Why decisions get their own link
An estimate sent as a dedicated link has one purpose and one call to action. Response rates fall the moment the decision is buried behind navigation — the customer has to find it, and finding is friction.
A dedicated link also produces a cleaner record: this version, sent at this time, to this person, viewed then, decided then. That trail is what makes later disputes short.
Why signatures get their own link per signer
Signing is a per-person act. Two owners on one property are two signers, and collapsing them into one shared session destroys the evidence that each person signed. Per-signer links keep each signature attributable.
It also lets partially completed signing be a real, visible state — one signer done, one outstanding — rather than a document that is simply 'not signed yet' with no detail.
What the portal contributes afterwards
- A durable place to re-read the accepted scope and price.
- One location that survives inbox archaeology months later.
- Consistency: the same shared documents everyone in the household can reach.
The version rule
Whatever a customer can open must be the current authoritative version. If a contract is revised, the earlier link and the earlier copy must stop presenting themselves as live. A superseded document that still opens is how two versions of the truth get signed.