Client Portal: Setup Guide

The client portal gives your clients one link to apply for funding, upload their documents and sign, with your logo and colors. Every application that comes in through it appears in Applications, with its documents analyzed.

Everything here lives under Settings → Client Portal, which has six tabs: Overview, Form, Documents, Domain, Emails and Routing.

Who can set it up

• Role: only the Owner and Admins see Settings → Client Portal.
• Plan: the portal is part of the Deal-flow add-on. Without it, the page shows Add Deal-flow, which opens Usage & Billing. See plans and prices
• Deal-flow Plus only: the Form, your own Domain, your own document types, sending from your own domain and editing the emails. On Deal-flow these show a lock and an Upgrade or Upgrade to Deal-flow Plus button.

Step 1 — Turn on the portal

Go to Settings → Client Portal → Overview. In the Your portal card, switch on Portal enabled.

• Your portal's link appears, for example https://acme.portal.clearstaq.com. ClearStaq creates this address for you.
• Copy link copies it, and Open opens your portal in a new tab.
• Share this one link with all your clients: on your website, in your email signature, in messages.

Most of the other tabs ask you to turn the portal on first. Do this step before anything else.

Turning it off: new clients see "This portal isn't accepting applications right now". Clients who already applied can still finish.

Step 2 — Use your own domain (Deal-flow Plus)

With Deal-flow Plus, your portal can live on a subdomain of your website, like apply.acmefunding.com. Click Edit domain in the Your portal card, or open the Domain tab.

1. In Your subdomain, enter the subdomain: just the name, without https://, a port or a path. Your main domain (acmefunding.com) can't be used.
2. Click Save.
3. Under Create these records at your DNS provider, a table shows the record to create: its Type (CNAME), Name and Value. Each has a Copy button. Create the record where you manage your domain (GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Route 53 and others).
4. ClearStaq looks for the record every 5 minutes. To look right away, click Check now (once a minute). DNS changes can take up to 24 hours to show up.
5. Once the record is found, a second CNAME record, for the HTTPS certificate, may appear in the table. Create it too and keep both records in place.
6. When the certificate is ready, the status changes to Active. Your portal is live on your subdomain, and links in portal emails use it.

Your standard address keeps working the whole time.

If your DNS provider adds your domain to names on its own, leave it out of the Name: enter apply instead of apply.acmefunding.com.

Domain statuses

To stop using your subdomain, click Remove domain. The portal goes back to its standard address.

Using Cloudflare? Set the records to DNS only

If your domain's DNS is at Cloudflare, every record ClearStaq gives you must be DNS only (grey cloud), not Proxied. When Cloudflare's proxy is on, we can't see the record, and the setup can't finish.

When a check finds a proxied record, the table shows Proxied by Cloudflare: set this record to DNS only (grey cloud). under it. Switch the record to DNS only in Cloudflare; the next check picks it up.

The same applies to the records for sending emails from your own domain (Step 6).

Step 3 — Add your logo and colors

In Overview, the Branding card sets what clients see on every portal page and in portal emails.

• Logo: click Upload (PNG, JPG or WebP, up to 2 MB). It's saved right away. Replace and Remove change it later.
• Primary color: buttons, top bar and progress.
• Accent color: highlights and step indicators.

Enter colors as hex values, like #1E40AF, or leave a field empty for the default. The Live preview shows the result as you type. Click Save changes to keep the colors.

White text has to stay readable on your primary color. Below a 3:1 contrast the color can't be saved; below 4.5:1 you get a warning that some clients may find the buttons hard to read.

Where client replies go: in the Portal emails card, enter a Reply-to email and click Save. Leave it empty to send replies to your organization's owner.

Step 4 — Build the application form (Deal-flow Plus)

The Form tab changes the questions clients answer. On Deal-flow, the portal uses the standard form.

The form has steps. The standard ones are Business, Owners, Documents and Review & Sign:

• Business stays first, and its first field, Email, can't be removed.
• Review & Sign is a system step: it stays last and can't be edited.
• Documents shows the documents from your catalog (Step 5).

What you can change:

• Steps: Add step, rename a step in Step title, add a Step description (optional), reorder steps by dragging or with the up and down buttons, and remove the steps you added. Up to 12 steps.
• Fields: in the Fields card, add a field by clicking a type: Text, Email, Phone, Number, Currency, Date, Select, Multi-select, Checkbox, Address or Long text. Each field has a Label, Help text, Required or Optional, and, for select fields, Options. Standard fields can be hidden with Visible in portal and restored later.
• Entry and success messages: the Entry title, the Welcome text on the first page, and the Success message clients see after they submit. Plain text only, no links. Leave one blank to use the standard text.

Draft and publish

Changes are saved as a Draft as you work; clients don't see them yet.

1. Click Preview to try the form as a client would.
2. Click Publish to make it live. Every step needs a name before you can publish.

The Published tab shows what clients see now, with its version and date. Discard draft throws away unpublished changes. Applications already in progress keep the form they started with.

Step 5 — Choose the documents clients upload

The Documents tab is your Document catalog: the documents a new business must provide. It's the same list as Settings → Documents, so a change in one shows in the other.

For each document:

• Required by default: ask every new business for it. Bank Statements are always required.
• File limits: the Min files and Max files a client can upload. Leave blank for the default shown.
• Note to client: a short instruction, like "Include all pages", shown next to a required document.

The 12 standard document types are Bank Statements, Tax Returns, Driver's License, Voided Check, Verification of Deposit, Proof of Ownership, Proof of Citizenship, YTD P&L, Proof of Business Start Date, Accounts Receivables, Accounts Payables and Balance Sheet.

Click Save changes when you're done. The list applies to new businesses; businesses you already have keep their own.

Analyze automatically after upload: Bank Statements and Tax Returns have this switch. When it's on, files a client uploads are analyzed on their own, using your credits. If you run out of credits, files are stored and you're notified.

Your own document types (Deal-flow Plus): click Add document type to ask for something that isn't on the list. Give it a Name, a Description shown to client, the Accepted formats (PDF, PNG, JPG), a Max size per file (MB) and the Min files and Max files. New types start optional; turn on Required by default to ask every new business for them.

Step 6 — Set up the emails

The portal emails your clients (verification codes, signature requests, document requests, reminders) and your team (new applications, new documents, new messages). The Emails tab lists them all.

On Deal-flow, the emails use your logo and name and are sent by ClearStaq. Click Preview on any email to see it.

On Deal-flow Plus, you can also:

• Edit an email: click Edit, change the Subject and Body, and use Insert variable to add details like the business name. The preview shows your draft; click Save to keep it. Reset to default brings back the standard text.
• Turn an email off: use the switch in the Sent column. Security and signing emails are always sent and show Required.
• Send test: sends the saved version to your own account email (up to 5 per hour).
• Send from your own domain (the Sender card):
  1. Enter your domain in Sending domain and click Add domain.
  2. Create the records shown at your DNS provider. Each has a Copy button for its name and value. The ownership TXT record comes first; the DKIM and Return-Path records appear once ownership is confirmed.
  3. Click Check (once a minute). Each record shows Pending until it's found, then Verified. When all are found, the card says Sending domain verified.
  4. Set the From name and From address (the part before the @), then click Save sender.

Until the domain is verified, emails keep going out from ClearStaq's standard sender. If verification is lost later, they go back to it on their own.

The Reply-to field here is the same as in Overview: where clients' replies go.

Step 7 — Choose who hears about new applications

The Routing tab decides who is told when an application comes in:

• A business with an assigned team member: that member.
• A new business, or one with nobody assigned: everyone under Recipients.

By default the recipients are the owner and all admins. Click Add team member to add someone, or the × on a name to remove them, then click Save. The owner is always on the list.

Recipients get access to new businesses automatically, so they can open the application. Managers and members only hear about a business that already exists if they can open it.

What your clients see

1. They open your portal link and click Apply for funding.
2. They enter their email and get a 6-digit code. A quick security check runs before the code is sent. No account or password needed.
3. They fill in the Business and Owners steps. A second owner can be invited; they get their own email to sign.
4. They upload the documents you ask for in the Documents step.
5. They review and sign in Review & Sign. When every owner has signed, they can download the signed copy.

Their progress is saved as they go. Clients who come back later log in with the same email and land on Your applications, where they can see where each application stands, upload documents your team requests, and send you Messages.

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FAQ

Can I change my portal's standard address? No. ClearStaq creates it when you first turn on the portal. To use your own address, add a custom domain (Deal-flow Plus).

Does turning off the portal stop applications in progress? No. New clients can't start, but clients who already applied can still finish.

Do statements uploaded through the portal use credits? Yes. They use your analysis plan's credits, the same as any other upload. How credits work

Who can change the portal settings? The Owner and Admins.

What's next? Work your applications and add your partners.