What your customer sees: the portal walkthrough

When you send a quote from Karven, the customer doesn't get a PDF attachment buried in their inbox. They get a short SMS or email with a link to a portal page built around their job. The portal is what makes the experience feel less like 1995 and more like every other modern transaction they do.

This article walks through every screen the customer sees, in order.

The quote-received message

Within seconds of you hitting Send, the customer gets:

• An email with the quote subject line, a short summary, and a big View quote button.
• (Optionally) An SMS: "G'day Sarah, your quote from [Your business] is ready: [short link]"

Both contain the same shortlink. Tapping it lands them on the portal.

The portal landing screen

Header: your logo and business name. They know who this is from.

Hero: the headline price and one-line job summary. "Garage door replacement at 12 Smith St, $4,400 inc GST".

Below the hero, four buttons:

• See the breakdown: full itemisation
• Accept: kicks off the e-signature flow
• Pay deposit: if you've configured a deposit, this is a card-payment link via Stripe
• Ask a question: opens an in-portal message thread back to you

No login required. The shortlink itself acts as a token. Karven re-issues a new shortlink if a customer asks ("can you re-send the link?").

The breakdown screen

Materials grouped sensibly. Labour summed. Markup baked in (unless you've turned on full transparency). GST shown separately. The footer carries your terms link and your insurance stamp.

If you've sent a multi-quote with variants, the breakdown screen is a comparison table, each variant in a column, the customer hits Choose this under the column they want.

The accept flow

When they hit Accept:

1. A one-page summary appears: "I'm accepting this quote for $X. I understand it's subject to the terms attached."
2. A signature panel, they sign with their finger on mobile, mouse on desktop.
3. A "tick to confirm" for the deposit, if you've required one.
4. Submit.

Karven captures the signature, the IP address, the user agent, and the timestamp. The accepted quote becomes the binding agreement. You get a push notification.

If you've configured a deposit, the next screen is the Stripe card form. Otherwise they're done, you'll bill the deposit separately or there isn't one.

The deposit-paid receipt

Immediately after a successful card payment:

• The customer sees a receipt screen with the amount, the last four of their card, and a button to download the receipt PDF.
• An email goes out with the same receipt attached.
• Your dashboard updates, the quote shows as "Accepted + deposit received".

The job-tracking screen

Once you confirm a start date inside Karven, the customer's portal flips from "quote view" to "job tracking". They see:

• Scheduled start date and (estimated) duration.
• A timeline: "Site visit booked → Materials ordered → Work commenced → Inspection passed → Complete".
• Any photos you upload as the job progresses.
• The messaging thread, ongoing.

Updates push to them automatically as you move the job through Karven's stages. No phone calls.

The variations flow

If you need to change the price mid-job, a wall came out worse than expected, the customer wants a colour upgrade, you raise a variation in Karven. The customer gets a notification, opens the portal, sees the variation as a small change-quote ("Add $480 inc GST for replace rotted noggins"). They hit Approve or Reject or Ask a question.

You don't proceed with a variation until they approve it. This is what saves trades from "you said it'd be five grand, why is the bill seven" arguments at completion.

The final invoice

When you mark the job complete, Karven generates the final invoice. The customer gets a notification with a Pay now link (Stripe). If the deposit was 25%, the final invoice is 75%. If they wanted to pay by bank transfer, they can, Karven shows your bank details and a clear "include reference XYZ" line.

Once paid, the invoice flips to Paid. The portal shows a receipt. You get a notification.

The review nudge

Two days after job completion, Karven sends the customer a short message: "How'd we go?". If they respond positively, the next message asks them to leave a Google review with a one-tap link to your business profile. See Google review push for the full mechanics.

You can turn this off per customer (the snobby ones) or per quote (the ones where you know the job was a struggle).

What the customer doesn't see

A short list, because it's reassuring:

• They never see your markup percentage.
• They never see the breakdown of what you paid suppliers.
• They never see other customers, other quotes, your dashboard.
• They never see who else has viewed the quote (you might forward it to your office partner, they won't know).

A note on accessibility

The portal works on a 4-year-old Android with poor signal. The PDFs are tagged for screen readers. The colour palette meets WCAG AA contrast. If a customer ever tells you the portal didn't work for them, let us know, that's a bug to us, not a feature.