Guide Client-supplier project software: how to steer a project with your client?

Client-supplier project software is there to steer a project with your client on shared data, rather than e-mailing them a spreadsheet every week. But you still need to know what the client must see, what they approve, what they will never see, and what their access costs. This guide sets out these criteria, reviews the families of tools that open access to the client, with their limits, and offers a method for choosing.

The criteria

What the tool must allow, on the client side.

Giving the client a login is not enough. What matters is what they can do once connected, and what stays with the supplier.

Client access, and its cost How many people on the client side, on how many projects, at what price? Paid per-seat access pushes you to limit accounts, and the client ends up receiving exports.
What the client sees Progress, milestones, deliverables, the meetings that concern them, the volumes consumed on their contract. They must read the same figures as the supplier, not a reworked version.
What they never see Margins, team workload, HR data, internal exchanges and the supplier's internal steering. This separation must be built into the tool, not obtained by duplicating the project.
What they approve Minutes, a completed intervention, a deliverable. A useful approval leaves a record: who, when, and the reason for a refusal.
The minutes Written after each committee, submitted to the client, corrected if needed, then approved. Without this, everyone keeps their own version of what was said.
Decisions and actions A log where a decision has a date and an action has an owner, reread at each meeting, instead of a list lost at the bottom of an e-mail.
Amendments A project changes along the way. The tool must make it possible to find what was agreed, when, and what it changes for the scope or the payment schedule.
Interventions When the project or the contract includes interventions, their acceptance by the client matters as much as that of minutes.
History Six months later, being able to find who approved what, without digging through an inbox.

The families of tools

Four ways to open a project to the client, and their limits.

Most project software opens access to the client. They do not all give them the same role.

Families of tools by the access given to the client, what they can approve and their limits
Family	What the client gets	Frequent limit	Compared examples
Guests in a task tool	Access to the boards, tasks or spaces shared with them	No dedicated portal; access conditions vary by plan; client contracts not documented	Asana, monday.com, Wrike, Smartsheet, ClickUp
Client-oriented project tool	Access to their company's projects, proofing and approvals	Client access framed by quotas depending on the plan; meetings and committees not documented	Teamwork.com
PSA portal	A client space or a portal module	Sometimes a dedicated license for the client; approval by the client not documented	Kantata, Certinia
Operational commitment management	Following what concerns them and approving what is submitted to them	Does not issue invoices, does no incident ticketing; connects to the ERP (invoicing orders) and to project ticketing tools such as Jira, through a connector built to your needs	pylotik

Guests in a task tool

This is the most widespread solution. Asana opens free guests from its Starter plan, limited to the projects, tasks and messages shared with them. Wrike offers a free read-only license, to read and comment. Smartsheet and Wrike document approvals by external reviewers. Neither client contracts nor a decision log are documented there.

The client-oriented project tool

Teamwork.com is designed for teams that deliver projects to clients. Its Client license is free, limited to five active projects per client user, without access to reports, resource scheduling or profitability. External approvers can approve proofs without an account. The comparison of project tools with client access details these conditions.

The PSA portal

Neither Kantata nor Certinia documents approval by the client. Kantata lets you invite the client on the "Client" side of the project space, without specifying whether it consumes a license. Certinia goes through Salesforce Experience Cloud sites, with a dedicated license according to a vendor guide.

The method

How to choose: five questions to ask in a demo.

Ask to see the tool from the client's side, with a client account, and not only from the supplier's side.

What exactly does my client see when they log in? Have a project opened with a client account. Check that no margin, no workload, no internal note appears.
What can they approve, and what happens if they refuse? A refusal with no reason is useless. Look for a loop where the refusal goes back to its author, with the reason.
How much does their access cost, and for how many people? Count the committee, the contacts, the approvers, and not only the project manager on the client side.
Where do the minutes and decisions live? If they stay in a word-processing file attached to an e-mail, the tool carries only part of the relationship.
How do you link several suppliers? If other providers are involved, ask how their milestones attach to yours. The comparison of multi-supplier project software asks this question tool by tool.

By profile

If your priority is…

…having creative deliverables reviewed

A task or project tool with external proofing and approvals fits well. The client annotates, approves or requests a change on the piece itself.

…giving visibility without a formal commitment

Guests in your task tool are often enough, if their rights and cost suit you. Check what they see of the rest of the space.

…keeping contractual commitments with the client

Contracts, milestones, committees, approved minutes, volumes consumed on maintenance: look for a tool where all of this rests on the same data, consulted from both sides. See contractual commitment tracking.

Our place

Where pylotik fits, and where it does not.

Many client-supplier relationships work like this: each works in their own tools, then the supplier rebuilds a progress report in a spreadsheet and a presentation, sends it by e-mail, and the client answers it with another e-mail. E-mails remain useful for working; they do not make a steering system. pylotik starts from the other end: contracts, projects, maintenance, meetings, decisions, actions and approvals rest on a single reference dataset, which the client consults with their own access. This holds for any organization that commits human time to projects, for an external or internal client: industry, construction, engineering, digital, administration, public service.

Free client access On all tiers, for external client organizations. The client follows what concerns them and approves what is submitted to them, without seeing margins, workload, HR data or internal steering, and without changing your production data. See the client portal.
Approved minutes Submitted to the client after each committee: they approve, refuse with a reason or request a correction, with a tacit approval at the agreed deadline. See client approval of minutes.
Decisions, actions, risks Kept in the tool; risks can be shared with the client or stay internal.
Several suppliers A project links one supplier and one client; several suppliers are steered by linking projects to each other, including a project run by a supplier of which you are the client (Extended Project module). See multi-project steering.
Your teams in the same steering Workload plan, weekly time, weekly report, without rating anyone. The technical work can stay in Jira: pylotik connects to project ticketing tools, through a connector built to your needs.
As a complement, accepted interventions With the Interventions module, each intervention is signed by the client or refused with a reason.

It fits less if your main need is the review of graphic deliverables, a ticket or support portal (it connects to one through a connector, without replacing them), issuing quotes and invoices (it sends invoicing orders to the ERP through a connector), or an advanced or qualified electronic signature under eIDAS: its acceptance signature is not one. It has neither a public API nor SSO. A client team internal to your organization takes a seat according to its role: free access applies to external clients.

Frequently asked questions

What we are asked about working with the client.

How do you share a project's progress with a client?

The safest way is to give them access to the same data as you, rather than a report prepared separately. They see progress the moment they log in, and what they read is what you read. Exports remain useful for presenting, not as a reference.

Is inviting the client into our task tool enough?

To give them visibility, often yes. For them to approve with a record, check: Wrike and Smartsheet document file approvals by external reviewers, but none of the task tools compared describes approval of minutes by the client.

Won't the client risk seeing our margins?

It is the first thing to check in a demo, with a client account. In pylotik, the client never sees margins, team workload, HR data or the supplier's internal steering.

How much does client access cost?

It varies a lot: free, free with quotas, paid per seat or subject to a dedicated license depending on vendors and plans. In pylotik, it is free for external client organizations, on all tiers. The detail is on the pricing page.

What to do when a project has several suppliers?

Look for a tool that links projects, not just people. In pylotik, each project links one supplier and one client, and projects are linked to each other with watched dependencies, without automatic recalculation of dates.

The comparison of project tools with client access: Teamwork.com, monday.com, Asana, Kantata.
The client portal: what the client sees, approves and never sees.
The comparison of multi-supplier project software: interdependent milestones and a shared trajectory.
Client approval of minutes: approve, refuse, correct, or let the deadline run.
Contractual commitment tracking: what was promised, and what is kept.
Project governance: committees, decisions, actions and risks.
All software comparisons: each family of tools, and where it fits.
The product tour and pricing: what pylotik does, and what it costs.
A demo: a project seen from the supplier's side, then from the client's side.

Page checked on October 24, 2026. Sources: the sources page.