in fields. 

Yes. You have the following controls:

1. You can control which clients have access to the portal.
2. You can control which projects are shown on the portal.
3. You can control if they see prices grouped by area or not.
4. You can control how much information appears on the “list view”.
5. You can control if clients have to click on a check mark for each item before they can approve the proposal.

When a proposal is approved on the portal, the client and the design firm are sent a copy of the approved proposal via email.

To help your firm stay on top of approved proposals, a new column has been added in DesignSmart on the project list view. An icon will appear in this colunnb to indicate when a proposal has been approved.  When you click on the icon, it will take you to the Proposal Detail View. The proposal status will be “Client Approved”. Your staff will need to change that to “Approved”.  

Yes, but it requires that your firm sign up for DesignSmart's PaySmart online payment system.  PaySmart is based on Stripe, one of the largest, safest credit card processors in the world.  For more information about PaySmart please click here. 

When clients send a question, or comment, via the portal, it will be sent to an email address that all design staff receive (for example, info@acmedesign.com). It is assumed that the designer will be tasked with responding to the client, but by sending emails to this type of general address,  if the designer is not available, someone else can respond to the client.

Each time a client enters a question, or comment, it will be sent to the design firm. So it is possible that a handful, or more, individual emails will be sent to the design firm during a portal visit.

Designers do not respond to clients via their email program.

Most clients would not like to have to wade through a bunch of individual email responses, so we've developed, what we hope you'll agree, is a better option. 

Most clients would not like to have to wade through a bunch of individual email responses, so we've developed, what we hope you'll agree, is a better option. 

First of all, to make it easy to stay on top of correspondence, on the project list view in  DesignSmart  there will be a new column called “Questions Pending”. If an email icon is in the column, then that project has emails from the client that need to be responded to. The designer will click on that icon and see all the communications that need a response. We believe this interface will make it easy for your firm to stay on top of all correspondence.

Then, after responding to each question asked by the client, the designer will click a button that will compile all of the responses into a single PDF document and the document will be sent to the client. The thinking is that it will be easier for the client to open and read one response rather than several individual responses.

Finally, there is a new Correspondence View in DesignSmart where all staff can see all correspondence for a project.

Your clients can invite their family and friends so they can access the portal, log in and see your design concepts. When they create the invitation, they have two options:

1. Whether or not the invitee can see pricing.
2. If the client has more than 1 project, they can determine if the invitee will see all projects, or just selected ones.

Your client will copy the invitation text and paste it into their email program so the invitation that the invitee sees is from your client (their friend or family relation). The invitation text will include the website address and the password they'll need to log in.

Family and friends cannot:

1. Approve proposals.
2. View invoices.
3. Send the designer questions.

The portal was designed to be so simple and intuitive that most people will understand how to use it without instruction or training. However, if your clients do have questions, they will need to contact your office for assistance.  

Note: There are buttons in DesignSmart that will let you access the client's portal so that you can see what they are seeing. This can be very helpful when talking to them over the phone during a support call.

When a designer creates a proposal, they will have the option to include the proposal in PDF form in the email sent to the client or not. 

In addition to access all invoices and proposals, clients can also access a variety of PDF documents.

 n the Project Details layout in DesignSmart there is a tab called “Attachments”. Here you can upload any PDFs you want your client to have access to via the portal. These documents could include such things as:

• Floor plans
• Your contract
• Mood boards
• Care and use manuals
• Installation guides
• Finish schedules

The client portal will be free for clients who use DesignSmart's PaySmart online payment module. 

For all others, the cost will be an additional $10 per month per DesignSmart license. Discounts for larger firms are available.