Tax Preparation: Client Communication

As one of our clients put it: “Proper time management and client communication allow an experienced tax professional to handle each tax return only one time.” Here, you'll find a cheat sheet with the most helpful tips on how you can achieve this.

Covered here:

• Send Personalized Emails
• Schedule Emails
• Let Your Clients Book an Appointment Right from Their Client Portal
• Docs Gathering
• Automated Collecting With Organizers
• Finalizing Docs Package
• Use Embedded PDF Tools to Prepare and Review Returns

Send Personalized Emails

Regular and personalized communication protects your client interaction from chaos and brings peace of mind.

The following TaxDome features will help a lot:

• Email templates. Prepare an email template for each time you need to communicate with clients. Use our templates library for easy start.
• Use shortcodes for personalization - you don't have to compose every email manually.
• Send personalized emails in bulk (i.e. when you need to inform a group of clients about something).
• Send automated emails (i.e. notifications when your job is moving through a pipeline).

Schedule Emails

You can also plan automated email sending if you know exactly when it should be sent. Write it in advance and specify the date and time for the dispatch. For more details, go here.

Based on the experience of other firms that are using our system, we recommend you use this feature for tax season kickoff email to inform clients about:

• Changes in your practice/services this year
• Your office hours
• How your clients can reach you
• Info on a deposit you require to start your work
• How do you make sure their documents are secure
• How clients can access their client portal

Let Your Clients Book an Appointment Right from Their Client Portal

You can save the time usually spent on booking a call. Go to the  Settings page, select the Integrations tab, then click on the Scheduler subtab. Here, you can set up TaxDome integration with Acuity, Calendly, YouCanBook.Me, and Schedulista. For more details, go here.

Even though your clients will be able to schedule appointments using the button on the top right of their portal, we recommend you create an email with instructions for them.

Docs Gathering

Getting documents together is a routine repeated with every client. Also, it's a source of surprises like missing docs in the middle of the return preparation. With TaxDome, you can set up the documents collecting process and make your clients to follow it. See our advices below:

• Automated Collecting With Organizers
• Finalizing Docs Package

Automated Collecting With Organizers

PDF form with a request is a common way to collect info and documents from your client, but it's also outdated and inefficient. TaxDome provides you with organizers, which can be easily automated and set up to your needs.

To use organizers smarter than ever, explore the following features:

• Conditional logic. Set the conditions to skip the questions that are not applicable.

• Additional sections. Let your clients copy the sections that may be repeated (e.g. the address for both spouses).

• Explanations for questions. Add a description to your questions so that your clients know what exactly is required from them.

• Text blocks. Add text blocks to describe each section in detail or to convey important information.

Finalizing Docs Package

Always follow the rule: begin your return preparation only after you received all the client's documents.

We made a couple of recommendations here:

• Open the client's organizer or documents only after you got a notification that all the documents are uploaded to TaxDome. Your clients have the Notify firm if you are done uploading checkbox for that.
• Turn off notifications in organizers on document uploads so you are not distracted prematurely.

• Ask your clients to send an email to you once they're finished uploading, or take it one step further by using automations and client tasks in messages.

• Make a separate stage for confirmation message automation in your pipeline.

• Create a message template to request that your clients confirm that they are done uploading documents — and add a client task there.

• Charge a fee for unanswered organizers or organizers submitted after the deadline.

Use Embedded PDF Tools to Prepare and Review Returns

TaxDome provides you with embedded PDF Tools suitable for viewing, editing, markup, collaboration, and more. To keep docs handy you can use these life hacks:

• Merge documents right inside TaxDome in case your client scanned them as single files.

• Use stamps when reviewing PDFs for your team to ensure that docs were checked.