• Uploading a New Tax Organizer
• Editing an Already “Published” Tax Organizer
• Exporting Client Response Data
• Importing Client Data
• Logging into the Tax Organizer
• Setting it Up & Email Notification
• Editing the Default Tax Organizer
• Creating a New Tax Organizer From Scratch
• Adding a Section and Questions
• Publishing – Putting on Hold – Drafting a Tax Organizer
• Managing Client Accounts
• View/Edit Client Responses

Overview

The Online Interactive Tax Organizer is a dynamic web application that allows your clients to organize their tax information online, saving you time when preparing their taxes. You and your clients can securely access your client’s tax information anytime from anywhere, eliminating the time and expense involved in mailing paper organizers.

Logging into the Tax Organizer In order to log in to the Tax Organizer, click the “Login” button on the top of your website. If you don’t see the “login” button, click on the “login” link located on the bottom of your site. If you haven’t setup your portal yet, please see Portal Help.

Now select the “Tax Organizer” heading and you will be brought to the Interactive Tax Organizer Menu

Setting it Up & Email Notification The “Setup Main Menu” link allows you to edit the information that appears on the welcome page of your Tax Organizer. Starting at the top, you are asked to enter a name for your organizer, i.e. “Tax Organizer”, “Forms Page”, “Forms”, etc. Remember, whatever name you choose will appear both at the top of the page and on the button or navigation link.

After you’ve made any necessary changes to the body text of the Tax Organizer Welcome Page, make sure to enter your email address in the space designated to send email notifications.

You can easily monitor your clients’ activity in the Tax Organizer by receiving email notifications when a new client registers, when a client starts a new tax organizer, and when a client submits a tax organizer. When you have everything the way you like it, click “Save”.

Editing the Default Tax Organizer

You cannot edit a tax organizer on “Hold” or a “Published” tax organizer until you convert it to “Draft” status Click here for information on editing a tax organizer that is already published or on hold). A “Draft” tax organizer is an editable tax organizer that is still under construction and not viewable by clients.

Click the “Edit” icon, which is a pencil, in order to make changes to the default Tax Organizer.

In order to edit a question or section of the default tax organizer, scroll down to the questions and click the pencil icon next to the section or question you wish to edit.

In the Edit Question page you can re-arrange the section number or question number of the question. You can also change the text for the question and the type of answer field that it requires.

Make sure to check the respective boxes if the question is mandatory or you need to encrypt the response. It is a good idea to encrypt responses for highly secure information. However, the more fields that you encrypt, the slower your Organizer’s performance will be.

Click “Save” to save your changes and you’ll be brought back to the “Edit Form” page.

Creating a New Tax Organizer From Scratch

A list of Tax Organizers shows up on the “Manage Organizers” page. To add a new tax organizer to the list, click the “Create a New Organizer” link.

Enter information such as the title of the tax organizer, a description, and confirmation page/email text.

A confirmation page is text that will appear after users submit their completed tax organizer. It is a good place to thank them for completing the organizer and you can also let them know that they can return to their tax organizer and edit their answers.

Select the checkbox titled “Send client confirmation email upon form submission with the following text:” if you’d like to have the tax organizer send your client a confirmation email.

Notice that you can enter the text for the Confirmation email. The Confirmation Email can be used to remind your client of any additional steps needed after completing the organizer like setting an appointment or sending a hard copy of receipts.

Enter the text for your default email that will automatically be sent out to any client who submits a tax organizer. You can also select whether you want the section and question numbers to display when a client views the tax organizer.

Now click “Create Organizer” and the new tax organizer shows up in your list of tax organizers.

Uploading a New Tax Organizer

A Tax Organizer can also be uploaded using a CSV (Comma Seperated Value) file. If you want to create your own tax organizer, open Microsoft Excel and enter your organizer questions into the first row of the Excel table. Note: In order for a CSV file to upload successfully, all questions must be in a single row.

Once you have all of the questions entered, save the tax organizer as a CSV file. To do this, click Save and then select the option to save as a CSV file.

Go back to the “Manage Organizers” page of your Tax Organizer and click “Upload An Organizer Using A CSV File”.

Before the tax organizer can be created, you need to map the answer fields for each question in the CSV file. This is necessary so that the tax organizer can provide the proper spacing and options to correctly answer each question. Also, don’t forget to enter a name for your tax organizer.

Adding a New Section and Questions

Now that we know how to make a new tax organizer, let’s learn how to edit it by adding a new section. In order to make edits to a Draft tax organizer, simply click the pencil icon next to the tax organizer you want to edit. You can edit any of the information that you entered when creating the tax organizer and you can also make changes to the sections and questions in the tax organizer.

Click the “Add Section” button and a new section is created where you can enter questions.

Now let’s add some questions to your new tax organizer by clicking the “Add Question” underneath the Section that you just created.

Start by either selecting the question number or accepting the default, which is simply in the order the questions are entered. The number 1.1.1 stands for Page 1, Section 1, Question 1. Select whether you want the question to be mandatory and whether you want to encrypt the response. Clients will not be able to move forward without filling in a response for a mandatory question.

It is a good idea to encrypt responses for highly secure information. However, the more fields that you encrypt, the slower your Organizer’s performance will be. Encrypting causes the server to pause to encrypt and unencrypt for viewing in-tax organizers. Therefore, encrypt only those fields that require encryption in order to maximize your client’s positive online experience.

Enter the question and then select what type of question it is by clicking the pull down menu. It is important to select what kind of question you’re asking so that the Tax Organizer can provide the correct spacing and support for answers. Let’s say you want to add a short answer question. Scroll down until you find the question type that says “Open Question (short answer)”. If you want to add a Yes/No question, select “Radio Buttons (Yes/no)”.

Once you have entered all of the sections and questions that you want the tax organizer to contain, click the “Save Changes” button and you’ll be brought back
to the “Manage Organizers” page.

If you want to preview exactly what the tax organizer will look like when you publish it, click the Preview icon, which is a picture of an eye. Note:
The place markers (i.e. “Organizer Title”, “Page Title”, “Section Summary”, etc.) will not appear in your published tax organizer. They are simply in the preview
to assist you in designing your tax organizer.

Publishing – Putting on Hold – Drafting a Tax Organizer

Once you have your tax organizer the way you like it and you want to make it available to your clients, select the box next to the tax organizer title and then hit “Publish”. To publish more than one tax organizer at once, select as many boxes as necessary next to the tax organizer titles.

If you no longer want a tax organizer to be available to your clients, select the box next to the tax organizer title and click the “Put on Hold” button. If you don’t need to make any more changes to a draft tax organizer, you can put it on hold using the same process.

Editing an Already “Published” Tax Organizer

Let’s say that you have edits that you want to make to a “Published” tax organizer or a tax organizer on hold. In order to convert the tax organizer to Draft status, you must make a duplicate of the tax organizer. Click the edit icon next to the tax organizer you want to duplicate and then scroll down to the bottom where it says “Duplicate Form”.

Enter a title for the “new” tax organizer and then hit “Duplicate”.

As you can see, the original tax organizer still exists on the “Manage Organizers” page, but a duplicate with Draft status has also been created.

Note: Once a tax organizer has been “Published” it can not be edited without making a duplicate copy.

Managing Client Accounts

Click the “Manage Responses” page in order to monitor your clients tax organizer submissions.

Adding/Editing Client Accounts

Clients are organized in a comprehensive list including their name and optional client number. The pencil icon next to a client allows you to edit that client’s Login Information.

Clients can be added to the Tax Organizer by creating a Portal Account for them. Help on how to
do so can be found here

Emailing Client’s Login Credentials

You can email your client’s login credentials directly to them by clicking “Email Login Info”. This is a useful tool if a client forgets his/her username and password.

Removing a Client Account
If you want to delete a client’s account from the Tax Organizer, click the “Delete” button. Otherwise, click Save and you’ll be brought back to the “Manage Responses” page.

View/Edit Client Response

Click the Submissions icon next to a client’s name to view a summary of the client’s activity.

From this page you can see which tax organizers a client has viewed, completed or are in progress. By clicking “In-Form” in the Review category, you can view the date that the tax organizer was submitted by the client, and view and edit the client’s responses.

Exporting Client Response Data

“CSV” (Comma Separated Value) allows you to see your clients responses in a table format and export the data to another software. To export a tax organizer response in CSV format, click “CSV” under the “Export” column. You can either save it to disk or open it with the default application, Microsoft Excel.

Importing Client Data

You can also import client data from your computer or tax programs. In order to import client data (anything from name, address, phone numbers to social security numbers) into the Tax Organizer, you must save/export the data as a Microsoft Excel CSV file.

Note: In order for a CSV file to upload successfully, all questions must be in a single row, and all answers must be in a single row directly below the question row. The CSV file should look like this:

Once you have a CSV file on your computer that contains the client data you want to import, click “CSV” in the “Import” column.

Click “Browse” and search through your computer until you’ve found the CSV file that you want to upload. Click “Upload File” and the CSV file will be uploaded into the Tax Organizer.

Before the CSV file is fully uploaded into the Tax Organizer, the questions must be mapped. Mapping the CSV file responses is important in order for the Tax Organizer to determine which answers match up with each question.

Once imported, you can view the submission by clicking “In-form” or print by clicking the print icon.

• Overview
• Logging into the Vault
• Managing Client Accounts
• Organizing Files in File Cabinets
• Breadcrumbs
• Email Notifications
• Creating Folders
• Sending Files to the Vault
• Ordering More Storage Space
• Downloading Files from the Vault
• Renaming, Moving And Deleting Files
• Previous File Versions
• Pop-Up Header Icons
• Search
• Activity and Usage Reports

Overview

The Vault is the successor to the Document Manager in an effort to bring you the fastest, most secure data storage online.

The Vault provides your clients with anytime/anywhere access to vital company information like employee data, corporation papers, legal documents, tax returns, financial statements, and scanned source documents.

Any file can be placed in the Vault, including: extremely large QuickBooks Backup Files, Microsoft Word Documents, PDF Documents, Excel Spreadsheets, Video Files, Music and Audio Files. All files on the Online Document Storage System are backed up daily and archived in our secure data-center.

In addition, gold and platinum clients can upload files to the Vault right from their desktop with just one click. They can also set a backup schedule to have important documents automatically uploaded to the Vault one a schedule of their choosing.

Logging into the Vault

In order to log in to the Vault, click the “Login” button on the top of your website. If you don’t see the “login” button, click on the “login” link located on the bottom of your site. If you haven’t setup your portal yet, please see Portal Help.

Now click the Secure File Exchange button to load the Vault.

Managing Client Accounts

Both firm accounts and client accounts are given access to the Vault through the Portal’s user management. Any firm user can add or deny access to the Vault for user accounts.

For more instructions on how to setup Portal accounts, click here.

Organizing Files in File Cabinets

You can add, delete, edit, organize and view personal files, firm files, client files and public files. These files are organized on the left side of the screen under the four filing cabinet categories: My Documents, Firm Documents, Client Documents and Public Documents. These filing cabinets can hold an unlimited number of folders, subfolders and documents.

My Documents stores and organizes documents that only the individual staff member logged in can access.

Firm Documents stores and organizes documents that are available to your entire firm. This is a great place to post firm procedure documentation and firm-wide notices. Any staff member can add, edit or remove documents in the Firm Documents filing cabinet.

Client Documents allows each of your staff members to access all documents stored in each of your client’s My Documents filing cabinet. If your client wants to share a document with you, they can login to their Document Manager and upload the file. You can then click Client Documents and view the file in their respective client folder.

Public Documents are documents available to your entire firm and all clients but only the firm’s staff members can add or remove files. This is a great place to post general work-paper forms and other questionnaires that clients can print and complete.

Breadcrumbs

Right above the list of files, you will see a line that will keep track your progress as you move through the folders in the Vault. It will start off with just the basic home directory, but if you click on a folder…

…The breadcrumbs line will update to show you’ve entered a new folder location and keep track of all the folders you’ve gone through!

Plus, you can click on any of the folders it mentions to instantly travel back to that folder quickly and easily.

Email Notifications

When a file is sent to the Vault by a client, you can have it notify a firm user of this activity. To do so, first log in to the Portal as the Firm Administrator, using your CPASiteSolutions Control Panel Username and Password.

Click on “Add/Modify Client Users” in the Portal menu.

Select a client from the drop down menu. You can then go to the Acess Rights and set what firm user is notified when a client uses the “Secure File Exchange”.

Creating Folders

To make a new folder, first select the filing cabinet you wish to make the folder in. For this example we’ll use Firm Documents. Click the Firm Documents button on the left side of the window.

Now, click the button at top that says New Folder

It will pop-up a new window asking you to give the folder a name and a description (optional). When you are finished, click Create Folder to commit.

Sending Files To The Vault

To send files to the Vault, first browse to the filing cabinet and folder you wish to send the file to. In this example we’re in “My Documents.”

To send a file here, click the Upload button in the top toolbar.

Click the Browse button and find the file you wish to send.

Select the file you want to send, click “OK” and it should appear in the Upload window.
At this point you are ready to send. If you wish you can add a description to the file or check off the “Version Control” checkbox, which will allow you to upload an updated version of the same file after some changes without replacing the original file. When you are ready to send click “Upload.”

The file now appears in the “My Documents” folder.

Ordering More Storage Space

Now let’s say that you want to add a file but your Document Manager is full. In order to request more storage space in the Document Manager, simply click the “Order More Space” button and follow the instructions for requesting more space.

Downloading Files from the Vault

There are two ways to download a file from the Vault. The first is simply to double-click on the file. The other is to right-click it. This will pop-up a context menu. From that menu select Download.

Both ways will pop-up a new window asking if you want to Open or Save the file. Choose Save and choose where on your computer you wish to save the file.

Additionally, if you wish you can View a file without downloading it by right-clicking on it and selecting View.

If you have several files you want to download you can download them all at once.

Why download all your files?

Logically, you know your clients’ files are 100% secure in the Client Portal. They are backed up daily and we employ numerous redundancies for ultra security.

Emotionally, though, it feels better to keep copies of your client files on your hard drive – one zip file with all that critical data. It’s a local backup, and it gives you peace of mind.

Here’s how to download all your files…

Firm Users:

Click on “More”

Click on “Download Files”

Select either “My Documents” or “All available files” and then click “Request Download”

You then get an email with the files when they are done being processed.

Client users use the same process except they don’t have the choice of any folder. Instead their “My Documents” folder is automatically processed for them and an email sent when done.

Renaming, Moving and Deleting Files

To rename a file, simply browse to the file you wish to rename, right-click it and select Rename.

This will pop-up a new window. Give it a new filename and description (optional) and click Save.

To move a file, right-click on it and select Move.

This will pop-up a new window where you can select the folder to move the file to. Click on a folder to select it, or click on a filing cabinet to move it there. Once you have selected the folder you want to move to click the Move button at the bottom.

This is a useful function if you have a document you are working on for a client and want to move it into their “My Documents” folder.

To Delete a file, right-click on the file, and select Delete.

This will pop-up a new window asking for confirmation. Click Delete again to delete the file.

Previous File Versions

If you have accidentally overwritten a file on the Vault with one from your computer, or simply want to look at a past version of a file, you can access the older version from within the Vault.

To do so, right-click on the file in the Vault, and select Version History.

Then, find the version of the file that you wish based on the date and select Download.

Finally, click Save and choose a location on your computer to save the file to.

Pop-Up Header Icons

Whenever you open up a pop-up window inside the Vault (like, for instance, when you go to upload a file), you will notice several icons in the upper right corner of the header.

Each of these icons serve a unique purpose.

• The Pin Icon will hold the pop-up window in place so it won’t move around.
• The Rotation Icon will refresh the pop-up window.
• The Line Icon will minimize the pop-up window.
• The Box Icon will maximize the pop-up window.
• The X Icon will close the pop-up window.

Search

You can search all your files easily by clicking the “Search” bar in the toolbar.

Simply fill in the field with the term you want to search for and click the button to the right. This will bring up a list of all the files that match the search term. You can verify what you searched for in the breadcrumbs section above the list.

You can see exactly where the file you searched for his located in the Description column; it will give you a breakdown of the file location, mentioning each folder it is in.

• Logging into your Calendar
• Setting up your Calendar For Your Appointments Page
• Calendar Frequently Asked Questions
• Syncing your Calendar / Importing Data

Logging in to your Calendar

Logging In

First try to login using the domain shortcut we created for you at…

http://mail.[your domain name]

If we have setup your email accounts within the last two days, you may need to log in by following these steps…

Go to http://www.google.com/a

Click on the link in the upper right corner that says… “Returning user, sign in here”

Enter your domain name in the first box, and Select “Go to Email” in the second box, then click “Go”

Now enter your username and password and click “Sign In”

Note: If you click on the checkbox next to “Remember me on this computer” then step 4 will be completed for you automatically.

Click on the link in the upper left hand corner of the screen that says “Calendar”

Setting Up the Calendar for your Appointments Page

Click on the “Settings” link on the upper right hand of this screen.

Click on the “Calendars” tab.

Under the “My Calendars” heading click on your user name.

At the next screen click on the “Share this Calendar” tab.

Next Click “Make this calendar public” and Select “See only free/busy (hide details)”

Calender FAQ

I don’t have Google Calendar? How do I get it?

Syncing your Calendar / Importing Data

Can I sync my Google Calendar with Outlook?

Yes, for information on how to sync your calendar with Outlook, please Click Here.

Can import events from another calendar such as Yahoo Calendar into Google Calendar?

If your current calendar allows you to export your data as a .csv file then you will be able to import it into Google Calendar. For instructions on how to import a .csv file into Google Calendar Click Here