Customer portal
Orders, invoices, documents and status. Your client looks it up themselves and your team is no longer interrupted.
Service
Customer portal development
dotNET lab builds custom customer portals for SMEs and organisations in Belgium: one secure place where your clients follow up their own orders, invoices, documents and status, connected to the systems you already work with today.
Fewer phone calls and repeat questions for your team, faster answers for your clients. And because the portal talks directly to your ERP, CRM or accounting software, everything stays current automatically.
The problem
Sound familiar?
The question for a customer portal rarely starts with technology. It starts with a team drowning in repeat questions.
- “Could you send me that invoice again?” For the third time this month.
- “What is the status of my order?” Ten times a day, each time by phone or email.
- Documents leave as attachments. Nobody knows which version is the right one any more.
- Your clients want to look something up in the evening or at the weekend. But everything passes through your office hours.
- Your team retypes data from one system into another. To answer one simple question.
Explained
What is a customer portal?
A customer portal is a secure online environment where your clients view and manage their own data, orders, invoices, documents and file status, at any time of day.
It works simply: your client logs in and sees only what is meant for them. The content comes straight from your systems, so what is in your ERP or accounting software is also correct in the portal.
“Klantportaal” or “klantenportaal”? In Dutch, both spellings are correct and mean the same thing; in Flanders klantenportaal is the most common. We use them interchangeably, just like your clients do.
Technically, a customer portal is a custom web application: software in the browser, nothing to install, always current.
More about custom web applications See our full custom software offering
Portal types
For clients, suppliers, partners or members
The same principle works in every direction: give a group of users secure access to exactly the part of your operation that concerns them.
Supplier portal
Exchange orders, deliveries and documents with your suppliers, without endless email chains.
Partner or dealer portal
Prices, quotes and follow-up for resellers, each with their own access and their own arrangements.
Member portal
Members manage their own data, registrations and documents, from sports clubs to professional federations.
Quote and document portal
Approve quotes, follow up contracts and share documents in one secure place in your house style.
Results
What does a customer portal deliver?
Fewer phone calls and emails
The frequently asked questions disappear from your inbox: your client finds the answer themselves, immediately.
Service outside your office hours
Your clients help themselves, in the evening and at the weekend too, without anyone from your team involved.
Always current information
The portal shows what is in your systems. No more outdated attachments or wrong versions.
A more professional face
One polished environment in your house style, instead of scattered emails and forwarded documents.
Your team focuses on real work
The time that now goes into looking up and forwarding goes back into genuinely helping clients.
Grows without extra hands
Ten or a thousand clients: the portal scales along without your team having to grow with it.
Integrations
Connected to the systems you already work with
The value of a customer portal stands or falls with the integration. A portal your team has to fill separately creates double work instead of less.
That is why we connect the portal directly to your existing systems: your ERP, your CRM and your accounting software. We build on what is already running, with accounting packages such as Exact Online and Odoo, where we have hands-on experience with Odoo integrations among others.
Entered once, correct everywhere: an invoice that sits in your accounting software automatically appears in the portal of the right client.
And secure: every client sees only their own data, with roles and permissions, encrypted connections and hosting you stay in control of.
For example with
ERP and accounting OdooExact Online
CRM TeamleaderPipedrive
Webshop ShopifyWooCommerce
Invoicing and payment Peppol e-invoicingMollie
A sample, not a limit: if your system has an API or an export option, we can integrate with it.
- Invoices and documents are automatically ready for the right client.
- Orders and status come straight from your ERP or webshop.
- Requests from the portal land directly in your systems.
- Notifications to your client on a new invoice, delivery or status change.
The trade-off
Customer portal software or a custom portal?
Sometimes you do not need custom software. The trade-off is usually quickly made:
A custom portal wins when
-
Information from several systems has to come together
Orders from your ERP, invoices from your accounting software, files from your CRM: one portal, one truth.
-
Your processes do not fit the template
Off-the-shelf customer portal software does not know your flow or house style; custom software starts precisely there.
-
Per-user licence costs keep climbing
A custom portal is a one-time investment. The software is yours, without vendor lock-in.
A packaged portal suffices when
Your accounting software or webshop has a built-in customer portal, it covers what your clients ask for, and starting fast weighs more than own processes or house style.
Is that you? Then the bundled portal is the fastest route.
Approach
How a portal project runs
No months-long project before you see anything. We start with the core and show working software quickly.
- 01
An intro call of 30 minutes
You tell us what is going on and which questions your clients keep asking today. No obligation, in plain language.
- 02
A clear answer within two working days
You hear whether a custom portal makes sense in your situation, or whether an existing solution suffices. A figure follows from the analysis.
- 03
Analysis: sharpening the core together
Which client questions do we intercept first, and which systems do we integrate with? Only once that scope is fixed do we put a price on it.
- 04
Building per program goal
Every month we deliver a concrete piece of working software. The core, for example invoices and status, is often there after the first program goals. You adjust based on working software, not on documents.
- 05
Go-live, training and support
We put the portal live, guide your team and remain available for extensions, also after launch.
Costs
What does having a customer portal built cost?
A fixed price list does not exist. What you invest follows from three things:
Starts from
Like all our custom software€9,500
per program goal, delivered every month
A fixed budget per program goal. After each delivery you decide: keep building, pause or stop.
Included per program goal
- Development and program management
- Support during the build
- AI-agent usage during development
- No licence costs
A delivery every month: a concrete piece of working software
* We also charge a one-time program setup of €6,000: that is where we get to know your organisation and pin down the scope of the first release.
What else determines the price:
- The pace that suits your business: how many program goals in a row, and how quickly you want to go live.
- The ambition and size of the project: from viewing invoices to full self-service with requests and approvals.
- The number of systems we integrate with: your ERP, CRM, accounting software or webshop.
We aim for growing along: the portal has to accelerate your business.
The core of a customer portal, for example invoices, documents and status, often fits in the first program goals. You extend only once that core has proven itself.
Count on a one-time investment plus a predictable cost for maintenance, instead of per-user licences that climb with every client you add.
Discuss what this means for your situation
A clear answer within two working days, no obligation.
Client cases
Proven in practice
A customer portal is a custom web application. This is what that craft looks like at our end.
From legacy application to modern web application
How an outdated desktop application became a manageable, modern web application.
Read the caseA 20-year-old custom application rebuilt for an SME
Legacy modernisation without halting daily operations.
Read the caseCustom software for the Flemish government
Custom development, with AI and machine learning, for the Department of Agriculture & Fisheries.
Read the caseOrganisations we build for
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about customer portals
What is a customer portal?
A customer portal is a secure online environment where clients view and manage their own data, orders, invoices, documents and file status. The portal pulls that information straight from your own systems, so it is always current.
Is it “klantportaal” or “klantenportaal” in Dutch?
Both are correct: klantportaal and klantenportaal are variants of the same Dutch word. In Flanders klantenportaal is used most, in the Netherlands rather klantportaal. It makes no difference to your clients, and none to us either.
What does a customer portal cost?
That depends on what your clients need to be able to do and how many systems we integrate with. We work in program goals: every month we deliver a concrete piece of working software, from €9,500 per program goal, with a one-time program setup of €6,000 beforehand. The core of a portal often fits in the first program goals. After an intro call you hear within two working days whether a custom portal makes sense in your situation; the figure follows from the analysis.
How quickly can a customer portal go live?
The core, for example viewing invoices and status, is often there after a few weeks. After that we extend in phases with requests, notifications or extra integrations, at the pace your organisation can handle.
Can you integrate with our ERP or accounting package?
Yes, that is the very core of the work. We connect customer portals to ERP, CRM and accounting packages such as Exact Online and Odoo; we have hands-on experience with Odoo integrations. That way data is entered once and is correct everywhere.
Is the customer portal of our accounting package not enough?
Sometimes it is. Such a bundled portal usually shows only what sits in that one package. If information from several systems has to come together, if you want your own house style and processes, or if per-user licence costs keep climbing, custom wins.
Where can I have a customer portal built?
At a software builder with demonstrable integration experience: the connection to your existing systems determines whether your portal genuinely takes work off your hands. dotNET lab builds custom customer portals from Westerlo, for SMEs and organisations across Belgium. Meetings can be at your office, at ours or online.