Question

How do you print client tasks for workpapers?


Userlevel 3
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We are always looking to improve our processes and I was wondering how other people handled printing client tasks.  Ideally, we would be able to use Karbon as a tax organizer but with the number of hoops we have to go through to extract the information it isn’t ideal.

Currently, if we want to use a client task as part of a workpaper, we have to take a screenshot/snip of the page, paste it into Word and print that to pdf.  It is inefficient, time consuming and doing screenshots can increase the file size drastically.  

We don’t love any of the other options available to us for client organizers and if we could do it through Karbon it would be amazing.

(Yes, we have sent this suggestion in to Karbon many times through the feature request)

 


18 replies

Userlevel 5
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Hi there,

 

We’re a UK based company - so I don’t know if this would be different for compliance. For our tax return information, we ask clients to upload evidence (copy of P60 to confirm earnings and tax deducted), interest certificates etc.

 

The client drops them in to the client task - and we find the ‘download all’ button on the details page so helpful. Then upload that to our working papers.

 

 

Userlevel 3
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Hi there,

 

We’re a UK based company - so I don’t know if this would be different for compliance. For our tax return information, we ask clients to upload evidence (copy of P60 to confirm earnings and tax deducted), interest certificates etc.

 

The client drops them in to the client task - and we find the ‘download all’ button on the details page so helpful. Then upload that to our working papers.

 

 

So it’s not the documents that are the problem, it’s the questions and the answers that are given in the comments.  Our current organizer has over 20 questions (It could be longer but we pared it down).

Even if Karbon would let you highlight the questions and right click to print them out it would be better but trying that only results in the questions being moved around.

Userlevel 5
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Is it possible to send one document through the client tasks with those questions on, client then downloads, answers and reuploads again (not too much time) and then you have the evidence that you can quickly add to your files?

Userlevel 7
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Hi Becca Williams!

Welcome to Karbon. :) This was a major question from our CPAs here at Avrio. What we landed on is that if we used any information to make a decision, then the source of that information should go in the work papers. The easiest way that we have found is to just take a screenshot of the Karbon client tasks and paste them into the PDF work paper.

We also use MS Forms to collect much of the information, which we print to PDF and put in the work papers, which is a little easier than screenshots out of Karbon.

Does that help at all?

Userlevel 3
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Hi Becca Williams!

Welcome to Karbon. :) This was a major question from our CPAs here at Avrio. What we landed on is that if we used any information to make a decision, then the source of that information should go in the work papers. The easiest way that we have found is to just take a screenshot of the Karbon client tasks and paste them into the PDF work paper.

We also use MS Forms to collect much of the information, which we print to PDF and put in the work papers, which is a little easier than screenshots out of Karbon.

Does that help at all?

What we are trying to avoid is having to do screenshots or another software to collect the information. As I said screenshots are inefficient and time consuming.  

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As Coral suggested, we have a fillable pdf Question and Answer document that the client uploads that we save along with any source documents to our document management system. Client tasks have increase our efficiency over the last year for intake on tax information, and it was perfect timing for a contactless process (Don’t have to be in person to drop off your tax work). 

Userlevel 7
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Hi Becca Williams!

Welcome to Karbon. 🙂 This was a major question from our CPAs here at Avrio. What we landed on is that if we used any information to make a decision, then the source of that information should go in the work papers. The easiest way that we have found is to just take a screenshot of the Karbon client tasks and paste them into the PDF work paper.

We also use MS Forms to collect much of the information, which we print to PDF and put in the work papers, which is a little easier than screenshots out of Karbon.

Does that help at all?

What we are trying to avoid is having to do screenshots or another software to collect the information. As I said screenshots are inefficient and time consuming.  

I don’t think this is the answer that you want, but I have a button on my mouse that takes a screenshot. I use screenshots for all kinds of things, so I’ve worked it into my system so it’s almost second nature, but I understand that you are looking for something else.

It would be nice to have a little print button at the top of the client tasks that would print out a little nicely formatted page with timestamps, names, and even maybe IP addresses or something.

I’ve submitted that idea here:

Karbon designs based on customer feedback, so the best way to get something changed or added is to put it through the “Have an Idea” link.

Was any of that helpful?

Userlevel 1
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I just finished revising my 1040 template & was able to use Cognito forms for my Questionnaire & Engagement letter as the first Client Tasks. It helped out a ton! I still haven’t worked on a plan for the full organizer but these two forms were at the top of my list! Feeling accomplished & so relieved to figure it all out!

Userlevel 7
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We also do a Cognito Forms for the engagement letter and Client questionnaire.  They will send you a PDF copy of the completed form.  You just download and add to the tax work papers in your storage system.  Also tag the email with the PDF to the work item and the forms are available in the details tab of the work item.  It worked really well last year.

Userlevel 4
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Love seeing the energy and inspiration for the Cognito Forms usage in this thread! @jamieokane has started a revolution over on Twitter with this!! Cognito Forms will do a great job of collecting the general Q&A that goes out to all tax clients like - Did your address change? Did your marital status change? Did you buy cryptocurrency? Etc etc.

I understand the root of @Becca Williams question to be related to personalized Q&A. I feel @max feature request of adding the ability to print to PDF would be helpful to keep the workpaper file complete. I would like to vote up that request.

Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Love seeing the energy and inspiration for the Cognito Forms usage in this thread! @jamieokane has started a revolution over on Twitter with this!! Cognito Forms will do a great job of collecting the general Q&A that goes out to all tax clients like - Did your address change? Did your marital status change? Did you buy cryptocurrency? Etc etc.

I understand the root of @Becca Williams question to be related to personalized Q&A. I feel @max feature request of adding the ability to print to PDF would be helpful to keep the workpaper file complete. I would like to vote up that request.

 

I always wanted to start a revolution :)

Userlevel 1
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Hi Everyone there is a feature request in the community for this feature. If you want it to happen can you please go over there and add a vote and hopefully the more votes we get the more likely it is to happen.

 

https://community.karbonhq.com/ideas/client-tasks-inquiry-documentation-768?fbclid=IwAR2Q-xM7s9b87LI5I1FjM12vfO9EHtCZahp-GuS14p8-ZUuzJoMMM1CITqs 

Userlevel 4
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Upvoted

If you’re on windows press the following.

  • Windows Button + Shift + S (This can be bound to a single key using autohotkey, or to a keyboard/mouse with macro software)
  • Drag over the area you want to screencap
  • Click on the snipping too pop up
  • Print right to PDF.


Not ideal, but still much easier than moving it to a word doc and printing from there.

Userlevel 7
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Another option that I really like that is easier than snipping tool, but still not idea:

 

The easiest way that we have found is to just take a screenshot of the Karbon client tasks and paste them into the PDF work paper. We also use MS Forms to collect much of the information, which we print to PDF and put in the work papers, which is a little easier than screenshots out of Karbon.

Userlevel 6
Badge +7

I like to think of Karbon as my workpapers. Everything for a work item goes into Karbon, with notes where required. I do combine all documents uploaded to Karbon into a single PDF which is stored outside of Karbon.

It sounds like some of you use a separate system for workpapers. Is there a benefit to doing this? I like the simplicity of Karbon being the single source of Truth. Not sure if I am missing something by doing it this way.

Userlevel 7
Badge +19

I don’t feel totally qualified to answer you as I’m not an accountant. What I can tell you is that in our company, our staff want to have everything in a PDF inside a folder system we call Document Management System (DMS).

I’ve heard many accountants very nervous about being able to justify their decisions based on conversations and notes within Karbon. They want to have those conversations memorialized in a document archive.

I am curious how much of that is CYA vs good operational practice. When we pick up a recurring work item, our staff will review the previous work item and the work papers from DMS to get a sense of what needs to happen, so operationally, I don’t see the value in keeping everything in one place, and if there was ever a legal challenge, I would think that you could go back to Karbon for justification.

One reason to keep things in a DMS archive instead of Karbon is to future proof moving away from Karbon.

Just some of my non-expert thoughts on the matter. I’m curious if anyone else has a better justification for archiving everything in DMS.

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