Docs (Basic): Request E-Feedback (Approve/Disapprove) from Clients

To make sure your clients are satisfied or to find out whether they need anything else, you can request approval for the 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, they will be prompted to tell you why. This way, you’ll immediately know what to address.

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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
• Seeing Which Accounts Have Docs With Pending Approvals
• Finding Out Why a Client Has Rejected a Document
• Linking Docs Pending Approval to Jobs and Using Automove

How to Request an Approval

If you’d 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 folder with Client can view access level or when editing a document that has been already uploaded. To do so, turn on the Request client approval toggle, then set up the reminders.

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.

In case recipients take too much time performing the action item or if they forget to, you can either:

• manually resend a notification on the pending document OR
• set up automatic reminders

Manual Reminders (Resend)

You can also manually send reminders for pending approvals:

1. Go to your Docs tab from the left sidebar menu and open the Approvals subtab, then click the Request Approval for Pending button.
2. Review and edit the message for the client (optional), then click the Send Request button.

Here's what happens:

• An additional email message is sent to the client.
• A portal notification for this item will be moved to the top of the client's to-do items (this is not valid for file requests because there's no notification for them).

Automatic Reminders

You can turn on the reminder feature when uploading a document you’ve decided will require approval or anytime later by clicking the three-dots icon to the far right of the document’s name, then selecting Edit. When the reminder feature is enabled, an additional email to a client if they do not approve the document within a certain time frame. Once you turn on the reminder 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 have been sent.
• ...the client has approved the document.

How Approvals Look on the Client’s Side

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

The files awaiting feedback are displayed on the client’s portal in their Documents tab inside the Pending Approval subtab. Watch this demo to see how a client approves a document:

If you’d like to see TaxDome from the client’s side, access a read-only view of their portal.

Linking Docs Pending Approval to Jobs and Using Automove

This section applies to TaxDome Pro! pricing plan only. You can upgrade anytime.

To enhance your workflow, link documents pending approval to jobs so that they are immediately available in your pipelines. Plus, you can turn on the Automove Jobs toggle so that once the client approves a doc, the job automatically moves to the next stage in the pipeline.

Here’s how it works:

1. Access the pipeline settings, add the stage for the document pending approval, then turn on the Automove Jobs toggle. You don’t need to add automations.

2. Go to the pipeline, make sure that the job is in the right stage, then link the document pending approval to it: Click the job box, click + Link at the top, select Documents, click the folder and choose the file(s), then click Link.

That's it! Once the client approves the document, the job automatically moves to the next stage in the pipeline. And if you move the job manually, you can always decide what needs to be done with the linked document.

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 an email. You’ll also get a notification in your Inbox+. Click on the document’s name or Go to... link to view it.

Note! Change notification preferences whenever you need to.

You can always check a document’s status by going to the Docs tab. Learn more about document statuses here.

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

Managing Approvals Inside Client Accounts

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

To use filters:

1. Go to Docs in the account profile, then click the FILTER button.

2. Narrow the list of documents for the account by selecting 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 received client approval.
• Rejected: all documents that were rejected by the client.

3. Click Apply.

The list of documents is then filtered.

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

Here, you’ll see the following information:

• Document name: the document’s name along with an icon showing the file type.

• Request date: the date the client’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. Learn more about document statuses here.

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

Seeing Which Accounts Have Docs With Pending Approvals

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

1. Go to Clients, then click the FILTER button.
2. Select Pending in the Approvals section, then click the Apply button at the bottom of the page.

Finding Out Why a Client Has Rejected a Document

If a client is not entirely satisfied with a document you’ve prepared, TaxDome prompts them to tell you why. To view a client’s feedback, click on the document’s name. To the right of the document, you’ll find a Disapproval Reasons list with the client’s comments.

Click CLOSE to return to the document list.