Aureus Client Portal

A secure client portal that replaced 400 password-protected PDFs emailed out every quarter.

Year: 2025
Location: Cape Town
Duration: 16 weeks

Client: Aureus Capital
Role: Product design, Full-stack build, Security review
Discipline: App Development
Delivered: 2025 · 16 weeks

The problem

What we were actually solving

Aureus sent quarterly statements as password-protected PDFs to roughly 400 clients. Every quarter produced the same three days of support: forgotten passwords, attachments stripped by corporate mail filters, and clients asking for documents from two years ago that nobody could find quickly.

The approach

Warm office corner with a tree, pendant lighting and a designer chair

How the work was made

The portal is a Next.js application with role-based access, two-factor authentication and a document store that keeps a full audit trail of who opened what and when. That trail turned out to matter more to their compliance officer than any feature we had planned.

The interface was designed for the actual user, who is often over sixty and on an iPad. Type is larger than our house default, targets are generous, and there is exactly one primary action on every screen. We tested it with six real clients before writing production code.

A POPIA compliance pass ran alongside the build: data classification, retention rules, consent records and a written breach procedure. It added about two weeks and removed an argument that would otherwise have arrived at launch.

The outcome

Quarterly statement support dropped from around three days of work to a handful of queries. Document retrieval is now self-service.

Clients migrated onto the portal: 400+Clients migrated onto the portal
Support load per reporting quarter: 3 days → 2 hrsSupport load per reporting quarter
Document access events audited: 100%Document access events audited
Weeks from kickoff to full rollout: 16Weeks from kickoff to full rollout

Gallery

Selected frames

Full image sets and additional documentation are available on request.

Workspace with mountain and city view through full-height glazing — Client testing sessions ran on site

Dark focused desk setup with a monitor showing code — Build environment and audit tooling

Minimal neutral interior with a sculptural table — Reception, where the iPad demo lives

The audit trail alone justified the project. Everything else our clients like about it was a bonus.
Daniel Oosthuizen · Managing Partner, Aureus Capital

Credits