Request Electronic Feedback: Approve and Disapprove Documents

To make sure the client is satisfied or find out whether they need anything further, you can request approval for documents you’ve worked on. For example, you’ll want to know whether you filled in everything correctly or missed something. 

If a client is not entirely satisfied with your work, they will be prompted to itemize the reasons why, so that you’ll immediately know what to tackle.

Covered in this article:

• How to Request Approvals
• Reminding Clients About Pending Approvals
• How Approvals Look on the Client’s Side
• How Do I Know That a Client Has Approved or Disapproved a Document?
• Managing Approvals Inside Client Accounts
• How to See Which Client Accounts Have Pending Approvals
• Finding Out Why a Client Has Rejected a Document

How to Request an Approval

If you would like to get a client’s approval for a service, you’ll need to enable the approval feature when you’re uploading a file to the Public location or moving one there. To do so, turn on the Request client approval toggle.

Reminding Clients About Pending Approvals

Your clients get an email notification when you send them a document that needs to be approved. However, sometimes clients delay in approving documents or giving feedback.

Enable the Reminders option when uploading a document you’ve decided needs approval. When this is enabled, an additional email goes out to the client if they do not approve the document within a certain time frame. Once you enabled the Reminders feature, you can configure it:

• Inactivity Threshold, Days: Remind the client after x days of inactivity. By default, a reminder is sent three days after the document was uploaded.

• Limit to: Send up to x number of reminders. By default, the client gets only one reminder email.

Reminders stop when...

• The client has not approved the document and the set number of reminders has been reached.
• The client has approved the document.

You can also manually send reminders for pending approvals:

1. Go to your Docs tab from the left sidebar and open the Approvals subtab, then click the REQUEST APPROVAL FOR PENDING button.
2. Review and edit the message for the client account (optional), then click the SEND REQUEST button.

How Approvals Look on the Client’s Side

Once you’ve sent documents that need approval, the client will receive a notification on their dashboard and also at the email address listed  for their account notifications. 

The files awaiting for their feedback will be displayed on the client’s portal in the Documents tab under the Pending Approval subtab. See below how a client approves a document:

You can access a read-only view of a client account portal to experience TaxDome from the client’s side.

How Do I Know That a Client Has Approved or Disapproved a Document?

Once a client has approved or disapproved a document, you’ll receive a notification by email. You’ll also get a notification in your Inbox+. Click on the document’s name or Go to... link to view it.

Note: You can change notification preferences if you need to.

You can always check a document’s status by going to the  Docs tab from the left sidebar and opening the Public subtab. Learn more about available document statuses here.

The document’s audit trail also shows whether the client approved or disapproved a file.

Managing Approvals Inside Client Accounts

To manage a client account’s approvals, use filters or navigate to the separate Approvals subtab.

To use filters:

1. Go to Docs in the client’s profile, then click on the FILTER button.

2. Narrow the list of documents belonging to the client account by selecting from the available filters in the Approvals section. You can apply one or more filters, depending on what you’re looking for.

• All: all documents that have requests for approval
• Pending Payment: all documents with invoices locked to them that are awaiting payment
• Pending Approval: all documents that are awaiting client approval
• Approved: all documents that have client approval
• Rejected: all documents that were rejected by the client

3. Click APPLY.

The list of documents will be narrowed to your specifications.

To see a list of all documents that have requests for approval, go to Docs in the client’s profile, then open the Approvals subtab.

The following information can be found here:

• Document name: the document’s name. An icon showing the file type appears next to it.

• Request date: the date that the account’s approval was requested. This date usually matches the document’s upload date. However, you can also request approval for a document that has already been uploaded by editing the document.

• Uploaded by: the name of the team member who uploaded the document

• Description: a description of the document if one was added when the document was uploaded (optional)

• Status: the status of the document. There are four colors that indicate the status: gray is for Pending Payment, brown for Pending Approval, green for Approved, and red for Rejected.

• Disapproved: If a client has disapproved a document, the date that the document was rejected will appear in this column.

How to See Which Client Accounts Have Pending Approvals

You can easily filter your client account list to see which ones have pending approvals. 

1. Go to Clients, then click the FILTER button.
2. Select Pending in the Approvals section, then click the APPLY button.

Finding Out Why a Client Has Rejected a Document

If a client is not entirely satisfied with a document you’ve prepared, TaxDome lets them explain why. To view a client’s feedback, click on the document’s name or the eye icon. To the right side of the document’s content, you will see a numbered list beneath Disapproval Reasons with the client’s need for changes.  

Click CLOSE to return to the list of documents.