A small Bangkok accounting firm goes digital, Part 5: the PWA client portal — tiers, profile and on-demand upgrades
With the tiers defined, put them into a PWA portal clients can open any time: clients see their own service tier, their client profile and their monthly submission status, and when documents suddenly pile up they can upgrade their service level for that month. An upgrade needs the firm's confirmation and reconciliation — it does not take effect just by pressing a button. Pricing moves from private quotes to something clients can see.
Last chapter, service tiers were defined from real data. This chapter puts them into an entry clients can open any time, so clients can see for themselves and use them.
Why a PWA, not another table
Tiers are defined — but where do they live? The firm thought about PDFs, about LINE; both need manual upkeep and go stale fast. Choosing a PWA (progressive web app) comes down to practical reasons:
- clients do not install anything, it opens in the browser;
- on a phone it behaves like an app, available any time;
- when the firm updates tiers and status, the next open shows the latest version.
It does not chase complex features; it solves one thing: letting clients always know what they bought and how far along their submission is.
What clients see in the PWA
- Service tier: which tier they are on, how much monthly volume it includes, the price, and how overage is charged;
- Client profile: the firm’s record of this company’s basics and contacts — visible to the client, and correctable if something is wrong;
- Monthly submission status: how many items this month arrived, how many are missing, and what exactly — so clients know without calling.
Documents suddenly pile up: upgrade for that month
This is the most interesting scene of the chapter: one month, a client’s documents suddenly multiply.
In the past, when volume jumped, the firm had to call and explain “your volume exceeded the tier this month, so there is an extra charge” — it felt abrupt, and clients suspected arbitrary billing. With the PWA, clients see their current tier and this month’s usage in the portal; when usage passes the limit, they can upgrade their service level for that month — the included volume grows and the fee adjusts to the new tier.
One piece of industry common sense and boundary worth stating: an upgrade does not take effect just by pressing a button. The upgrade request is confirmed by the firm, the usage checked, the reconciliation done; the fee adjusts only after confirmation. This protects both sides — clients are not mistakenly upgraded, and the firm is not under- or over-charged. The PWA handles “clients can see it and initiate it”; the accounting confirmation always stays with the firm.
What to watch in this step
- Do clients actually use the PWA? Open rates, look-ups — or is everything still asked in private chat?
- Does on-demand upgrading really cut communication cost? Do clients upgrade on their own, instead of a round of calls explaining the overflow?
- Is the client profile accurate? Are contacts and addresses maintained, and do clients flag corrections?
Only when the data shows the portal is being used should the firm think about bringing AI into the internal workflow to save hours.
Boundaries matter: the PWA client portal (tier display, client profile, on-demand upgrades) is an independent system project, not part of the standard website package. Upgrade confirmation, fee reconciliation and payment still happen outside the PWA; it does not process payments automatically.