B2B Client Portals • London & UK Custom Engineering
Customer portals that answer your customers before they email you.
For UK B2B companies whose customers chase orders, invoices, and documents by email and phone. We build secure custom portals connected to your ERP or CRM, so your trade clients help themselves 24/7.
*Live CrUX & operations benchmark from a UK wholesale supplier connecting Sage 200 to a bespoke customer portal.
Common Friction Points
You're probably here because manual chasing is bleeding operational time.
Your customer service and operations team are paid to build relationships, but spend half their working day answering basic status questions.
Daily "Where Is My Order?" Chasing
Customers email or ring repeatedly asking for courier tracking links, dispatch confirmations, or revised delivery dates.
Repetitive Invoice & Statement Re-Sends
Finance and ops teams spend hours every week re-attaching the same VAT invoices, monthly statements, and credit notes to email threads.
Quotes & Approvals in Spreadsheets
Tiered customer pricing, requisition approvals, and repeat orders move around in fragile email chains and disconnected Excel sheets.
Customer Data Scattered Across Silos
Order history sits in your ERP, contacts live in CRM, and stock counts live in warehouse software. Nobody has a single unified picture.
Big Trade Accounts Demand a Login
Your largest commercial clients expect a polished self-service portal to manage their purchases, and right now you have nothing to give them.
Manual, Week-Long Client Onboarding
Setting up a new trade account involves paper forms, manual credit checks, and re-keying company data across multiple internal software tools.
The bottom line: If your team spends hours each week answering questions that your backend systems already know the answer to, a custom customer portal pays for itself in defrayed labour, faster cash collection, and increased repeat orders.
Core Capabilities
What a custom B2B portal actually solves.
We tie every feature to an operational bottleneck that costs you time and revenue. A focused, practical feature set:
Order & Delivery Tracking
Real-time status synced with couriers and warehouse feeds. Eliminates 70%+ of "where is my delivery" inquiries.
Invoices, Statements & Credit
Instant PDF downloads of historic VAT invoices, monthly statements, and remaining account credit balances.
Reordering & Contract Pricing
1-click repeat purchases displaying customer-specific contracted price tiers directly from your ERP database.
Quotes & Purchase Approvals
Multi-step procurement approval workflows replacing messy spreadsheet chains and email approval threads.
Document & Compliance Vault
24/7 self-service repository for COSHH sheets, technical spec sheets, warranties, and compliance certificates.
Multi-User Teams & RBAC
Each client manages their own team: procurement buyers, site managers, and finance teams with distinct permissions.
Automated Webhook Notifications
Proactive transactional updates pushed via email or SMS when an order is packed, shipped, or invoice generated.
Central Operations Back Office
Your team retains an internal control deck to manage user permissions, credit limits, system syncs, and overrides.
Your ERP remains the single source of truth. The portal reads and writes to your existing accounting and warehouse software (Sage 50 & 200, Dynamics, Xero, SAP) via secure API gateways, with zero duplicate data entry.
Objective Evaluation
Build, buy, or configure: an honest comparison.
B2B buyers evaluate off-the-shelf software before commissioning custom engineering. Here is when each option makes economic sense:
| Approach | Best When | Watch Out For | Our Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Off-the-Shelf SaaS Portal | Standard workflows, fast start, low upfront initial budget | Rigid templates; expensive per-user licensing fees as client base scales | Great for early-stage or simple generic needs |
| Low-Code Platform (e.g. Retool) | Internal back-office tools, basic administrative views | Branding limits, poor client-facing mobile UX, high security overhead | Fine internally; risky for external B2B clients |
| Bespoke Custom Build (Gustoov) | Specific workflows, deep ERP/CRM sync, full branding, 100+ clients | Requires disciplined scoping and an experienced engineering team | Best long-term ROI; 100% owned with zero seat tax |
| Hybrid Architecture | Standard SaaS for basics, custom modules for unique differentiators | Managing two disparate software layers and integration bridges | A sensible middle ground for complex operations |
Buy a Product If:
Your workflows match standard e-commerce patterns, your ERP has a native out-of-the-box portal add-on that satisfies your trade clients, and you don't require bespoke contract pricing or multi-level order authorizations. It gets you live faster with lower upfront capital.
Build Custom With Gustoov If:
Your customers trade on custom terms, your backend uses on-premise ERPs (like Sage 50/200), and your brand reputation demands a fast, secure, white-labelled interface with zero per-user licensing penalties. You own the code and intellectual property permanently.
Delivery Methodology
How we build it: first release in months, not years.
We avoid 12-month big-bang releases that stall in committee. We ship a working portal for a pilot group of real customers within 3 to 4 months.
Workflow Mapping
We interview your ops team and key trade clients, map current data flows, and audit your ERP APIs.
UX Prototyping
Clickable high-fidelity Figma prototype of all customer journeys, tested with actual buyers for usability.
First-Release Build
We build the core features (orders, invoices, pricing), connect ERP sync pipelines, and configure UK cloud hosting.
Pilot Launch
Onboard 5-10 friendly trade accounts, measure adoption, fix early friction, and prepare full customer rollout.
Continuous Growth
Add secondary workflows (bulk CSV imports, supplier access, advanced analytics) in monthly roadmap sprints.
UK Case Study
UK industrial distributor cut support emails by 42% in 12 weeks.
How a commercial supplier with 1,400 active trade accounts eliminated daily tracking calls and cut days sales outstanding (DSO) by 11 days.
Support Overload Threatening Trade Relationships
A nationwide distributor handling 1,400 trade accounts relied on a team of 6 customer service staff. Over 60% of daily phone calls and emails were simple status queries: "Has PO #4928 shipped?", "Can you re-email June's statement?", or "What is our contracted rate for next month?".
What We Engineered: We built a fast Next.js customer portal connected to their Sage 200 database via an encrypted API integration layer. Customers can check consignment tracking, download VAT invoice PDFs, and re-order on their contracted price bands 24/7.
Measured Operational Outcomes
| Performance Measure | Before Portal | After (Gustoov) |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly Status Queries | 520 / week | 110 / week (-79%) |
| Time to Order Confirmation | 2 to 4 hours | Instant (Self-Serve) |
| Trade Account Adoption | 0% (Manual only) | 78% active in 90 days |
| Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) | 44 days | 33 days (11 days faster) |
"Our trade clients love being able to pull VAT receipts and check consignments at 6 AM before site work starts. Our staff can finally focus on proactive sales rather than chasing paperwork." — Head of Operations, Northamptonshire
Investment & Packages
Transparent fixed-price portal engineering.
Clear milestones with fixed-price accountability. Your initial workflow mapping fee is 100% credited against your build if you proceed.
Workflow Mapping Session
Detailed technical mapping of your customer journeys, ERP integrations, and fixed build scope.
- In-depth interview with your operations team
- Customer journey & inquiry friction audit
- ERP & database API feasibility study
- Prioritised feature roadmap & wireframes
- Fixed-price milestone proposal for build
- 100% credited against subsequent build
First-Release Portal MVP
The core high-value self-service features that remove the majority of support chasing.
- 2 to 4 core customer workflows (Orders, Invoices, Reordering)
- Live 2-way ERP sync (Sage, Dynamics, Xero, etc.)
- Role-based access control (RBAC) & client auth
- Clickable prototype tested with real buyers
- Deployed to secure UK AWS cloud infrastructure
- Pilot rollout with 5 to 10 key trade accounts
Full Enterprise Portal
Complete digital customer experience platform for multi-tier distribution and wholesale.
- Multi-system integration (ERP + CRM + WMS)
- Complex pricing matrices & tiered quantity breaks
- Multi-level procurement approval hierarchies
- Full document vault & compliance certificates
- Admin control room with usage telemetry
- Optional support retainer from £850/mo
A Great Fit If:
- You have 50 or more active trade or commercial accounts.
- Customers frequently chase orders, delivery dates, or invoice copies.
- You run an ERP, CRM, or accounting system with accessible data.
- You have a designated operations or commercial owner on your team.
Not A Good Fit If:
- You only serve a handful of B2B accounts with infrequent orders.
- You only need a simple shared Google Drive folder or contact form.
- You have no development budget beyond a few hundred pounds.
- An off-the-shelf standard e-commerce store already fits your workflow.
Mapping session fee is credited in full against your build contract.
You own all repositories, data pipelines, and IP from day one.
Real trade clients test the portal before full company cutover.
Milestone-based delivery with zero budget surprises.
Practical Details
Frequently asked questions about B2B customer portals.
Everything operations, commercial, and technical leaders need to know about commissioning a custom portal.
How much does a custom B2B customer portal cost?
It depends primarily on the number of backend integrations and workflows. A focused first release (order tracking, invoice PDF downloads, and repeat ordering) typically costs between £24,000 and £38,000. Our fixed-price workflow mapping session (£2,500) produces an exact specification and fixed quote before you commit.
Can you integrate with older on-premise ERP systems like Sage or Dynamics NAV?
Yes. We regularly integrate with on-premise and legacy ERPs including Sage 50, Sage 200, Microsoft Dynamics NAV/Business Central, SAP Business One, and custom SQL databases via secure API gateways, webhooks, or encrypted message queues without exposing your internal database directly.
Should we buy an off-the-shelf portal product instead?
If your workflows are 100% standard and you don't require bespoke account-specific pricing, multi-tier approvals, or deep legacy ERP sync, an off-the-shelf SaaS product is cheaper and faster to launch. We build custom software when off-the-shelf platforms cannot bend to your trading workflows or when per-seat fees become prohibitive.
How long until our customers can actually log in and use it?
We deliver a working first release to a pilot group of real customers within 3 to 4 months. We avoid 12-month big-bang projects by launching the highest-impact self-service features first, validating them with real users, and expanding capabilities in monthly iterations.
How do you keep customer financial data and trade pricing secure?
Every portal is architected with strict multi-tenant isolation, role-based access control (RBAC), end-to-end TLS encryption, immutable audit logging, and automated security scanning. Hosting is deployed exclusively in UK cloud regions (AWS London eu-west-2) in full compliance with UK GDPR.
Do our customers and internal operations staff need training?
Virtually none. We design portal workflows using familiar consumer-grade UI patterns and test wireframes with your actual customers during design. If an order portal requires a manual to understand, the UX has failed.
What happens after the portal goes live?
You have complete freedom: we provide an optional monthly SLA support and feature enhancement retainer (from £850/mo), or provide comprehensive architecture documentation and runbooks to hand the code over to your internal development team.
How does Gustoov compare to traditional digital agencies?
We are senior UK software engineers, not account managers or WordPress designers. We write clean, test-driven backend code that interfaces securely with your mission-critical ERPs, with fixed-milestone pricing and 100% intellectual property ownership.
Direct Engineering Consultation
Map the workflow your customers keep emailing about.
Tell us what your customers chase you for most. In 5 working days for a fixed £2,500 fee (100% credited against your build), we'll map your customer journeys, audit your ERP APIs, and deliver a fixed-price first-release roadmap.