💸 Tax Preparation: Initial TaxDome setup

Greetings, Tax Preparer! Lots of your colleagues in tax prep implement similar processes in TaxDome for managing their practices. We are dedicated to our mission of divulging all the secrets about how to set up your TaxDome processes now, so that you reap the rewards hereafter. Now, get ready to read about the most useful features and settings designed to take your tax preparation practice to a new level.

Complete the general onboarding steps before you proceed so that you are familiar with the TaxDome basics.

Tip: Download this Simple Checklist to track your progress.

Use tags to filter accounts or to set up pipelines

Goal: To create custom tags that will put client accounts into a certain workflow. 

Create tags based on the type of services you offer. Some examples could be: Tax, 1040, 1065, 1120, 1099-NEC, Sales tax or Tax planning. You can immediately start applying them while you import. Later, they’ll come in handy when you filter your accounts and set up pipeline automations.

Tax preparation tags are used to group accounts together. After you've tagged your accounts, you gain the following options:

• Filter your client list to find:
• Your individual clients that haven't yet filled out their organizers (i.e. clients that have a "1040" tag and a pending organizer).
• Tax prep clients with overdue invoices (i.e. clients that have "Tax" tag and a pending invoice).
• Tax prep clients who haven't yet signed their engagement letter (i.e. clients that have a "Tax" tag and a pending proposal).
• Prospective clients that have not yet made their initial deposit (i.e. clients that have the "Prospect" and "Tax" tags and a pending invoice).
• Set up automated processes
• Send messages in bulk, etc.

Use a custom folder structure and apply change to it in bulk

Since you already have groups for your clients, you might want to think about how folder structure in Documents > Client docs is different depending on the services you provide.

By default, the folder template that is applied in TaxDome is the Default Tax Years template. It is convenient for preparing taxes. However, many firms add extra subfolders, such as Permanent Tax Docs.

When the year ends, and the new tax season begins, you will need to add an extra year folder for the previous year for all your clients.

This can be done either by creating a new template that includes just one folder or by editing the existing template and applying the change to all accounts linked to that template. We recommend using the second option because it will allow you to use this template both for your new and existing clients. The important thing is that all previously created folders will remain unchanged.

Set up custom fields

You can include additional client data to automate even more processes. That's what custom fields are for.

These fields can include any custom data you are using when working with your clients, such as:

• Company size
• Industry
• Custom name
• Business name
• EIN

Custom fields can be added both to accounts (companies, families) and contacts (individuals).

Custom fields can be used as shortcodes throughout the system in:

• Bulk emails — in the subject line and body
• Email templates — in the subject line and body
• Chat templates
• Job templates
• Proposal templates

Watch this hands-on video to learn how to use custom fields for sending Estimated Tax Payment emails.

Import your company and individual tax clients

The last piece of advice on setting up your CRM so that your practice runs smoothly here is to learn how to import your clients. To do so, create separate spreadsheets for each client group.

Generally, all tax accounts can be divided into two main groups:

• Individual accounts, which are either individuals or married couples filing jointly. Note that in TaxDome, a family account is an individual account with two contacts that are linked to that account:

• Company accounts are corporations, partnerships or other business structures for which you have to file Form 1120, Form 1065, etc. This is a company account type with multiple contacts (that is, persons – such as the owner, CEO, CFO, the employees, etc.) linked to the account:

If you create the spreadsheet on your own, we recommend you set only one contact per row, even when you link several contacts to the same account. This way, import works smoothly.

However, when exporting the client lists from another tax preparation software, you might see instances where a taxpayer and their spouse, as well as all their personal details, are listed in the same row. If that’s the case, don’t waste time copying and pasting data — instead, run the import wizard twice. Here we show you how: