Start a client workspace

What you will accomplish

Create a private workspace for one client relationship, record what the client needs to provide, and prepare the correct invitation without exposing other clients or internal records.

Before you start

• Open Client Work at /engagements and confirm the active organization.
• Have the client account name and primary contact email ready.
• Decide who on your team owns the work and what the client must provide before work begins.
• Client contacts use portal access. Employees and trusted operators use People & Access at /team; do not invite a client as an internal teammate.

Create the workspace

1. Select Start client workspace.
2. Choose an existing client account or create a new one.
3. Add the primary contact. Add finance, legal, or reviewer contacts only when those people need a separate responsibility.
4. Enter the work name, purpose, client deliverables, timeline, owner, and client-visible phase.
5. Keep private context in Internal notes. It is not included in the client-facing workspace.
6. Choose whether scope confirmation, confidentiality, payment, intake fields, formula files, and other uploads are required, optional, or skipped for this client.
7. Review the summary and portal destination before creating the workspace.

Prepare client access

The created workspace appears in Client Work and Team → Workspaces at /team/workspaces. Open its Client Portal page to review the private portal address, choose the records the client can see, and confirm the contact before an invitation is sent.

The portal address uses the organization name saved in its web address. Changing a client or project name does not create a different sign-in system.

Check your work

• The client account and primary contact are correct.
• The work owner and dates belong to the intended organization.
• Required intake items match the agreement with the client.
• Internal notes contain no content intended for the client.
• The portal preview lists only the records you intend to share.
• The invitation is addressed to the intended client email.

If something does not look right

• If Start client workspace is unavailable, confirm your Business access and client-management permission.
• If an existing account or program is missing, confirm you are in the correct organization and workspace.
• If a contact email is wrong, correct it before sending or reissuing portal access.
• If payment setup is unavailable, finish the organization’s payment setup before making payment a required client step.
• If delivery fails, use the workspace’s access controls to reissue the same client access. Do not create a second client account to retry delivery.

Next steps

• Share client work and collect decisions
• Understand Business sign-in and client portal access
• Set up team roles and workspace access