💸 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
• Collecting documents
• Automated collection using organizers
• Finalizing the docs
• Use embedded PDF tools to prepare and review returns

Send personalized emails

Regular and personalized communication brings peace of mind to both you and your client. You know that they are informed; they feel like you are reaching out regularly.

The following TaxDome features will help you streamline your interactions:

• Email templates. Prepare an email template for each time you need to communicate with clients. Use our templates library for an 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 for emails to be sent automatically if you know exactly when they should be sent. Write your emails in advance and specify the date and time for the dispatch. Here's more on scheduling ahead.

Based on the experience of other firms that are using our system, we recommend you use this feature for the 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 the deposit you require to start your work
• How 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 you usually spend scheduling a call. Go to the  Settings page, select the Integrations tab, then click on the Scheduler subtab. Here, you can set up the 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 a separate email with instructions on how to schedule an appointment.

Collecting documents

Getting documents together is a routine you repeat with every client. Also, it can be a source of surprises -- like figuring out that there are missing docs in the midst of tax return prep. With TaxDome, you can set up the documents collecting process and make sure that your clients follow it. See our advice below:

• Automated collection using organizers
• Finalizing the docs

Automated collection using organizers

The most common way to collect info and documents from your clients is via PDF. However, this is also outdated and inefficient. TaxDome provides you with organizers, which can be easily automated and set up to your needs.

Using organizers can save you lots of time and trouble -- explore the following features to see:

• Conditional logic: set the conditions to skip the questions that are not applicable

• Additional sections: let your clients copy the sections that repeat (e.g. the address for both spouses)

• Explanations for questions: add a description to your questions so that your clients know exactly what's required from them

• Text blocks: add text blocks to describe each section in detail or to convey important information

Finalizing the docs

Always follow this rule: begin your return preparation only after you've received all of the documents from.

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 chats.

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

• Create a chat 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 hacks:

• Merge documents right inside TaxDome if your client scanned them as single files

• Use stamps when reviewing PDFs so that your team knows which docs have been checked