Front Desk

Every order walks in as a request

Most client work starts with you. You set the client up, open the request and send the invite once everything is ready. Front Desk is for the work that can start without you, a page with your services and request types where a client, new or long-standing, picks one and gets going, and whatever they choose arrives as a request in the same threads your team already works in.

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What goes on it

Put the usual asks where clients can reach them

Some requests arrive the same way every month: a change to last month's report, a quick question about an invoice, a new engagement that always starts with the same five questions. Each one costs an email to you and a request your project manager types up by hand. Put those on Front Desk and the client starts them directly, with the form you would have sent anyway, while the bigger, messier work still starts with you.

See how services are built

Services clients can order

One-off services with a fixed price, subscriptions with packages and billing cycles, and custom work that starts as a request and gets priced in your quote. Each service has its own order page with add-ons and an order form, and you decide which of them appear on Front Desk and in what order.

Requests that cost nothing to send

Not everything on Front Desk is for sale. A request type like "Support ticket" can sit there as its own tile, and the form the client fills in becomes a request your team picks up like any other. For visitors who don't have an account yet, a "Submit request" button offers only the few types you pick, such as a pre-sale question, while logged-in clients keep seeing the request types they already have access to.

One link for one service

Not every client needs the whole page. Every service has its own order link that works whether or not the service appears on Front Desk, so the "Kick-off workshop" can go straight into a proposal or a chat message. The full Front Desk lives at your workspace address, or on your own domain, under /order.

Shown to the clients who use it

Front Desk is a choice you make per client, not a switch for everyone. Leave it out of the sidebar for clients who never buy through the portal, put an "Order service" button on the dashboard of the ones who do, and give that button a label that fits them.

After checkout

A store stops at the receipt. Front Desk starts the work.

A typical online store is built around the moment someone pays: you get a line in an orders list and an email, and the actual work begins somewhere else, usually in your inbox. Zendo comes at it from the other side, from the team that has to deliver. A purchase opens a request of the type you chose, with the client's answers inside and whatever you've set up for that request type already in motion, and the order sits beside it as the record of what was bought and paid.

Nothing slips through between checkout and payment

The moment a client checks out, the request is created with their form answers in it. The payment is recorded on the order right after: a card payment through your Stripe goes through in seconds, a bank transfer when you mark it paid. If the money never arrives, the order stays marked unpaid where your team can see it, so an abandoned checkout is something you can follow up on instead of a sale that quietly never happened.

How requests run once they're in

Why a standard store isn't enough

A typical store

Front Desk in Zendo

Nothing slips through between checkout and payment

How requests run once they're in

After purchase

Greet every buyer with their next step

Someone buys your kick-off workshop at 11 pm, long after your team has logged off, and what they see next decides whether the purchase feels like the start of the work or money sent into silence. In Zendo they land back in your portal with the work already started: the request for what they bought, the questions you need answered and a welcome from you. It's the same sequence you checked in the service editor's After purchase timeline before the service went live, so the first impression doesn't depend on who happens to be online.

See the After purchase timeline in the service editor

Put the purchase on the client's dashboard as their next step

The request a purchase opens is on the client's dashboard the moment they're back in the portal, with the request form waiting inside it and a status that tells them where things stand. Add an onboarding to the service and a card with your welcome message, attachments and a short checklist sits above it, shown only to clients who bought that service. Whoever bought at 11 pm has something useful to do before anyone on your team replies.

How request forms work

Open new request types to the clients who bought

Some services are a door more than a job. Once a client buys the monthly retainer, their New request menu starts offering a Change request and a Monthly review they couldn't send before, each with the form you built for it, while clients who never bought it don't see those types at all. When the requests a purchase opened are completed, the order counts as delivered, so the record of what was bought follows the work instead of waiting for someone to update it.

Getting paid

Get paid at checkout, through your Stripe or your bank

Money from a Front Desk order goes where your money already goes. Connect your own Stripe account for cards, add the bank transfer or PayPal details your clients already use with you, or offer both side by side. Zendo takes no transaction fee on any of it, so the only deduction is Stripe's usual processing fee on card payments.

Cards through your own Stripe

Clients pay by card at checkout, and the order is marked Paid as soon as Stripe confirms it. The money lands in your Stripe account on your usual payout schedule.

Bank transfer and PayPal, by your instructions

Plenty of clients still pay by wire. Add a manual method with your account details or PayPal address, the client sees those instructions at checkout, and you mark the payment paid when it arrives.

An invoice when you want one

Each service decides whether an invoice goes out automatically after payment or not at all, in which case you send one yourself when it suits you. Either way it sits on the order, next to the request it paid for.

Quotes and invoices

Your Questions Answered

Front Desk questions

Do I have to use Front Desk?

No. Plenty of teams set up every request themselves and never show Front Desk to anyone. You can leave it out for all clients or only some of them in Sidebar content and Dashboards, and switch it on later for the clients who would rather start things on their own.

Can someone who isn't a client yet order from Front Desk?

Yes. Front Desk has its own address, so you can link to it from your website or a proposal. Buying a service there is one of the ways a client account comes into being, so a new client registers with your portal as part of the purchase and the request lands with your team like any other. Visitors without an account can also send the request types you've picked for the "Submit request" button, such as a pre-sale question.

What happens when a client buys a service?

Zendo creates an order and opens a request of the type you set on the service, and the two are linked both ways. Depending on the service, the request form waits inside the request or is skipped, the request type's automations run as usual, an onboarding card can appear on the client's dashboard, and the purchase can unlock request types the client couldn't submit before. If you'd rather not use requests for a service, you can set it to open none and track delivery on the order yourself.

What if the client doesn't pay?

The request still exists, because it is created at checkout and the payment is recorded after. The order shows as unpaid until a card payment goes through or you mark a bank transfer paid, so you can always see which purchases are still waiting for money.

Which payment methods work, and are there fees?

Cards through your own Stripe account, plus manual methods such as bank transfer or PayPal with your own instructions. Zendo charges no transaction fees; Stripe charges its usual processing fee on card payments.

Will Front Desk bring in search traffic?

No, and it isn't meant to. Front Desk pages are kept out of search results by design, because clients reach them through links you share: your website, proposals, emails and the portal itself. If you want your services to rank, describe them on your own site and point its order buttons at Front Desk or at a service's own order link.

What do clients see it called?

Clients find it in their portal sidebar under "Services". Like every other sidebar item, you can move it or hide it for a given client or client team in Sidebar content, so the clients who never order anything don't see it at all.

Let the next order walk in on its own

Put up the two or three things clients ask for most, check the timeline, and share the link.

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