Questions suppliers actually ask.
Straight answers about how the portal works, what your clients see, and how an order turns into stock, production and an invoice.
What it is
What is Smarter Portals?
Smarter Portals is uniform ordering and management software for uniform suppliers. It gives each of your clients their own branded ordering portal, and gives you one system to run stock, production, returns and Xero invoicing across every client.
Who is Smarter Portals for?
It is built for suppliers who outfit other organisations, such as schools, health providers, construction and logistics firms, and venues. Each of those organisations is set up as a client with its own portal, and their staff (or parents, for a school) order through it.
What do you mean by "the front" and "the back"?
The front is the client's portal: their logo, their colours, their own sign-in, showing staff only the products their role allows, in their size, within their allowance. The back is your business system as the supplier: one login to run every client's catalogue, stock, orders, production, returns, enquiries, reporting and Xero invoicing.
Does each client get their own branding?
Yes. Every client company gets its own portal with its own logo, its own colours and its own sign-in, so their staff see a portal that looks like it belongs to their organisation.
Does the portal work on a phone?
Yes. Staff can check their allowance, reorder, browse the catalogue by category and track their orders from a phone, not only a desktop browser.
Your clients and their staff
How do staff sign in?
Staff can sign in from a link emailed to them, so there is no password to remember. A company can also have a public store link that people order from without an account at all.
Can people order without creating an account?
Yes, through a public portal link. You choose which role’s catalogue that link shows, and you can add a landing message such as "Orders close Friday 5pm for the start of term."
How do allowances and top-ups work?
Each role or person gets an allowance over a period, such as every 12 months, with an initial issue and a scheduled top-up, so a new starter can get a bigger first issue than the annual top-up. Allowances can carry over, can be set in dollars or item counts, and every change is kept in a readable history. You can also choose whether ordering over the allowance, or over available stock, is blocked or allowed, and a branch can be set to require manager approval before an order goes through.
How does sizing work?
Products use size charts that are built once and reused across the catalogue, and staff order from a size table on each product. Stock is tracked by size, and you choose whether staff can order over the stock available.
How do returns and exchanges work?
A staff member raises a return or exchange from their own order in the portal. It lands in your Returns inbox and moves through its own stages, and the customer gets a returns slip listing what to put in the parcel.
Orders and production
Where does an order go once it is placed?
It lands on your production board, where you track it through to shipped and delivered. A client whose orders are plain stock picks can run a simpler three-stage board instead of the full pipeline.
What are the stages on the production board?
The full board runs Received, Stock check, Awaiting stock, In embroidery, Packed, Shipped and Delivered, with notifications as an order moves through it. A simpler three-stage board (Received, Shipped, Delivered) is available for clients who only order plain stock.
Can we print packing slips?
Yes. You can print a packing slip for every order from a company over a period you choose, and each item in a pack is itemised on the slip even though it was ordered as one kit.
How does order tracking work?
When you mark an order shipped, you add the carrier, the tracking number and the tracking link, and the staff member sees that tracking on their own order in the portal.
How do you handle stock and low-stock alerts?
Stock is tracked by size, with on-hand quantities, and you choose whether ordering over available stock is allowed or blocked. You can set a low-stock threshold per product and get alerted when it is reached.
What about embroidery and other decoration?
You can add decoration options to a product, such as "right chest text or logo," with an extra cost per item. Orders needing decoration move through an In embroidery stage on the production board, and you can report on embroidery throughput.
Can clients pay on account or by card?
Both. A client can order on account, where you invoice the company, with a Xero invoice raised automatically if Xero is connected, or pay by card, debit or bank transfer through Stripe at checkout.
Are Xero invoices created automatically?
Yes, if you have Xero connected. Orders become invoices automatically on fulfilment, invoices, payments and contacts sync, and products can sync to Xero as items. A branch can also be billed against its own Xero contact instead of the company's.
Do you support Stripe?
Yes. Stripe handles card, debit and bank transfer payments at checkout, and those payments reconcile with Xero.
What is the purchase order, cost centre or job number field?
It is a checkout field you can rename per client, for example to "Cost centre," "Job number" or "PO." You choose whether it, along with phone and comments, is hidden, optional or required for that client.
Can an order come in as a quote first?
Yes. At checkout, a customer can request a quote instead of placing the order outright, and you convert it to an order once it is approved, which suits clients that buy on approval.
Setting up
See the front in full on the client portals page, and the back on the back office page.
How is a new client set up?
You create the client's company, branches, roles and catalogue, and set up its branding and sign-in. If a new client resembles one you already run, you can duplicate that client's setup instead of starting from scratch.
Can we import products and staff by CSV?
Yes. Companies, branches, roles, contacts (including a whole payroll of staff) and products can all be imported by CSV.
Can we duplicate an existing client's setup for a new one?
Yes. If a new client's needs resemble a client you already run, you can duplicate that setup rather than building it from nothing.
What is AI Studio?
AI Studio generates product images from a written description, or cleans up and restyles an existing photo, so your catalogue looks consistent without a photo shoot for every item.
What other systems can connect?
Xero and Stripe connect directly, along with email, webhooks and API keys if you want to build your own integrations. Need something else connected? Talk to us about a custom integration, available as a managed add-on.
How does pricing work?
Pricing depends on the setup and is quoted after a conversation, rather than published as a number.
How do we see a demo?
Get in touch and tell us who you supply and how orders reach you today. We will walk you through a portal set up the way your clients order.
See it set up the way your clients order.
Tell us who you supply and how orders reach you today. We will walk you through a portal set up the way your clients order.