Party portal

Sides

A party with rights in the work: buyer, client, borrower, insured, claimant, principal

Unit of work

The party's projection of a work item or standing account

Examples

• Services delivery portals
• services-as-software, buyer side

The five tests

1. who signs in
2. which record dominates
3. who acts next
4. how money moves
5. who may settle what

Carried only by it, from What every App needs

Acceptance under an Outcome Contract; the party relation set and its legal narrowing

Screens its Interfaces name, by reader

Every party

Sign-in by one-time link · home · work list · work detail with a stage tracker, the current-stage sentence, request items, the Thread and Files · history · people · data and exit

Buyer

Intake form · quote with "Done means" · engagement signing · payment · deliverable viewer · accept, revise, dispute

Seller of record

Pipeline of its items by state and ball, settlements per item

Standing account

Statements, autopay, payoff quote, hardship intake

Protected or adverse party

Status letters, file access within its rights, complaints

Principal

Reserved decisions waiting on it, with their clock · the audit trail of acts under its authority

Party's agent and systems

none

Build today: the Site pages around it

• contact Template
• cta-form
• Ledgerhouse

9actors6workflows7records

A party portal is the App where a party with rights in a Business's work signs in to see its own projection of that work. It acts where the ball is its own: at intake, at a question, at acceptance, at a payment or cure window, at a reserved decision.

The founding case is the Customer who bought an outcome: a law firm's client, a bookkeeping practice's customer, an agent-run services firm's buyer. The provider directs the work; the Customer holds the right to accept it.

Other parties sign in with rights but buy no single outcome: a borrower on a standing facility, an insured or an adverse claimant, a carrier that delegated authority, a candidate or an employee. The party's relation is an axis of one type. startupbuilder.dev's word for the signed-in part of a Site is Portal:

A Portal is the signed-in part of a Site where each Customer orders, tracks delivery, accepts work, and pays, seeing only their own records.

"Party portal" is a working name that replaces "service portal". The study describes the work; how an App is defined is open, see What every App needs.

• Customer or partyThe firm, household or person with the relationWorkThe unit of visibility; owns its work, Files and Invoices
• RequesterA Contact at the partyWorkAnswers intake Questions and accepts, unless the Agreement names someone else
• SignerA Contact with authority to bind the firmWorkSigns engagement letters, returns, proposals
• Payer, viewer, party adminContactsWorkPays; reads only; manages the party's people and Mandates
• ProxyFor a person: parent, guardian, trustee, attorney-in-factWorkActs within a scoped, time-bounded grant, often under a representation no Mandate expresses
• Client of recordLegal work, when someone else paysWorkThe only party who consents or directs
• Invited third partyAuditor, lender, co-counselWorkSees one shared item by expiring link
• Party's agentUnder a MandateWorkOrders, answers, uploads; accepts only when the Mandate grants it
• Provider staff and agentsThe BusinessWorkSeen through labels: a named lead, a licensed practitioner named when a reserved act is done, an assistant labelled as AI

1. 01
   Workflow 1: OnboardingCustomer or party

   1. 1.1A party arrives from checkout, a quote, an agent's order, an invitation, or a relation it never chose, such as a claimant.
   2. 1.2Identity is by one-time link, with conflicts and eligibility checks where regulated.
2. 02
   Workflow 2: One work item

   1. 2.1Intake asks one Question for a missing input.
   2. 2.2A mid-run Question moves the ball and pauses the provider's clock.
   3. 2.3Delivery seals the evidence bundle and opens the window: accept earns the fee, revise returns to working, dispute holds it, and silence follows the contract.
3. 03
   Workflow 3: A seller of record

   1. 3.1One seller watches many concurrent Deals, each with its settlement line.
4. 04
   Workflow 4: A standing account

   1. 4.1The ball returns to the borrower at each statement, payment and cure window; the facility never terminates, and each application on it does.
5. 05
   Workflow 5: One claim, four parties

   1. 5.1The insured, the claimant, the carrier and the Business each read their own projection of one claim.
   2. 5.2The carrier's reserved decision is a typed wait with a clock.
6. 06
   Workflow 6: Lateness and disputesCustomer or party

   1. 6.1At 80 percent of the deadline the party is told before the miss.
   2. 6.2A Dispute is answered with frozen evidence before a deadline; a missed deadline decides for the party.

Work item10 states

1. intake ("A few details needed")
2. working (the step's client label)
3. ball with the party ("One thing needed from you")
4. delivered ("Ready for your review")
5. accepted
6. disputed ("Under review")
7. refunded
8. canceled
9. declined
10. closed

Standing account6 states

1. current
2. payment due
3. past due
4. in a cure window
5. in hardship review
6. paid off

Reserved decision3 states

1. pending on the principal with its clock
2. decided
3. timed out by its declared default

Question7 states

1. open
2. reminded
3. answered
4. closed
5. overdue
6. withdrawn
7. abandoned at the cap

Deliverable3 states

1. delivered as version n
2. accepted or revision requested
3. superseded

Dispute5 states

1. open with the amount held
2. answered with frozen evidence before a deadline
3. decided
4. one appeal
5. closed

Delegation from the party4 states

1. granted with scope
2. limits and reserved decisions
3. visible
4. revoked

The relation axisCopy Anchor Link

Released packs to holders and governors belong to the disclosure room. A party's own record as a performer belongs to the Worklist.

ActorsCopy Anchor Link

InterfacesCopy Anchor Link

"Email is the interface. The portal is the archive." The operator's side of the same records lives in the delivery and dispatch console and the Worklist: view-as, client labels, reminder ladders, and the asks the portal raises.

Records and actionsCopy Anchor Link

The central record is the party's projection of a work item (a matter, a claim, a close) or of a standing account. It stays apart from the commercial Order. The Order records what was bought and paid; the work record carries delivery.

Verbs:

• Buying: accept an Offer or Quote, sign, pay or authorize, submit intake.
• During the work: answer a Question, upload, send a Message, ask for a person, decide a reserved decision.
• At delivery: accept, revise, dispute, request a refund, reorder, cancel.
• Standing account: pay, set autopay, request a payoff, apply for hardship.
• Party admin: invite, grant Mandates and proxies, delegate to the Business, revoke.
• Business: ask, remind, deliver (seals the evidence bundle and opens the acceptance window), refund, answer a Dispute, view as. A licensed Worker attests.

TermsCopy Anchor Link

Terms5 quoted from startupbuilder.dev · 1 it lacks · 0 colliding

Term	In startupbuilder.dev	Definition, quoted from startupbuilder.dev or the gap
Party	Party	"A Party is a person or legal entity that can be a side of an Agreement or an Order, or hold rights." The relation axis rests on it.
Question	Question	"A Question is what a pending Action asks a Party, a Role, or a Worker before it resumes, kept on the Action with its answer."
Order	Order	"An Order is a Customer's commitment to buy one or more Offers once, moving from placed to paid, fulfilled, and closed." It has no accepted state.
Outcome Contract	Outcome Contract	"An Outcome Contract is the terms on an Offer that warrant a Service's result: done, acceptance, assurance, remedy, and earnings."
Access Level	Access Level	"An Access Level is a named preset of Permissions a Worker holds in a namespace, such as owner or viewer; it is never a Role." A party's own people are not Workers, so they have no access unit.
Portal, party portal	open	Portal, developer dashboard and Console are an open vocabulary question.
Unit of delivered work, evidence bundle, proxy grant	lack, collide	Matter, close and work item are all in use; startupbuilder.dev's Evidence is a validation record.
Representation	lacks	A guardian, trustee or attorney-in-fact holds a basis no Mandate expresses.

WorkflowsCopy Anchor Link

1. Onboarding. A party arrives from checkout, a quote, an agent's order, an invitation, or a relation it never chose, such as a claimant. Identity is by one-time link, with conflicts and eligibility checks where regulated.
2. One work item. Intake asks one Question for a missing input. A mid-run Question moves the ball and pauses the provider's clock. Delivery seals the evidence bundle and opens the window: accept earns the fee, revise returns to working, dispute holds it, and silence follows the contract.
3. A seller of record. One seller watches many concurrent Deals, each with its settlement line.
4. A standing account. The ball returns to the borrower at each statement, payment and cure window; the facility never terminates, and each application on it does.
5. One claim, four parties. The insured, the claimant, the carrier and the Business each read their own projection of one claim. The carrier's reserved decision is a typed wait with a clock.
6. Lateness and disputes. At 80 percent of the deadline the party is told before the miss. A Dispute is answered with frozen evidence before a deadline; a missed deadline decides for the party.

Money by relation: up front, on acceptance, or recurring for a buyer; statements and payoffs for a standing account; none for a protected or adverse party.

BoundariesCopy Anchor Link

• Visibility is party-scoped by default, then narrower by matter, item or relation. One enforcement point serves the portal and the API.
• The portal never shows internal steps, error text, prompts, cost, margins, performer pay, ranking, or another party's records.
• A message to a protected or adverse party can be a reserved act, gated when sent: agent drafts go out only after a licensed human adopts them.
• A delegation to the Business is visible and revocable by the party, and every act shows whose authority it runs under. It is never impersonation.
• A party may declare uniform visibility: one shared view for every member, with depth varying per person, never content.
• A proxy grant has a scope, an expiry and narrowing by law, such as records a minor consents to alone.
• In legal work, only the Client consents or directs.

AgentsCopy Anchor Link

Hard partsCopy Anchor Link

1. The projection. Every internal step needs a client label, a sentence or nothing, and the labels survive a step inserted mid-run.
2. Delivered is not accepted. Payment authorizations expire before long work is accepted, so a ledger hold outlasts them. Silence is a contract term.
3. Firms, not users. Several Contacts with different authority, a payer who is not the requester, secrecy per matter inside one firm.
4. One record, several parties at odds. A claim read by its insured, its claimant and its carrier needs three projections that never leak into each other.
5. Terminal work over perpetual subjects. A facility or policy never ends; each application or claim on it does, and re-engagement mints a successor.
6. Statutory clocks by relation. An adverse-action notice, a complaint window or a cure period sits under every overlay and is never configurable.
7. Email at scale. Reply parsing, a cap of about five reminders, sending domains per Business.
8. Recurring Services. Each cycle is its own work item with rate terms and credits on misses.

Day oneCopy Anchor Link

An idea-stage founder sells one Service Offer and is the only human, with one assistant agent. Day one holds:

• sign-in by one-time link, and party-scoped data with one Contact;
• one work page: a tracker of three to five labels, one request item, Files, and the Thread with "ask for a person" into the founder's Worklist;
• accept, revise and refund requests going to the founder;
• invoices from Stripe, and email for everything;
• view-as for the founder, visible to the party;
• the API and a webhook with the portal's visibility.

The Startup layer decides when: before Live, a Service Startup is often a concierge, delivering by email with one order page.

Related studiesCopy Anchor Link

Prototypes this study needsCopy Anchor Link

1. 01

   Can one lifecycle notation hold concurrent machines, the ball and derived state?

   Encode a storefront Order, a booking with its payment, a delivery work item, a Task over its Action and a facility with its applications.

   names: work item
2. 02

   How does each type show a data request truthfully?

   One data-request record rendered in Admin and a portal, using only the recorded route for erasure.

   names: portal