Accountants and tax preparers have to manage a whole host of documents, especially during tax season. They need to get a variety of documents from their clients and need to give their clients completed returns, and related reports.
Most tax preparers get their clients’ documents by meeting with them face to face. The preparer very often sends a checklist to the client before the meeting to remind them of which documents they need to bring. However, clients don’t always bring all of the necessary documents. They might not be able to find them in time, or they might not have received them from their employers or payers. The preparer then has to get these documents from the client in piece meal fashion. The client might (Click) mail, (Click) fax or (Click) email the documents to their preparer as they find or receive them. With all of these methods the preparer’s main concern is time. It may take days or even weeks to get all of the needed documents from their clients, and this slows down the preparers work.
Once the preparer has finished preparing the client’s return. They have to get the return to the client for the client’s approval before the return can be filed. They do this a number of ways. Preparers might mail, fax, email or even hand deliver the client’s return.
Each of these methods has issues that can be troubling and expensive to preparers. (Click) Mailing the return costs the preparer for paper, and postage. It can also be a very slow process. (Click) Faxing the return may also cost paper and because there is no guarantee that the client is standing at the fax machine waiting to pick up their return, there are potential security issues with faxing returns. (Click) Some firms will hand deliver returns or use a courier service to deliver them. This can cost paper and time, and courier services can be expensive. (Click) While email may offer the fastest and least expensive option, many preparers have security concerns about sending tax documents through commercial ISP’s or web-based email providers like Google and Yahoo. Email also does not offer the best organization of the client’s documents.
Preparers need a solution for exchanging documents with their clients that is: (Click) Fast. They don’t want to have to spend valuable time waiting for their clients to deliver or mail documents to them. (Click) Secure. They are truly concerned with protecting their client’s identities and financial information (Click) Inexpensive. Preparers want to be able to save money on paper, toner and postage when communicating with their clients. (Click) Easy for their clients. A document exchange solution must be easy for their clients to use. If their client’s reject the solution it won’t have any value to the preparer.
Intuit can solve this customer pain by offering just such a solution. Tax preparers using our Intuit Online Document Exchange can gain productivity with a secure centralized solution. This will help them: (Click) Save time and money be getting the documents that they need from their clients faster and without needing to use paper or postage (Click) Instead of spending time with their clients trying to track down documents, they can focus on creating more efficient interactions that will improve their client relationships (Click) Have the peace of mind provided by a fast, secure, reliable tool for exchanging documents with clients.
The key limitation to this service is currently in the size of each customer’s vault. (Click) 10 0MB limit on individual file size (This should adequately handle 90% of QuickBooks users’ files.) There is currently no limit on the client’s folder size or the firm’s vault size. But do not advertise this fact – this might be a potential selling point in the future. (Click) Integration with DMS will not be part of the initial release, although the Import feature in DMS will still enable accountants to add files downloaded from IODE into their document databases. (Click) The initial release of IODE will only support Internet Explorer version 6.0 and above. (Note: We have tested firefox and it works, but we are not advertising or officially supporting firefox at this time).
Each client will also have a Client view of their secure area where they can upload files for their accountant and download files from their accountant. (Click) This will enable the accountant to Stay in control of the Client Data Collection process by allowing clients to upload needed docs to the portal. Delight clients by giving them 24/7 self-service access to their own documents, such as a prior year tax returns
Online Document Exchange is accessed by the accountant’s client through the firm’s website which was created by the Setup Wizard. The accountant’s client is provided with the website address in the invitation email that they receive from their accountant. The client should receive their PIN information from their accountant (preferably verbally).
The customer will enter the (click) Invitation ID and PIN number (which was established by their accountant) into the appropriate fields and then click (click) “Validate”.
The next screen will prompt the customer to Login with an Intuit Online account, which we assume they will create. Any of the selections, Yes, No, or I don’t know, will take the customer to the Login screen. If they click NO, the client can select the New Customers, “Create an Account” selection.
The customer will then create and enter their Intuit Online username and password, and click “Login” to proceed.
The first tab is for: Files Sent to My Accountant The File List section displays all of the files sent to the client’s accountant by Date and Description. Just like the accountant’s view, the files here can be sorted by clicking on the column header for the desired field.
To upload a file, click the Browse button and select the document(s) to place in the Vault. After selecting the documents, it is recommended to add a Description of the file, then click the Upload button which will complete the process.
The second tab is for: Files From My Accountant The file list here displays a listing of the files sent to the client by their accountant and can be sorted in the same way as described previously.