Clients
Manage owner contact information, households, and portal access.
A client is the owner or responsible party for one or more patients. Clients receive appointment reminders, discharge emails, invoices, and (if invited) access to the owner portal. A client can belong to a household, which lets you group multiple owners under one family account.
Adding a new client
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Search before creating
Search by name, email, or phone number first. Creating duplicate client records splits communication history and complicates invoicing.
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Go to Clients → New client
Click Clients in the sidebar, then + New client.
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Enter contact details
Full name, email address, and phone number. Email is used for portal invitations and appointment reminders. Phone is used for SMS reminders if enabled.
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Assign to a household (optional)
If this client shares pets with another client already in the system, link them to the same household. Both clients can then see the shared pets and receive communications.
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Link their pets
Search for existing patients to link, or create new patients from this screen.
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Invite to the portal (optional)
Toggle Invite to owner portal to send an invitation email immediately after saving. The client will receive a link to set up their portal account. You can also do this later from the client profile.
Households
A household groups multiple clients who share the same pets, for example two partners who both bring in the family dog. Household members can:
- Both be linked to the same patients
- Both access the owner portal and see the shared pet's records
- Both receive appointment reminders (if they've each opted in)
To create a household, go to Households → New household in the sidebar, or link clients to an existing household from their individual profiles.
Editing name and contact info
Open a client's profile and use the Contact tab to edit their details. Full name is the client's legal name and is required: it appears on invoices, discharge emails, and anywhere else the client is identified. Preferred name is a separate, optional field for how staff and the AI scribe should address them day to day (a nickname, a different first name, etc.); it never replaces the full name on financial or legal documents.
Portal access
To invite a client to the owner portal, open their client profile and click Send portal invite. This requires an email address on file and the owner.write permission. An email with a sign-in link goes out immediately; the button changes to Invite sent once it's dispatched. If they lose the email, click the same button again to resend it.
There's no separate "portal account" to manage. The invite link signs the owner straight into the portal with the email on file. To cut off a client's portal access, remove their linked patients or contact support; there's no per-client revoke toggle today.
Do-not-service flag
If a client (or an entire household) should be blocked from new bookings (for example, a chargeback or an incident) mark them Do not service from the client profile and record a reason. Front-desk staff see a warning banner before booking or checking in any of that client's patients; existing appointments and records are untouched.
Card on file
Staff can never type a client's card number. From the Payments and refunds section of the client record (permission payment.collect), Send update link texts and emails the client a secure, processor-hosted page to add or replace their saved card; the link works for 24 hours, and if there's no email or phone on file, staff can Copy update link and send it another way instead. Remove card on file detaches a saved card so it can no longer be charged. Chartling never sees or stores the card number itself, and sending a link never charges anything on its own.
Merging duplicate clients
If the same person ended up with two client records, staff with owner.write can fold one into the other from the client profile. Click Merge duplicate and search for the record to fold in. Everything the duplicate owns (invoices, appointments, linked patients, documents) moves onto the surviving record, and the duplicate is removed. If the two records have a different email or phone number, the dialog lists the differences under These look like two different clients and keeps confirm disabled until you tick I've checked: these are the same client. Records with the same name are shown with their email and created date so you can tell them apart. This can't be undone from the UI, so confirm the survivor before merging. See merging duplicate patients for the equivalent flow on the Patients side.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Full name | Required. Appears on invoices and discharge emails |
| Preferred name | Optional. How staff and the AI scribe address the client; doesn't change the full name |
| Required for portal invitations and reminder emails | |
| Phone | Used for SMS reminders if your clinic has SMS enabled |
| Preferred channel | SMS, Email, Phone call, or Portal: how this client prefers to be reached |
| Email / SMS reminder opt-in | Separate toggles that actually gate whether reminder messages go out on each channel |
| Linked patients | One client can be linked to multiple patients |
| Household | Optional: groups clients who share the same pets |
FAQ
Go to the client profile → Edit → update the email field. If they have an active portal account, their portal login email does not change automatically. They'll need to update it themselves in Account settings, or you can revoke and re-invite them.
Yes. Each client gets their own portal invitation and their own login. They'll both see the shared patients but have separate accounts.
On the client profile, turn off the Email reminder and/or SMS reminder opt-in toggles. These are what actually gate outbound reminders, independent of the preferred-channel field. For portal messages, the client can manage their own notification preferences from Account settings.
Yes. Mark them Do not service (see above) rather than deleting anything. There's currently no separate "deactivate" state for clients the way there is for patients; do-not-service is the equivalent control for stopping new bookings while keeping history intact.