Customer Portal Account Linking Verification

Contact Linking Verification Level: Medium vs. High

Contact Linking Verification Level controls how strictly the Customer Portal verifies a customer before letting them link a utility account to their portal profile. It is the main lever between "easy self-service sign-up" and "no one gets access unless staff put them on the account first."

There are two settings: Medium and High. New organizations start on High.

Where to find it

Admin Portal → Settings → Customers → Customer Portal → Contact Linking Verification Level. Choose a level and click Save.

Changing this setting affects future linking attempts only. Accounts that are already linked stay linked.

Quick comparison

	Medium	High
Customer can link using an account number	Yes	Yes
Customer can link using a location ID	Yes	No
Customer's name/email/phone must already match a contact on the account	No	Yes
What happens when nothing matches	A new contact person is created automatically	Linking is refused; the customer is told to contact your office
Customer editing their portal profile can change the contact's name on the account	Yes	No

Medium — self-service friendly

Use Medium when you want customers to be able to get into the portal on their own, even if your contact records are incomplete.

Linking by location ID is allowed. If the customer enters something that isn't a valid account number, the portal falls back to treating it as a location ID. Two guardrails apply:

If more than one account exists at that location, linking is refused and the customer is asked to use their account number instead.
If the location's account has any billing history, the customer must also enter their last bill amount and it must match exactly. This is the identity check that replaces the account number.

Unmatched customers still get access. If the customer's name, email, and phone don't match any active contact on the account, the portal creates a new contact person for them:

Contact type Other, not the primary contact
Bill delivery set to electronic, but Receive Bill is off — they won't start getting bills
Description notes it was created automatically through the Customer Portal
An activity entry is written to the account so staff can see it happened

Profile edits sync to the account. If the customer edits their name in the portal, the matching contact person's name is updated too, along with email, phone, and mailing address.

The trade-off: any person who knows an account or location number (and its last bill amount, for location linking) can attach themselves to the account as a new contact.

High — staff-controlled access

Use High when only people your staff have already put on the account should be able to see it. This is the default.

Account number only. Location IDs are rejected outright with: "Please use your account number (not location ID) to link your account." The attempt is logged as a failed linking activity.

The customer must already match an active contact. The portal looks for an active contact person on the account whose full name matches the profile name, or failing that, whose phone number or email matches. If nothing matches, linking is refused with a message pointing the customer at your organization's email: "Please contact you@example.gov to add your email customer@example.com to the account." No contact person is created.

The practical consequence: to grant portal access under High, a staff member adds the person as an active contact on the account first — with a matching name, email, or phone — and the customer can then link successfully.

Customers cannot rename themselves on the account. Name changes made in the portal profile are not written back to the contact person record. Email, phone, and mailing address still sync.

What is the same at both levels

How a match is found: an exact full-name match wins first; otherwise a phone-number match; otherwise an email match. Only active contacts are considered.
Deactivated contacts are always blocked. If the only match is an inactive contact, linking fails with a message to contact your office, at either level. This is deliberate — deactivating a contact revokes portal access.
Bill amount verification always requires an exact match against the most recent bill when it is requested.
An account can only be linked to a profile once. A second attempt returns "Account already linked to your customer profile."
Every failed attempt is logged to the account's activity feed with the customer's name, email, and phone, and the reason it failed. Review these if a customer reports trouble.
The portal's support chatbot adapts its instructions to the level, so it tells customers to use an account number (High) or an account number or location ID (Medium).

Which should we choose?

Choose High if:

Your contact records are well maintained — names, emails, or phone numbers are on file for the people who should have access.
You have tenant/landlord or property-manager situations where seeing a bill is sensitive.
You would rather field a phone call than risk the wrong person linking an account.

Choose Medium if:

Your contact data is sparse or out of date and you'd otherwise be adding contacts manually all day.
You are onboarding a large customer base to the portal and want to minimize friction.
You are comfortable with auto-created contacts appearing on accounts, and with staff reviewing them after the fact.

Many utilities launch on Medium to drive portal adoption, then switch to High once contact records have filled in. Switching later is safe — existing links are unaffected.

Troubleshooting: what the customer's error message tells you

Message the customer sees	What it means
"Please use your account number (not location ID) to link your account."	You are on High and they entered a location ID.
"Account or location not found." / "Account not found with ID #…"	The identifier doesn't exist for your organization. Check for a missing suffix, e.g. `123-1` vs `123` .
"Multiple accounts found at this location."	Medium, location linking. They need to use the account number for their specific account.
"Bill verification is required. Please provide your last bill amount."	Medium, location linking. The portal will now show a Last Bill Amount field.
"The bill amount you entered doesn't match our records."	The amount must match the most recent bill exactly, to the cent.
"This contact person account was deactivated."	They match a contact you deactivated. Reactivate it if they should have access.
"Please contact … to add your email … to the account."	High, and they don't match any active contact. Add them as a contact person on the account.
"Account already linked to your customer profile."	The link already exists — have them check their Accounts list.

One-Time Payment Verification (same settings page) controls verification for guests paying without an account, and is independent of this setting.
Contact person status (Active/Inactive) on each account is the day-to-day control for who can link and stay linked, especially under High.