March 2023 Update

In February we rolled out quite a few updates across our workflow, CRM, and invoicing areas. Additionally, there are document and UX updates to help you get through the busy season as smoothly as possible. Let’s dive into these updates and more.

Sneak peek: recurring invoices are around the corner, including the ability to request payment authorization and get paid automatically (credit card or bank debit)

🤖 Workflow

New: @mention teammates in Job comments for more efficient team collaboration

To make collaboration within your firm more efficient, we’ve added the ability to mention colleagues directly in job comments.

Simply type @ and choose your teammate when working on a Job — and you’ll be able to discuss everything on the spot, without leaving the page and get the job done 2x faster.

Mentioned team members will get notified via email and/or Inbox+ when you tag them. They will have the option to reply directly from the notification screen, without going to the Job card — as well as request access to a Job.

With this addition, @mentions will be available on Tasks, Account notes and messages, and we plan to incorporate this functionality across the TaxDome platform.

Learn more about mentions in Jobs in our Help Center>>

Send automated messages to existing threads: new “send message automation” allows you to choose whether you want to send automated client messages as a reply to an existing thread or to create a new one

Our research shows that firms that utilize message automation tend to send multiple messages within the context of a job, alerting clients of updates as the job moves through the firm workflow. With this release, those updates can now be sent to existing chat threads instead of creating a new thread each time.

Keep your chats organized: choose “Reply to latest thread” when creating a “Send message” automation if it’s an update as the job moves through the firm workflow.

As best practice, we recommend updating your automations to sending subsequent messages in a workflow to the thread with the latest activity. And, when creating a new job, the first message would create a new thread.

Sample:

Stage 1: Kickoff message (create new thread)

Stage 2: Update message (reply to existing thread)

Stage 3: Update message (reply to existing thread)

Discover how message automations can make your life easier>>

💰 Invoicing

New: create invoices in bulk

You can now create invoices for many clients at the same time. Simply go to your ‘Clients’ tab, select the accounts you need, click ‘More actions’ in the top-right and choose ‘Create invoice’.

By creating invoices in bulk, this can reduce potential errors and eliminate redundant work.

Get more information about creating bulk invoices>>

Sneak peek: Recurring invoices with payment authorization coming soon. Example: Monthly bookkeeping services, $1000 per month, 12 recurrences, payable via ACH. Client signs and provides account information once. Client will be debited 12 times with no further action required from firm or client.

📞 CRM

Enhanced data export for Jobs, Tasks, Accounts, Contacts, Invoices, Time Entries, and Payments

New comprehensive data export includes all metadata and includes inter-relationships between TaxDome elements. For example, when exporting accounts, you’ll be able to see how many associated jobs exist, etc. 

Data is exported into separate cells for easy analysis and increased reporting capabilities, greater flexibility, and compatibility with commonly used spreadsheet programs. 

More granular control of notification context in email notifications

When sending a message or when you are @mentioned, an e-mail notification is sent. Previously, you had the option to show the message context in e-mail notifications or not, but it was a one-size fits all for both intra-firm and client communications. In your firm settings, you can now choose whether to show the context of client-facing messages and firm-facing messages separately. 

By default, client-facing notifications are toggled off and will be hidden in email notifications and  internal notifications are toggled on and will be visible in email notifications.

See how to manage context in email notifications>> 

Column width & tables

Columns on the most frequently visited pages: clients, documents, jobs have been updated. The name field has been expanded and other fields have been shrunk to ensure that you see more information on the screen. As your screen gets larger, the ‘name’ field widens. Previously, other fields would widen in unison; now they stay fixed (date does not expand more than the predetermined size, for example).

We are in the midst of a global redesign of tables which will have more features, including the ability to control the columns you see (add more than what exists, hide what you don’t need). This is an intermediary step to show you more content in the meantime.

📚 Document Management

Minor improvements

In the past month, we’ve made a number of small improvements to documents.

• “New” indicator updated for files uploaded before Dec 2022 updated to match current algorithm
• ‘Uploaded by’ filter: sort documents by who uploaded them. This filter is available inside the client’s ‘Docs’ tab, as well inside the global ‘Docs’ section (for both ‘Recent’ and ‘Docs’ sub-tabs)
• See which document failed to pass KBA: you can now see which document did not pass knowledge-based authentication (and how many attempts were made) by going to Settings -> Firm Balance -> Audit Trail. This will ensure you see where the money goes for failed authentication attempts
• ‘KBA failed’ instead of ‘Partially signed’: when a firm manager signs a document but the client fails to pass KBA, document status will now be displayed as ‘KBA failed’ — as will the tooltip

🔥 Other

• Learn everything you need to know to use TaxDome for tax preparation: how to configure processes, communicate with clients and more in the course for tax preparers
• Freeze release: we do not release changes in the week ahead of major deadlines – there will be no new releases until after the march 15 deadline
• Have you joined our early access program? Early access members get to use and comment on our new features first. Read about it and join the program>>

All of the above — plus 42 more tweaks and fixes! Join our Facebook Community to ask questions, request features or chat with other TaxDome users. 

In case you missed it, here’s a summary of the major features we covered in our previous post.