Client management

Video Transcript

Welcome to PlanMan. In this tutorial I will be showing you how to manage your clients.

To add a client manually, either click the add client shortcut, or go to clients, active clients, then click the plus button.

The only required fields are first and last name, but, if you want to be able to email quotes and invoices to them, you will need to add their email address as well.

If you want the client to be able to login to the client portal, so they can view their quotes, projects,  and project documents, you must also give them a username.

Usernames can be anything, but it is a good idea to use their email address, because they must be globally unique in the system.

Once you have completed all the relevant fields, click the “Add Client” button at the bottom.

The client details page is split into various tabs.

• Client details
• Quotes
• Projects
• Files
• Invoices
• Communications

If you entered a username when creating the client, click the send button to have the system email them their login details. This will give them access to the client portal, where they can view and accept your quotes, as well as see all information regarding their projects.

If you didn’t enter a username, enter one here, then click the “Update Client” button and the send icon will become active.

When you send the client their login details, the system will first check if you have entered anything in the “Client Intro Email” field on your company details page. If you have, it will use that as the body of the email.

If not, it will use the default email informing the client of their login details.

Before we create a quote, I want to show you project templates first. A project template allows you to create a template that contains all the stages of a project. Then, when you are creating a quote for a client, you can select the template, and all the stages are copied to the quote automatically.

This will save you lots of time.

Go to setup, project templates, and click the plus button. Enter a title and description, then click the “Add Template” button. Now, click the plus button in the “Stages” section.

Enter a stage number, title and description. You can enter the hours and price if you like, however, if you leave them blank, you can always edit them after you have created a quote from the template. This is useful if your project stages aren’t always the same price, depending on the project complexity, for example.

Click the “Add Stage” button, then click the plus button to add another stage. Do this for all the stages you want to add to this project template.

Ok, now let’s go back to our client, and click on their name or company name if you entered one.

Click the quotes tab, then the plus button. Enter all the relevant details, and remember to select our new project template. Now click the “Add Quote” button.

You will now see the quote, containing all the details you entered, and the stages copied from the project template we created earlier.

When you first create a quote, its status is set to “Draft”. This is so that you can make changes to it without the client being able to see it in their client portal.

To edit a stage, click the stage number. Edit the relevant fields then click the “Update Stage” button.

Once you are ready, to email it to the client, click the send to client button at the top. Make any necessary amendments to the body of the email. If you have been working on the quote for some time, you can have the system reset the quote date to today, and update the quote expiry date by checking this box.

Click the “Send Quote” button to send it to the client.

The client will be emailed the quote, along with a link to the partner portal so they can login and accept it.

If you need to download a PDF version of the quote, click on the PDF button at the top. If you would like to copy this quote and issue a new one from it, click the copy quote button, then select the client the new quote will be for, then click “Copy Quote”.

If you have not given your client a username to login to the client portal, you can accept the quote on behalf of the client.

Simply enter a date in the “Accepted Date” field and update the quote.

The quote will then be marked as accepted, and a project will be created from it containing all the relevant information and project stages.

The Client Portal

When your client logs in, they will see all of their enquiries, quotes, projects, invoices and communications.

Their dashboard lists links to their unpaid invoices, outstanding quotes that have not been accepted yet, and their projects.

When they click on a quote that has not been accepted yet, there is a section at the top that will allow them to accept the quote at the click of a button.

When they do this, the quote will be updated to “Accepted” status, and a new project will be created from it, and will appear in the list of projects, with a “Not Started” status.

The owner of the project will receive a notification that the client has accepted the quote, unless they have switched off notifications on their account details page.

That’s it for this tutorial, stay tuned for more in the future, and don’t forget to like and subscribe so you are notified when we upload more videos. See you next time.

For more information on our project management system, contact us. Or, simply register for a free 30 day trial.