How do I set up a client portal for a small studio?
Start with what clients need to see and decide: shared deliverables, review requests and billing documents. Keep internal tasks and costs private, and give each contact only the permissions needed for their role.
Map the people before inviting them
The day-to-day contact may not be allowed to approve extra spending. A finance contact may only need invoices. Write down who can view, request a change, approve a price, review a deliverable and pay. Avoid sharing one login between several people.
Publish a useful first view
A portal should answer what is ready and what happens next. Start small rather than copying the entire internal workspace.
- Choose the project summary and deliverables the client should see.
- Publish the current review version and hide superseded requests.
- Add billing documents only for authorized recipients.
- Test the experience with a client-role account on a phone.
- Check that internal notes, costs and unrelated clients are inaccessible.
Maintain it as the project changes
Remove access when a contact leaves, confirm membership when a project changes organizations, and keep decisions attributed to the right person. Tell clients how to ask for help if a link expires rather than encouraging them to forward someone else’s session.
Explore Moolamochi’s approach
Moolamochi publishes a client view instead of exposing the internal board. A guest payment link grants access only to its document, not to the whole portal. Explore the permission guide while public signup stays waitlist-only.