Bookkeeping Practices: Client Portal Using Laravel

Summary

A client portal blueprint for bookkeeping practices built with Laravel on Ample. Domain schema:

• client_entities (legal_name, entity_type, accounting_software, period_cadence): clients and their bookkeeping cadence.
• engagements (client_entity_id, period_start, period_end, close_status): monthly or quarterly close engagements.
• document_requests (engagement_id, category, due_at, status, uploaded_object_key): receipts, statements and payroll summaries requested.
• close_checklists (engagement_id, item, done_at): close tasks per period.
• document_access (document_id, principal_reference, role, granted_at): who may read which document.

Public Information

• Service packages and cadence
• Onboarding checklist
• Contact details

Kept out of scope until handling is reviewed:

• Bank statements and receipts
• Payroll data
• Login credentials for accounting software
  Important: Never store client accounting-software credentials in these flows; financial records are sensitive and no compliance is claimed.

Workflow Steps

1. Model the bookkeeping practices domain: Create the tables client_entities, engagements, document_requests, close_checklists, document_access. Clients and their bookkeeping cadence lives in client_entities; keep the sensitive classes (bank statements and receipts, payroll data, login credentials for accounting software) out of this schema.
2. Model client entities and engagement periods: Every document belongs to one engagement.
3. Authorize by client entity and role: Before any storage access (401 without identity, 403 for the wrong client).
4. Store documents: In the private bucket and stream them through the app.
5. Deploy and verify: The negative authorization tests and an authorized download.
6. Run the synchronous deploy once: Read the result. Re-running with no change is a no-op.

Tested Configuration

• Template: php-8.5
• Runtime: php
• Size: s-1vcpu-1gb
• Install: composer install --no-dev --prefer-dist --no-interaction --no-progress --optimize-autoloader
• Start: frankenphp php-server --listen :$PORT --root public

Input Schema

{
  "additionalProperties": false,
  "properties": {
    "env": {
      "description": "Encrypted environment variables",
      "items": {
        "pattern": "^[A-Z][A-Z0-9_]*=.*$",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "maxItems": 50,
      "type": "array"
    },
    "name": {
      "description": "App name",
      "maxLength": 63,
      "minLength": 1,
      "pattern": "^[a-z0-9-]+$",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "path": {
      "description": "Project directory or ample.toml service",
      "maxLength": 512,
      "minLength": 1,
      "type": "string"
    },
    "release_command": {
      "description": "Migration command run before activation",
      "maxLength": 512,
      "type": "string"
    }
  },
  "required": ["env", "name", "path"],
  "type": "object"
}

Cost Estimate

• Currency: USD
• Monthly Amount: 10.0
• Basis: Size prices from pricing.toml at build revision 1ac5595375130d45290090e82ed0f554ccd45405-dirty
  • Components:
    • App server (s-1vcpu-1gb): $5.00/month
    • Managed PostgreSQL database (s-1vcpu-1gb): $5.00/month
      Note: Always-on monthly price of the tested sizes; apps and databases auto-pause when idle.

Limitations

• The technical basis (private document library on Laravel) was verified with the pattern fixture; the bookkeeping practices schema and workflow are original designs for this blueprint and were not executed as a separate application.
• No health, financial, privacy, or other compliance claim is made.
• Important: Public content and synthetic examples only until actual data-handling requirements have been reviewed.