Customer Portal Overview

​

What Customers See

After login, customers land on the portal Dashboard, branded for the seller. Use it to see at a glance what is open, what is owed, and what is on its way, and to jump to the page that handles it. Where: Customer Portal > Dashboard Customers arrive from the Dashboard entry in the portal navigation, straight after signing in, or by opening a portal address that does not exist, which redirects here.

​

The Dashboard, Top To Bottom

1. Dashboard with a greeting and the customer’s first name.
2. Four cards, each opening the page behind it:
   • Open Orders: sales orders and invoices the seller still has open. An invoice that was rolled into a consolidated invoice is counted once, on the consolidated invoice. Opens Orders.
   • Unpaid Invoices: how many invoices have a balance, counted the same way the seller counts open receivables, so the customer and the seller see the same figure. Opens Invoices.
   • Recent Shipments: how many of the five most recent orders have shipped. Opens Shipments.
   • Account Balance: the total still owed on unpaid invoices. Opens Payments.
3. Store credit expiring in a number of days: appears when store credit on the account expires within 30 days, and turns red within 7 days. It reads the amount and date, then “Apply it before then or contact your account rep.”
4. Three shortcuts:
   • Place Reorder (“Reorder from a past order”) opens Orders, where the customer finds the past order. There is no one-click reorder: the customer contacts the seller or places the order as usual.
   • View Invoices (“Pay outstanding invoices”) opens Invoices.
   • Track Shipment (“View shipping status”) opens Shipments.
5. Recent Orders: the five most recent sales orders and invoices, newest first, each with its document number, date, item count, total, and status. The number is the same one the Orders page prints for that document. The item count counts the lines the customer ordered and leaves out the parts of a kit that are listed under the kit. Select one to open it, or View all to open Orders. When there are none: No orders yet with “Your orders will appear here”.
6. Upcoming Deliveries (“In transit”): those same five recent orders that are processing or have shipped, with their document number, date, total, and shipping status. Select one to open it. When there are none: No upcoming deliveries with “Shipments in transit will appear here”.
7. Outstanding balance: appears when the account has a balance, reading “You have an outstanding balance of” the amount, with a Make a payment link that opens Payments.

The Dashboard only reads. It does not change orders, invoices, or payments. If the customer’s session has ended, the page cannot load and the portal returns them to sign-in (“Portal authentication required”).

​

Customer Portal Navigation

The portal navigation is organized around customer self-service. Customers can move between operational records without entering the internal Arcus workspace.

• Dashboard: open work, balances, recent orders, deliveries, and quick actions.
• Orders: order history, status, fulfillment state, payment state, totals, and PDFs.
• Quotes: quote list and quote detail, including customer acceptance when the quote is eligible.
• Shipments: package and tracking visibility.
• Returns: customer-safe RMA history, status, return-to address, tracking, and refund summary.
• Invoices: invoice balances, invoice PDFs, and paying an open invoice.
• Payments: payment history, making a payment, and managing saved cards and bank accounts (add, set a default, remove). An older Payment Methods link opens this page.
• Addresses: customer-managed billing and shipping addresses.
• Documents: customer-safe PDFs and uploaded documents that belong to that account.
• Profile: account identity and contact details exposed to the customer, plus Manage email preferences.

​

How Customers Log In

Customers use the portal login flow, not staff login. The login page asks for the customer email and account number, then sends a verification code or portal link. On success, the browser stores a portal session token and the portal loads only that customer’s account data.

​

Staff Setup Checklist

1. Open Settings, then Sales Channels and Customer Portal.
2. Confirm the customer portal is enabled for the entity.
3. Review portal branding, support contact details, payment options, tracking visibility, address management, and token expiration.
4. Open the customer account and confirm portal access is enabled for that account.
5. Confirm the customer’s email and account number are correct before they request a code.
6. Send a public order, invoice, quote, payment, or tracking link when the customer needs one-off access without full portal login.

​

What Customers Cannot See

Portal pages are account-scoped. Customers should not see internal costs, margins, GL entries, internal notes, staff-only documents, other accounts, other entities, or staff user data. If a customer reports seeing the wrong account, treat it as a security issue and stop until the account, token, and entity scope are verified.

​

Common Blocks

• Customer cannot log in: confirm portal is enabled, the account has portal access, the email is correct, and the account number matches.
• Verification code never arrives: review email delivery, spam filtering, and the account email on file.
• Order or invoice is missing: confirm the record belongs to the same customer account and entity.
• Payment is unavailable: review payment settings, allowed portal payment methods, invoice balance, and Stripe connector health.
• Customer cannot manage a card: customers add, set a default, and remove cards and bank accounts themselves on Payments. If adding fails, confirm Stripe is connected for the entity.
• Customer asks for a return: create or review the RMA from the internal Returns workflow, then have the customer use portal Returns only to track authorized RMA status.

​

Related Articles