Quick Start
Send your first client onboarding in under 10 minutes.
Create your account
Sign up at app.portico.com. You'll get a 14-day Pro trial with no credit card required. When it ends, your account moves to the Free plan automatically — nothing to cancel.
During signup you'll set your business name, country, and timezone. These show up on client-facing forms and can be changed later in Settings.
Build a template
Templates are reusable onboarding forms. One template can power hundreds of onboardings.
- Go to Templates and click New Template.
- You'll see a three-panel editor: steps on the left, fields in the center, and configuration on the right.
- Your template starts with one step. Rename it to something your client will understand (e.g. "Business Details").
- Click Add Field and choose a field type. Start simple — a short text field for "Company Name" and an email field for "Primary Contact Email" are enough to test the flow.
- Mark fields as Required if you need them before the onboarding can be completed.
- Add more steps with the + button in the left panel. Each step becomes a separate page in the client's form.
Changes save automatically. You'll see a "Saved" indicator in the header.
You can skip building from scratch — go to Templates and import one of the pre-built industry templates (Agency, Accounting, Legal, etc.), then customize it.
Send your first onboarding
- Go to Onboardings and click New Onboarding.
- Select the template you just built.
- Enter your client's name and email. You can also pick an existing client from your client list.
- Set a due date (optional but recommended — it enables automatic reminders).
- Click Send. Portico validates the template, creates a unique link, and emails it to your client.
Your client receives a branded email with a button that opens their onboarding form. No account creation, no password — they click and start filling in.
Track progress
Back in Onboardings, your sent onboarding moves from "Sent" to "In Progress" once the client opens it. You can see:
- Progress percentage — how many required fields are filled.
- Last activity — when the client last saved a response.
- Status badges — draft, sent, in progress, completed, or overdue.
Click into any onboarding to see field-by-field responses, leave comments on specific fields, or send a message to the client.
Review and approve
When the client submits, you review their responses in the Responses tab:
- Approve fields that look good.
- Reject fields that need changes — add a note explaining what's wrong. The client gets notified and can resubmit just the rejected fields.
- Once everything is approved, mark the onboarding as Completed.
What's next
- How It Works — understand the full onboarding lifecycle
- Template Builder — all 18 field types and conditional logic
- Settings & Integrations — connect Stripe, Twilio, and Zapier