Contacts & guardians

Add parents, guardians, emergency contacts, and other related persons to a client's profile. Contacts are especially important for minor clients, where a guardian typically needs portal access, billing responsibility, and the ability to complete intake forms.

In this guide, we'll cover:

• Adding a contact
• Working with minor clients
• Portal access for contacts
• Billing responsibility
• Sending intake forms to minors and guardians
• Editing a contact
• Deleting a contact
• Emergency contacts
• Relationship types

Adding a contact

1. Open the client's profile and click Edit
2. Go to the Contacts tab
3. Click Add Contact
4. Enter the contact's information:
   • First name and Last name
   • Relationships — select one or more from the dropdown (e.g., Parent, Mother, Father, Guardian, Emergency Contact, Next of Kin, Grandparent, Stepparent, Caregiver, Spouse, Sibling, Friend, Domestic Partner, or Other)
   • Email Address — required for portal access and intake form delivery
   • Phone Number — must be at least 10 digits
   • Street Address — street, city, state, and ZIP
   • Notes — free-text notes about the contact
5. Set optional flags:
   • Responsible for billing — designates this contact as the guarantor on billing documents
   • Once you've entered an email, the Portal Permissions and Appointment reminders sections appear below (see Portal access for contacts)
6. Click Add Contact

tip

You can add multiple contacts to a single client. This is useful when a minor has divorced parents or multiple guardians who each need separate portal access.

Working with minor clients

How minors are identified

When you enter a date of birth that makes the client under 18, Practice Harbor automatically displays a Minor (under 18) label next to the date of birth field. A yellow banner also appears on the Client Info tab:

"This client is a minor. Remember to add a parent or guardian in the Contacts tab."

You pick the Minor client type when creating the client; the minor banner and related prompts key off the client type or an under-18 date of birth.

Setting up a minor client

1. Add the client with their own name and date of birth
2. Click Edit on the client's profile
3. Go to the Contacts tab
4. Click Add Contact and enter the parent or guardian's information
5. Select a relationship type such as Parent, Mother, Father, or Guardian
6. Enter the guardian's email address (required for portal access and intake forms)
7. Check Responsible for billing if this guardian should be the guarantor
8. Click Add Contact

note

A minor client's email and phone fields should only be filled in if the minor has contact information separate from their parent or guardian. In most cases, leave these blank on the minor's own profile and enter the parent's contact details on the contact record instead.

Adding multiple guardians

You can add more than one guardian to a minor client. Each guardian can have:

• Their own portal access
• Their own email for intake form delivery
• Billing responsibility (only one contact can be the guarantor at a time)

To add a second guardian, return to the Contacts tab and click Add Contact again.

Portal access for contacts

Guardians and other contacts can receive their own portal login to view appointments, complete intake forms, and send secure messages on behalf of the client.

Inviting a contact to the portal

1. Open the client's profile and click Edit

2. Go to the Contacts tab

3. Click Send Portal Invitation (the mail icon) on the contact's card

4. If the client's chart already has forms, a checklist appears. Tick any the contact should be able to open once they sign in, then click Invite and share. Nothing is ticked for you, and you can click Invite without forms to grant access alone. A chart with no forms sends the invitation straight away.

   

5. The contact receives an email invitation to create their portal account

The same checklist appears when you click Invite guardian on the client's Portal tab. A contact who already has access can be given more forms later with Share forms on that tab.

Each contact's card shows their relationship and billing badges, their portal state (no badge means not yet invited, Portal Invited means sent but not yet accepted, Portal Active means signed in), and a reminder line that reads Will not receive appointment reminders until you turn reminders on for that contact. Use Resend Portal Invitation if the email went missing.

Contact portal permissions

When adding or editing a contact, the Portal Permissions section (shown once the contact has an email) sets what the contact can do in the portal:

• View client's upcoming appointments
• Request new appointments for client
• Send & receive secure messages
• Access billing documents
• Pay balance with credit card

All five default to enabled, but they only take effect once you send the contact a portal invitation, and they only control what the contact can see when they sign in. None of them sends the contact anything.

Appointment reminders for a contact

Below the portal permissions is a separate checkbox, Send this contact the client's appointment reminder emails. It is off for every contact until you turn it on, and it does not need portal access, so a parent can get reminders without ever signing in. Turn it on for a parent or guardian who brings a child to sessions. For an adult client, turn it on only with a release of information on file.

A minor client who has no email address of their own gets reminders only this way: tick the box on the parent or guardian you want reminded. Nothing is sent to a parent automatically, because only you know which parent should hear about a young client's sessions.

Revoking portal access

1. Go to the Contacts tab in the client's edit page
2. Click Disable Portal Access (the lock icon) on the contact's card
3. Confirm in the dialog

The contact will immediately lose access to the client's portal. You can re-invite them later if needed.

note

If you delete a contact who has active portal access, their portal access is automatically revoked.

Billing responsibility

You can designate a contact as the responsible party for a client's billing. This is common for minor clients where a parent handles payment.

1. Open the client's profile and click Edit
2. Go to the Contacts tab
3. Click the Edit (pencil) icon on the contact's card (or set it when adding a new contact)
4. Check Responsible for billing
5. Click Save Changes

Only one contact can be the billing guarantor at a time. If another contact already holds it, the checkbox says so ("Currently assigned to … Checking this will reassign billing responsibility"), and saving moves it to this contact. Unchecking it on the current guarantor hands billing back to the client.

Sending intake forms to minors and guardians

Practice Harbor includes a dedicated intake wizard for minor clients that lets you send different forms to the minor and each of their guardians.

Using the minor intake wizard

1. Start intake for the minor — from the Clients list row menu (⋮ → Start Intake Workflow), or on their profile with New → Send Intake
2. Because the client is a minor, the Minor Intake Wizard opens, with the following steps:

Step 1: Select Recipients Choose who should receive intake forms. The wizard lists the minor client and all contacts with an email address. Check or uncheck each recipient.

Step 2: Select Documents (per recipient) For each selected recipient, choose what they get — the same four sections as an adult intake: Questionnaires, Consent Forms, Scored Measures, and Demographics & Credit Card (the demographics answers save to the minor's profile; the card request goes to the recipient)

You can assign different forms to the minor and their guardian. For example, send a demographic questionnaire to the guardian and a self-report assessment to the minor (if old enough).

Step 3: Compose Emails Customize the email that each recipient will receive. Guardian emails automatically use guardian-specific templates with macros like:

• {guardian_first_name} — the guardian's first name
• {minor_first_name} and {minor_full_name} — the minor client's name
• {clinician_full_name} and {practice_name} — your practice details
• {practice_client_portal_login_link} — link to the portal login

Step 4: Review and Send Review all recipients, their assigned forms, and email content. Click Share & Send Now to deliver everything at once.

Sharing additional documents later

You can share documents with a minor and their guardians at any time, not just during initial intake:

1. Open the minor client's profile
2. Click New → Share Documents
3. The same wizard opens in "share" mode
4. Select recipients, choose documents, and send

Each recipient can be included or excluded individually.

Editing a contact

1. Open the client's profile and click Edit
2. Go to the Contacts tab
3. Click the Edit (pencil) icon on the contact's card
4. Update any fields
5. Click Save Changes

Deleting a contact

1. Open the client's profile and click Edit
2. Go to the Contacts tab
3. Click the Delete (trash) icon on the contact's card
4. Confirm the deletion

When a contact is deleted:

• Their portal access is automatically revoked
• If they were the billing guarantor, billing responsibility goes back to the client
• An audit log entry is created

Emergency contacts

Give at least one contact the Emergency Contact relationship type. Until you do, the Contacts tab shows a yellow No Emergency Contact alert — "Consider adding an emergency contact for this client." (visible in the screenshot above).

An emergency contact is for you to reach in an emergency. Adding one, with or without an email address, does not tell them anything about the client's appointments or billing. They receive appointment reminders only if you turn on Send this contact the client's appointment reminder emails for them, which usually calls for a release of information on file.

Relationship types

Practice Harbor supports the following relationship types:

Relationship	Description
Emergency Contact	Primary emergency contact
Next of Kin	Next of kin
Guardian	Legal guardian
Parent	Parent (general)
Mother	Mother
Father	Father
Spouse	Spouse
Sibling	Sibling
Child	Child
Grandparent	Grandparent
Stepparent	Stepparent
Friend	Friend
Caregiver	Caregiver
Domestic Partner	Domestic partner
Other	Other relationship

You can assign multiple relationship types to a single contact (e.g., both "Mother" and "Emergency Contact").

Related

• Adding a client
• Client portal
• Intake forms
• Couples and family therapy