Client portal: off-the-shelf software or custom?

I build custom client portals, so you would expect me to recommend custom. In a good share of my conversations I do not. If the package you already use has a portal that answers your question, that is almost always faster and cheaper than having something built. The question is where that line sits.

What is available off the shelf

Roughly, there are two flavours. The first is the portal of the package your administration or CRM already runs on. AFAS, a Dutch business software suite, has OutSite. Salesforce has Experience Cloud. And around Exact, the Dutch accounting package, and other accounting software there are customer environments and add-ons that let customers view invoices and details. What they can do exactly differs per package and per licence, so check with your vendor or implementation partner.

The second flavour is standalone portal tools you rent by the month. You set them up without programming and connect them to your existing systems, as far as those connections exist.

When off the shelf is better

• Your customer mostly wants to see invoices, payment status and contact details. That is exactly what built-in portals are good at.
• Your data already sits neatly in one package, and that package's portal reads from it directly.
• Your process looks like that of many other companies. Standard software is made for the average, and if you are that average, it works in your favour.
• You have not yet tested whether customers will use a portal. Then start with what is already there and see what happens.
• You have someone in-house who knows the package and can set up and maintain the portal.

In those situations custom means spending money on something you already have. I say that too when you come to me.

When it starts to pinch

• Your customer needs to see something that is not in that one package. Planning from one system, documents from another, order status from a third. A built-in portal shows what is in its own package.
• Your process is different. An approval step, your own set of statuses, a way of submitting things that is specific to your trade. Configuration stops where the package has no more settings for it.
• You want it to feel like your company. Standard portals let you change colours and logo, but the structure stays that of the package.
• Per-user licences add up. For portals with many external users, such as dealers or suppliers with several people per company, the monthly bill can grow faster than you expect. Work it out for the number of users a few years from now, not for today.
• You do not want to be locked in. Your portal is tied to the package, and if you ever switch packages, you start your portal over.

Off-the-shelf software is cheap as long as you adapt to the software. Custom becomes interesting the moment that adapting costs you more than building.

The middle ground

It is rarely all or nothing. Your ERP or accounting software stays the source, and a portal of your own sits on top, reading and writing back through an integration. You replace nothing, you only make visible to your customer what is already there. That is also how I build most portals: the screens are yours, the data stays where it is now.

An honest downside of custom: you have something to maintain. Someone has to make sure integrations keep working when a package changes its API, and that the portal stays secure. With off-the-shelf software the vendor does that. Include those maintenance costs in your comparison, not just the build.

How to choose

Write down the three questions your customers ask you most often. Check whether the portal of your current package answers them. If it does, use that. If not, see whether it comes down to the data, which sits in another system, or to the process, which does not fit the package. Either way you then know where custom adds something. Whether the number of questions is large enough to do anything about at all, you work out with when a client portal pays for itself.

If you land on custom, the approach is on client portal development, for business customers with several users on B2B portal development, and the price breakdown on the cost of a client portal. That way you can set it next to the licence costs of a standard package.