Welcome and payment-update links expire 14 days after they are issued; a newly sent link replaces the previous one. Links stop working after enrolment or when the package is finished, rejected or deleted. A saved payment method does not automatically complete a new package: the member must confirm enrolment and accept any compulsory terms. Using a saved method authorizes collection of the outstanding balance and future membership payments. If the saved method is verified and belongs to the collecting business, they can use it without entering it again.
Members can have a login of their own. Once signed in they see their Home dashboard, subscriptions, recent purchases and saved payment methods. The menu shows Subscriptions only when they have a subscription to view, Orders only when they have purchases to view, and Branded Stores only when they have access to manage a branded store. Home, Payment Methods and My Account remain available. My Account opens their personal details and sign-in settings.
When adding a member, choose an existing contact from the same tribe or one not yet assigned to a tribe. If the customer also belongs to another tribe, create a separate contact for this tribe. Both contacts can share the same customer login.
Switching Customer Access on
Customer Access is switched off for every organisation until you turn it on. Open Customer Access → Settings at organisation level, switch on Enable Customer Access and choose Save. You need the Manage Customer Access organisation permission to do this.
What they can see and do
| Area | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Account details | View their name, email address and phone number. Ask your team to correct other personal details. |
| My Account | Change their email address and password. Passwords need at least eight characters, including upper and lower case letters, a number and a symbol. |
| Home | See an overview, pay outstanding balances and open subscriptions that still need enrolment completed. When a balance is due, the customer chooses one of the saved payment methods for that tribe. If there is no suitable method, the portal takes them to Payment Methods to add one first. |
| Subscriptions | View packages, dates, billing information and transaction history. Complete enrolment by adding a payment method, accepting any required terms and confirming the package, payment schedule and outstanding balance. Completing enrolment may collect the outstanding balance immediately. |
| Orders | View their 25 most recent purchases, including branded-store purchases and purchased items. |
| Branded Stores | Administrators can view sales and order details for their assigned branded stores, download invoices, and accept or reject orders awaiting a decision. Their own purchases remain under Orders. The existing owner portal is still available. |
| Payment Methods | Add cards, choose a primary method or remove a saved method. Bank payments are offered where enabled. Add another method before removing the last one while automatic payments are on. Successful card and bank payments include a downloadable receipt in Payment History. |
What they cannot do
Confirming a balance payment
Before choosing Pay, check the amount and payment method. If the balance has changed, refresh Home and confirm the new amount. Keep the payment dialog open while the request completes. A bank debit may remain in progress while the bank processes it; another payment cannot start during that time.
Payment methods belong to one collecting business
A tribe is one location, branch or business unit inside your organisation. At the top of Payment Methods, choose the tab named for the organisation or tribe that collects your payment. Each tab shows only its saved payment methods and payment history. If you have payment accounts with the organisation and two tribes, you see three tabs. Use Paid with inside a tab to filter its history by card, bank account or other payment types. The Outstanding Balance above Payment History totals the amount currently owed to that organisation or tribe and shows zero when nothing is due. The Paid with filter changes the history list without changing this balance. Each payment-method group also names the memberships it pays for. A saved card belongs to that group only: it is not shared between tribes or moved to the organisation. To pay another tribe, choose its tab and add a method there.
On Subscriptions, choose View details on a subscription card to open its billing details and history. On Home, choose Open beside a subscription under Complete your enrolment to finish setting it up.
The portal uses the customer’s enabled linked contacts to find their memberships. Disabling a contact link removes the access it provides. Purchases must also belong to that customer’s login.
Create a customer login from a member
Open the member at organisation level or inside their tribe, then choose Create Customer Login. If the contact already has a linked account available in the current organisation or tribe, the control says Open Customer Account and opens that account directly. Customer Access must be switched on, you need the Manage Customer Access organisation permission, and the member must have a linked contact. After you add a subscription package, this dialog opens automatically if the member’s contact has no linked customer login. You can cancel and invite them later; the package stays saved. Check the email address and send the invitation. If the email address belongs to an account linked to a different contact, choose Link & Notify first (or Link & Send Invitation if they have not accepted yet). Open Account is available once this contact is linked. When you are working inside a tribe, it appears only if the customer also has an enabled contact linked to that tribe. The customer chooses their own password.
Help a customer reset their password
Open Customer Access at organisation level or inside the customer’s tribe, open the customer account and choose Send password reset email. The email goes to their saved login address. Their current password remains valid until they use the link to choose a new one. This action requires Manage Customer Access and is unavailable for disabled or cancelled accounts.
Letting members register
Open Customer Access → Settings at organisation level and use Allow customers to register themselves. With it off, logins are created for members rather than by them. Either way they verify their email address and can reset their own password. The first time an invited customer creates their password, Gorilla Dash signs them in and opens Home automatically.
Inviting an existing customer account
Open Customer Access and find the customer using Search, Status, Person link or, at organisation level, Scope. The organisation list shows the tribes each customer is linked to. Inside a tribe, the list shows only customers linked to that tribe and does not display their other tribes. Beside an unverified account, select Invite, or Resend invite if an invitation has already been sent. Check the recipient in the dialog, add an optional message, then select Confirm. The customer receives a link to set their password. Select Cancel to close the dialog without sending. You need Manage Customer Access permission to send invitations.
An older shopping account may show Unverified because it has no email-verification record, even if the customer has placed orders before. Sending an invitation does not immediately change their existing password.
From a person’s profile at organisation or tribe level, use Open Customer Account to view a linked login, Send Again to invite an unverified account again, or Create Customer Login when no account is linked. The invitation dialog lets you confirm the email address and add a message. These controls require Manage Customer Access and appear only while Customer Access is enabled. Tribe profiles open the account within the same tribe. The portal’s buttons, links and menu use your organisation’s primary colour. If that colour is too light to read as text on a white page, the portal uses a darker shade of it so that links and button labels stay readable.
Opening the portal
Use Open portal at the top of either the organisation or tribe Customer Access list, or open Customer Access → Settings. The link opens your custom domain once it is live, and the default Gorilla Dash portal address until then. This opens the customer sign-in screen. Your staff account does not sign you in as a customer. The first time a customer uses their invitation to set a password, the portal signs them in automatically. On later visits, they sign in with their own email address and password.
Setting up your own portal address
The Portal URL card in Customer Access → Settings shows the Default portal URL, which customers can always use. Invitations, password resets and email-verification messages open this address until your own address is activated. To set up your own address, enter a hostname such as customers.example.com under Custom domain in the same card, then choose Save. Enter only the hostname, without https or a page path.
After you save, a DNS setup section appears under the field, in the same card, showing one CNAME record. Add it with your domain provider, or select Copy instructions and send the copied message to whoever manages your domain for you. That one record is all that is needed: it proves the address is yours and connects it to Gorilla Dash. Some providers add your domain to the record name automatically; in that case enter only the part before your domain. If your provider offers to proxy the record (Cloudflare shows an orange cloud), switch that off so the record is DNS only, because a proxied record hides the CNAME from Gorilla Dash.
The status at the top of DNS setup says what is happening at each point: when the record was last looked for, when the security certificate was requested, and anything holding the certificate up, such as a CAA record on your domain that does not allow Google (pki.goog) to issue it. Gorilla Dash looks for the record every few minutes, so you do not need to come back; Check DNS looks straight away if you would rather not wait. Once the record is found, the status reads Securing your address while a secure HTTPS certificate is issued, which usually takes under an hour. The status then reads Custom domain active, and from then on invitation, password reset and verification emails link to your own address. Links already sent with the default address keep working. Leave the record in place for as long as you use the address. Gorilla Dash checks the record once a day, and if it has been removed, the custom address stops working and emails go back to using the default portal URL. If you put the record back within 30 days, the address switches on again by itself within a few minutes of the record being found, once its HTTPS certificate is being served. After 30 days Gorilla Dash stops looking and the hostname is no longer reserved for you, so put the record back promptly; once it is back, open Customer Access → Settings and select Check DNS at the bottom of the Portal URL card.
If your hostname is already reserved by another organisation whose record is not in place, you can save it once 30 days have passed since they saved it or since their record was found to be missing; if it is still reserved after that, or you need it sooner, contact Gorilla Dash support. Changing or clearing a saved hostname asks for confirmation, because the old address stops working and the new one needs its own record. While the custom address is active, the confirmation also warns that invitation and password reset links already emailed with it will stop working. The value in the record changes each time, so re-entering an old hostname means adding its record again.
Members without a login
Plenty never sign in at all. They add their card through the one-time link in their welcome email, and update it through the link in a failed-payment email. Neither needs an account.