Client and staff portals
Custom client and staff portals in Melbourne
We build branded client portals and internal staff portals for Melbourne accounting, legal and wealth firms. A client document portal where partners stop emailing statements around. A staff operations portal that replaces the ten bookmarks your team opens before their first coffee. Role-based access and a real audit trail, mobile-friendly from the first release rather than a desktop build with a phone viewport bolted on.
One database underneath. Every surface, client-facing or internal, reads from the same source of truth. The portal a client sees and the system your team works in stop telling different stories.
Client portals
Clients want fewer emails, clearer status and a single place to find the document your team sent them in March. Firms want the same things plus a proper audit trail and less admin chasing signatures.
The common shapes we build:
- Document exchange without attachments. BAS workpapers, engagement letters, SOAs and trust statements sit in the portal instead of bouncing through inboxes. The client uploads, your team reviews, every version is logged with who touched it and when.
- Status visibility clients can check themselves. "Where is my tax return up to?" "Has the matter moved since last week?" "And when is the annual review meeting booked in?" The answer is one login away, so the partner's inbox stops being the status page.
- Structured requests instead of email threads. Information requests, missing documents, approval flows and e-signatures routed through the portal. The partner sees what is outstanding in one queue; the client sees what the firm is still waiting on.
- Secure messaging tied to the record, not someone's inbox. Notes, queries and decisions attach to the matter, the client file or the advice case. When a staff member leaves, the conversation stays with the record.
A note on the portals that ship inside LEAP, Xero Files, Xplan, HUB24 and Netwealth. Most professional services firms already have one turned on, and for straightforward cases, one-system clients, standard matter flow, documents that fit the vendor's shape, they earn their keep. Where they stop is cross-system visibility, document types the vendor does not model, and a brand experience that is yours, not theirs. A custom client portal lands when the built-in portal is the reason the partner is still emailing.
Staff portals
A staff portal is a single login across the dozen-odd tools your team touches in a day: the practice management system, accounting, documents, time recording, the CRM, the reporting dashboard, the task queue. One sign-in, one permission model, one place people start work each morning.
What it usually replaces:
- Ten bookmarks and four open tabs by 9:15am. Xero and XPM for the accountants, LEAP for the lawyers, Xplan with HUB24 or Netwealth for the advisers, plus SharePoint, a task board and a timesheet on top. A staff portal pulls the pieces of each that actually matter into one view, so nobody jumps between tools to get a matter prepped.
- Role-based access, not tribal knowledge. Partners work across the whole book. Associates work from their matter list. Advisers open straight to the client record they actually own, and admin gets the workflow queue without a view into the trust account. New staff get the right view on day one instead of learning which systems to ignore.
- Ops dashboards that reflect reality. WIP that is actually current, matters that are actually at risk, BAS lodgements that are actually behind. Reports draw from the database itself, not a CSV somebody exports on Mondays.
- Task queues the team actually works from. Today, this week, blocked, waiting on client. Work moves through the queue instead of living in someone's head or at the bottom of a Teams thread.
Adoption is the measure. If the team is not starting their day in the portal by week three, it is not working, and we rework it. The partners who have typed with two fingers for twenty years are the test, not the keen associates. We run our own at Devinium, the Business Control Center, as the reference implementation.
One login, one database, every active client, invoice and time entry in one view. It tracks which consultant is on which client this week, which invoices are behind, which proposal is still out. Same shape, same foundation, fitted to your workflow instead of ours.
What we build
Branded UI
Your practice, not ours
Logo, palette, type and domain set to match your firm. Clients log in at portal.yourfirm.com.au and see your practice. Staff see a system shaped around how your team actually works, not a theme file hacked on top of a generic SaaS product.
Authentication
Single sign-on done properly
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace for staff, because most firms already run one of the two. Auth0 for external users where you need an external identity service to handle the client account lifecycle. Okta or ADFS when you already have them. We name only the providers we have shipped against.
Permissions
Role-based access
Who sees what is the first decision, not the last. Clients see only their own records. Partners see the whole book, associates only their matters, admin the workflow but never the trust account. Rules live in the database and run on the server, so a curly URL cannot expose a matter the user should not have.
Documents
Document storage and exchange
Upload, download, version history, expiry and retention. Every file attached to the matter, the client or the case, not a shared drive folder nobody maintains. Large files handled without emailing 30MB attachments; generated PDFs like SOAs or engagement letters produced from the database rather than pasted in after the fact.
Email and in-app notifications fire when a document lands, a status changes or a request is waiting. Every action is logged: who viewed, who downloaded, who approved, when. When the compliance question arrives, the answer is one query away rather than an afternoon reconstructing events from email threads.
Mobile is designed in from the start, not bolted on as a cut-down mode. Clients check status from a phone, field staff update a job from a tablet, partners approve documents from the car park. The common actions all work without fighting the layout.
If what you actually need is a full internal system with pipelines, accounts and activities, start at the custom CRM development page instead. Portals and CRMs often integrate, but the shape of the build is different.
How we approach it
Start from who sees what
Permissions are the first design decision, not the last. We map every user type, every record they should touch, every field they should see and every action they should be able to take. The permission model shapes the data model, which shapes the UI. Reverse that order and the portal leaks.
Model the data properly
One database, one source of truth. Clients, matters, documents, activities, attempts, approvals, audit events. The relationships live in the model so the portal, the staff view and any downstream report all read from the same records. Nothing drifts between views, because there is only one record to drift from.
Ship the first slice in weeks
The core workflow lands first: the secure login, the document exchange or the task queue that hurts most. Your team uses it while we build out the rest. Real usage shapes what we build next, not a specification drafted in the first week before anybody had logged in.
Integrate with the tools you already run
Xero, MYOB, LEAP, Xplan, HUB24, Netwealth, Karbon, XPM and the practice management system at the centre of your day. The portal pulls from them where it should and pushes back where it must, so nothing gets re-keyed. Proper middleware with error handling and alerts, so a 2am vendor outage wakes you up, not a Monday-morning client.
We have done this since 2007. See who we are.
Proof
A national arboriculture company ran two disconnected systems: a desktop app the office used, a basic mobile app the field used. Clients called the office for job status because the field data lived somewhere the office could not see. Management could not report across the operation without an export and a spreadsheet. The operations manager had tried two off-the-shelf field-service tools; neither matched the way the work actually ran.
We built one database powering four surfaces: an office portal for staff, a field mobile app for crews, a client portal for job status and a reporting dashboard for management. One data model, four interfaces, each designed for its users, its context and its permissions. Staff see the full matter, clients see their jobs; field crews work from a run sheet and management watches the fleet.
Field assessments appeared in the office system the moment they were submitted. Clients checked job status through the portal instead of calling.
From the four-surface portal case study
The pattern repeats in professional services. Accounting firms build the client document portal for BAS workpapers and engagement letters, alongside a staff portal that pulls from Xero and XPM. Law firms build a matter-access portal so clients can see their case without emailing the partner. Wealth practices build an adviser portal where SOAs, annual review packs and platform statements from Netwealth or HUB24 land in one place.
Common questions
How is this different from ShareFile, Huddle or SharePoint?
Off-the-shelf portals are fine when your workflow fits theirs. ShareFile is fine for simple file exchange, Huddle handles generic collaboration, SharePoint belongs where teams already live inside Microsoft 365. Where they stop is the custom shape: matter-specific access for a law firm, client-specific document routing for an accounting practice, adviser-client-platform linking for a wealth office. If your portal needs to follow your firm's process instead of dictating it, the generic tools start costing you workarounds. That is the point at which a custom build earns its keep.
Can we brand it? Our own logo, our own domain?
Yes. White-label is the common ask from professional services firms, and it is baked in from the start rather than bolted on. Your logo, your palette, your type, your domain (portal.yourfirm.com.au). When a client logs in or uploads a document, they see your practice, not ours. The only time we push back is when the brand work has not been done; we will not invent a palette, but we will fit cleanly into the one your marketing team already uses.
What about single sign-on with Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace?
Yes. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are the defaults for internal staff, because most firms already run one of the two. For external users like clients, contractors or members, Auth0 is our usual pick because it handles the account lifecycle without making you run your own identity team. If you already run Okta or ADFS, we can integrate with those too. We only name the providers we have actually shipped against, so if a different one matters to you, ask and we will tell you straight whether we have done it. For wealth practices working under a licensee, we supply the due-diligence pack that compliance and licensee tech teams typically want before approving a system that touches client data.
Is a client portal a full CRM?
No, and keeping them separate usually ends better. A CRM is an internal tool for your team: pipelines, accounts, activities, reporting. A client portal is a client-facing experience: documents, messages, status visibility. They often integrate tightly; sometimes a small firm runs one system that does both thinly. Most firms we work with start with one, get it working, then add the other.
How long does this take?
Six to twelve weeks to a first usable release for most builds. We ship the core first: a secure login, role-based access and the document exchange or task queue that matters most. Your team uses it while we port the rest. Messaging, notifications, audit reports and the full permission polish arrive in the next few iterations, shaped by how staff and clients actually use it. Your team is on a working portal in week three, not month three.
Not sure if a portal is what you need?
Start with a conversation. We will work out whether a branded client portal, a staff portal, or something simpler is the right call for your firm.