---
title: A client can't log in to the portal
slug: client-cant-log-in-to-the-portal
category: Troubleshooting
url: https://alaga.io/help/article/client-cant-log-in-to-the-portal
audiences: business_owner, manager, staff
updated: 2026-09-03
source: Alaga Help Center
---

# A client can't log in to the portal
Sidebar: **Clients**. Portal access is managed from the client's record, and the address clients use is on **Customer Portal**.

## Being a client and having a login are different things

Adding someone as a client creates their record — their pets, their history, their invoices. It does **not** give them a way to sign in. A client only gets portal access once they have been invited and have accepted that invitation by setting a password.

So "I added them last week and they can't log in" is usually not a fault. Check whether they were ever invited.

## Check the invitation first

Open **Clients** and find the person. Their invitation is in one of these states:

- **Never invited** — send one. Use **Invite** on their record.
- **Pending** — the invitation was sent and not yet accepted. Resend it if they never saw it.
- **Expired** — invitations are good for **30 days**. After that the link stops working and you need to send a fresh one. This is the single most common cause.
- **Accepted** — they have a login. The problem is a password or an email mismatch; see below.

## The email address has to match exactly

The invitation is tied to the email address you sent it to. If a client accepts an invitation sent to `sarah@home.com` and then tries to sign in as `sarah.jones@work.com`, there is no account under the second address.

Check the address on their client record against the one they are typing. Changing the email on a client record does **not** change the address they sign in with — an invitation already accepted keeps the address it was accepted under.

## Make sure they are using your portal address

Clients sign in through **your** portal address, not a generic one. You will find it on **Customer Portal** in the sidebar, and it looks like `alaga.io/b/YOURCODE/auth`.

A client who lands on a general sign-in page, or who is using a link from a different business, will not be able to get in. Sending them the link straight from the Customer Portal page avoids this entirely — it is also the link worth putting in your email signature and on your website.

## They have a login but forgot the password

They can reset it themselves from the sign-in page. **You cannot see or set a client's password**, and neither can we — it is not stored in a readable form anywhere.

If a reset email does not arrive, it is the same problem as any other missing email: check the address is right, and have them look in spam.

## The invitation email never arrived

Check the Delivery Log under **Business Settings → Notifications**. If the invitation shows as sent, it left Alaga and the address or the client's spam filter is the issue. If there is no row, it was never sent — resend it from the client's record.

Free email providers are aggressive about mail from addresses they have not seen before. Telling clients to expect it, and to check spam, converts far more invitations than resending repeatedly.

## They can log in but see nothing

Portal content follows the client record the login is attached to. If they signed up themselves rather than through your invitation, they may have created a second, empty record that is not the one holding their pets and history. Search **Clients** for their name and their email separately — two records for the same person is the usual explanation, and merging is covered in *Fixing duplicate clients and pets*.