---
title: "The portal — your side of the books, in plain language"
description: "The client portal: a finance dashboard, your bookkeeper's questions, expense reporting from a phone, published report packages, and unlimited individual logins for your team and board."
url: "https://rationara.com/portal"
source: "https://rationara.com/portal.md"
route: "/portal"
site: "Rationara"
updated: "2026-08-19"
---

# Your side of the books, in plain language

*The portal*

The portal is the one place you and your leadership go for anything financial. It isn’t accounting software with the hard parts hidden — it’s a separate, read-mostly surface we built for executive directors, treasurers, and board members. There is nothing in it to configure, nothing you can break, and nothing to learn beyond reading a page.

Everything below is in the portal today. Each area reads from the same ledger your bookkeeper works in, so the numbers you see are the numbers we see.

## The finance dashboard

At a glance

Cash across your linked bank accounts, this fiscal year's income and spending, and a six-month trend of revenue against expenses — computed live from the ledger, not pasted into a slide.

It answers the question you actually walk in with — “are we okay?” — before a board member asks it. Open questions and the latest published reports sit right below, so the dashboard is also your to-do list.

## Questions, answered in a sentence

The one thing we need from you

When your bookkeeper needs your judgment, the question arrives here with the transaction or receipt attached. You reply inline; attachments (a photo of a receipt, a grant letter) go straight onto the entry as support.

Some questions are proposals: we suggest the categorization and you just approve it. If you don't respond by the due date, the proposal applies automatically — so your books never stall waiting on a busy week.

## Report an expense from your phone

Out-of-pocket spending

Someone pays cash for supplies, or covers a purchase on a personal card. In the portal they report it in a minute: merchant, amount, a photo of the receipt — and whether they want to be reimbursed or are donating the expense.

That report lands in your bookkeeper's inbox as a real draft entry, categorized on review. Reimbursements owed show up as a liability on the books the day they're reported, not when someone remembers the envelope of receipts.

## Published reports, forever

For the board

Every monthly package we release is here, organized by period: statement of activities, balance sheet, budget vs. actual, fund balances. Each is a snapshot of a locked, reconciled period — it cannot change after publication.

Board members read them from their own logins, or you download and forward. Either way, everyone is quoting the same closed numbers at the meeting.

## Vendors, donors, accounts — and who's in

Reference & control

Read-only lists of your vendors, donors, and chart of accounts, so “what do we call this?” never needs an email. Your bank connections are visible too — which accounts are linked and when they last synced.

And you manage your own people: invite a new treasurer, revoke a pending invite, deactivate a departed staff member. Access changes take effect immediately and are recorded in the audit log.

## Who gets a login

Portal logins are individual, unlimited, and free. Nobody shares a password, every action is attributed to a person in the audit log, and you can deactivate anyone the day they leave.

- **Executive director** — The dashboard for the weekly “are we okay?”, questions as they arrive, and the monthly package before it goes to the board.
- **Board treasurer** — Published reports and fund balances — the same locked numbers, without waiting for a forwarded PDF.
- **Office manager** — Reports out-of-pocket spending, forwards receipts, and answers the practical “what was this purchase?” questions.
- **Program directors** — Their program's budget vs. actual in the published package — and expense reporting when they spend in the field.

## See the portal live

On your intro call we'll walk you through a working portal with sample data — dashboard, questions, and a published report package.