4 Simple Ways to Get Documents from Clients (+3 Hacks to Automate Your Document Flow)

If your tax or accounting firm regularly receives documents from clients, the client document portal software can help you save time, money and boost customer experience all at the same time. The process of sending, reminding, waiting, and then verifying that all documents are received is time- and resource-intensive.

When you create effective ways for clients to upload documents and for employees to monitor documents, it improves your entire business’s workflow.

By using client document portals, you’ll create ways for your clients to upload documents without needing to remind or ping them over and over again. After you receive the client files, you can even use TaxDome to take your portal a step further with tax workflow automation.

4 Ways to Get Client Documents

Client documents are an important part of your tax workflow. You can’t do your job without them. While there are many ways to get the documents you need, you can use centralized platforms like TaxDome for uploading and organizing client documents.

1. Shared Team Inbox and Email Sync

Syncing your email with TaxDome can help streamline the document upload process. When your email is synced, client files will be uploaded to their profile in the TaxDome CRM. No more “download from here and upload it here” for your team — everything is saved automatically.

Sync works as a shared inbox for your team — no need to cc everyone, all team members with access to the client will be able to see your email communication with the client.

When you use a shared team inbox and email sync, you’ll be able to save time while keeping all of your team members in the loop.

2. Organizers and Questionnaires

Another simple way to get client documents is to send questionnaires that require document uploads. You can create questions that require a document upload. If you make these questions required, clients can’t skip these steps.

TaxDome makes it easy to create questionnaires using the Organizers tool. Organizers streamline the onboarding process and make it easy to get the client documents you need without going back and forth multiple times.

Set which clients the Job will be available to, frequency to repeat, start and end dates, add automations.

Creating custom Organizer templates makes it even easier to get documents this way.

• Organizer templates can be sent to several clients at once and using automations, so your team saves valuable time that can be focused on more important tasks.
• Clients are always sent a questionnaire, and important questions aren’t forgotten.
• You can set up automatic reminders that ping forgetful clients for you, so that you don’t have to remember which client owes you an organizer.

Organizers and questionnaires are a great way to get feedback from your clients without the frustrating back-and-forth. Request specific information from your clients using a template, and spend less time trying to get the information you need to do your job.

Choose the best online form building tools to streamline your practice. Learn more in our comparison.

3. Secure Document Upload

Some clients aren’t as tech-savvy as others, but you still need their documents. If clients cannot log into the document portal, you can create a secure link that allows them to drag and drop their files for upload. Once the documents have been submitted, access can be revoked to keep everything secure.

Learn how you can send the request documents from non-techie clients with zero effort from them:

4. To-Do Lists for Clients

Creating to-do lists for client documents can be helpful. Clients can see all of the documents they need to send and check off tasks as they send files.

At TaxDome, you can use secure messages to send checklists. Once clients have checked off all the items on the list, your team receives a notification. This saves valuable time because there’s no need to continually check to see if all of the documents have been submitted.

Checklists are a simple and familiar way to get documents from clients. Here’s how it works:

• Your team sends a direct message with a checklist to a client.
• The client uploads the file into the message.
• They can even scan and share documents right from their mobile phones.
• The file is automatically saved in the client’s account in your CRM.

Team members can send messages manually, or they can be sent automatically through automation to save time. For example, you may automatically send messages with checklists monthly or quarterly to get the documents from your payroll or bookkeeping clients.

3 Hacks to Automate Document Flow

Want to streamline the document upload process and save even more time? Here are three hacks to automate your document flow.

1. Send Out Organizers and To-Dos in Bulk

Most Organizers and checklists are pretty similar — so you can just create them once and send them out to multiple clients in bulk. For example, you would want to ask your bookkeeping clients for bank statements and your tax clients for their previous 1040s.

With TaxDome, you can send all these in bulk, so multiple clients receive the Organizer or checklist at the same time.

Whether you need to remind clients that documents are missing, or you need clients to send over their 1040s, bulk messages and organizers will save valuable time and help keep things organized.

2. Add Tags for Easy Filtering

Clients have to upload various files to your firm, and keeping track of these uploads can be tedious.

With TaxDome, you can apply tags to the clients when they upload specific documents. You can name a tag “Needs 1040” or “Uploaded bank statements” so that you can easily filter them later on.

3. Automated Reminders

Sometimes, clients need a reminder to send over their documents. With TaxDome, you can set automatic reminders for forgetful clients. When and how often you send these reminders is completely up to you.

For example, if a client doesn’t respond to your “please, upload documents” message within four days, they will get a little reminder message. You can also control how often reminders are sent out, so you’re not bombarding client inboxes with messages.

Setting up auto-reminders in TaxDome.

Reminders save your team from having to make phone calls or send follow-up emails manually. Typically, all it takes is one or two reminder emails to get clients to respond and submit their documents.

Wrapping Up

Client documents are an essential part of an accounting or tax firm’s daily operations. When you have the right systems in place, you can help nudge your clients along to provide the right documents, streamline the document process, and keep all employees in the loop when client accounts are ready for the next step.