When you create a portal, you control who has access to it, and whether they get full access to the portal, or restricted access to specific documents (contributors):
Full access
Users can see all documents and associated tasks available in the portal.
Contributors
Users with restricted access:
to certain document types on a permanent basis. For example, add your bookkeeper as a contributor to a portal, only giving them access to the documents they need to work on.
to specific documents for a fixed period. For example, on occasion a bank may require access to specific documents in the portal for a given period.
in general, depending on their role in your practice.
Examples
The following examples will give you some ideas on how you can set up portals for different types of clients.
Jane Clear is an individual for whom you prepare an annual tax return and provide some financial planning advice. In MYOB Practice Online, you would create a portal with Jane as the sole user.
Ben and Cecila Abbot, a married couple, operate a business as a partnership. Each are familiar with the financial situation of the partnership and each other's financial details. As their accountant, you would set up a client portal for their partnership, Abbot Portal, with both Ben and Cecila as portal users.
The Darwell Family Group consists of 4 members - Lisa (Mum), Paul (Dad) and 2 children, Naomi and Sam. All of the family group are part of the Darwell Company. When you're thinking about setting up portals for the Darwell Family, you'd set up one client portal with all the members of the family group for the company and name the portal, Darwell Company. And you'd set up a separate portal for Mum and Dad for their individual tax and accounting needs and possibly one each for the siblings so that all their individual tax and accounting requirements are kept separate from the rest of the family group. Sam generates an independent income and has other assets apart from the company, which would require creating a separate portal. Naomi is still a minor and has no independent income that would necessitate a separate portal at this stage. Therefore, for the Darwell Family Group, 3 separate client portals would be created.
Jane is refinancing her business loan and her bank has requested that she provide them with a number of documents in order to secure the loan. As her accountant, you're able to add the bank as a contributor to Jane's portal so that they can access the documents that they need. The bank won't have access to the whole portal, only to the documents that you share with them. This will save you time and resources in photocopying the documents and mailing them to the bank; and the bank can access the documents immediately speeding up the loan process.