Audience: owners, managers, accountants Difficulty: new user
What this covers
The two ways Solabooks lets you share an invoice, quote, or related document with a customer: the simple secure link and the fuller customer portal account. When to use which, what the customer sees, and how to handle expired links.
The two options at a glance
| Secure link | Customer portal account | |
|---|---|---|
| Customer effort | Click an emailed link | Sign in with email + password |
| Lifetime | 24 hours | Persistent until disabled |
| Shows | One document | Dashboard with all their docs |
| You control expiry? | No, fixed 24 h | Yes, by enabling/disabling the account |
| Best for | One-off send to a new customer | Ongoing relationship, multiple invoices |
You can use both for the same customer. A secure link with a "Set up an account" prompt is a common bridge.
Option A — Send a secure link
Step 1 — Open the document
- Open the invoice (or quote / sales order / receipt) you want to send.
Step 2 — Click Send
- Click Send to Customer (top right of the document).
- A dialog confirms the customer's email and lets you edit the message. Click Send.
What happens behind the scenes
- The system generates a one-time secure URL of the form
https://solavel.com/finance/i/<token>. - The token's hash is stored. The raw token only goes into the email.
- The link expires 24 hours from creation, regardless of any custom expiry input. This is by design and cannot be extended.
- The customer's email arrives within seconds.
What the customer sees
- Click → page renders the document with your branding.
- Download PDF.
- For quotes: Accept / Decline buttons.
- Optional: Set up an account button (for the customer-portal account flow).
If the link expires
The customer can click Request access on the expired page. This sends a fresh 24-hour link to their email.
You can also click Send again from the document on your side — same effect.
For a deeper dive see customer-portal/secure-document-links.
Option B — Give the customer a portal account
This is best for repeat customers who get many invoices over time.
Step 1 — Enable portal access on the customer
- Go to Sales > Customers > [Customer].
- Open the Portal Access tab.
- Click Enable Portal Access.
- Confirm the email Solavel will use for the setup link.
Step 2 — Customer completes setup
- The customer gets an email with a 60-minute setup link.
- They click, choose a password, and are signed in.
- From then on they sign in at
https://solavel.com/finance/customer-portal/login.
What the customer sees
- Dashboard with open balance and recent activity.
- Invoices, Payments, Quotes, Orders — full lists scoped to their account.
- Settings — change password.
Disabling the account
- Open Customers > [Customer] > Portal Access.
- Click Disable. Existing sessions invalidate on next request.
For details see customer-portal/overview.
Decision matrix
| Situation | Recommended |
|---|---|
| One-time invoice to a customer you'll never bill again | Secure link |
| Customer keeps losing your emails | Portal account |
| Customer asked to be able to download their PDFs whenever | Portal account |
| You're sending a quote that will be approved or declined | Secure link (specifically the public quote link /q/{token}) |
| You need to show a project view, not a single document | Project share |
| You need a customer to approve time | Customer time approval |
Common questions
"Can I extend the 24-hour expiry?" No. Even if a custom expiry is requested via the API, the system overrides it to 24 hours. Use a portal account for longer-lived access.
"My customer says they can't open the link." Check three things:
- Is the link past 24 hours? Click Send again on the document.
- Did the document get re-assigned to a different customer? That invalidates outstanding links — issue a fresh one.
- Did you revoke links from this customer? Check Customers > [Customer] > Portal Access.
"Can I see if the customer opened the link?" Yes — open the document, scroll to Activity. Each portal access is recorded with timestamp and IP.
"Can the customer reply through the portal?" No. The portal is read-only for the customer. Comments and replies happen by email outside Solavel.