Question

Is there a way or an App we can connect to Karbon to let clients know the progress of our deliverables?

  • 6 September 2021
  • 9 replies
  • 166 views

Userlevel 1

This would totally ease the anxiety of clients knowing where they are at in the process.


9 replies

Userlevel 5
Badge +5

That would really help clients!

Userlevel 1

@Coral True. There could be another way outside Karbon but it would be really helpful if there is one that we can integrate. I wonder is someone has tried it.

Userlevel 5
Badge +5

@Katrina Brennan It’s not something that we’ve tried and would be interested in knowing myself. I’m not totally sure that I’d be ready for that as we are working on deliverables……… but then it may be fantastic because the deliverables would be driven from an outside source and mean that I could make that part of my role redundant and use the time to focus on the next way forward!

 

(sigh) one day at a time……..

Userlevel 7
Badge +13

This would be very useful.  I get multiple emails a day asking about the status of their tax return.  It would be great if they could login to a client task and see the return is in review or maybe waiting for client. Maybe they would get me the information we have been requesting.

Userlevel 7
Badge +19

I have heard rumors that Karbon may be working on something like this, but in the mean time, here’s what we plan to try as a work-around until there is something built-in:

We put tasks in the work item with email template language in the description of the task so that our team automatically gets triggered to send status updates with the status of a work item changes. It’s a little manual because you have to copy and paste the email body into a new email to the client, but we expect the client communication to be appreciated.

Another thing we are trying this tax season is using Karbon’s budget and capacity features to schedule the actual day a return will be completed and then communicating that date to the client so that they know when to expect the next communication from us. Of course, this requires an excellent understanding of your capacity and the time it takes to complete each work item. We will likely start with only scheduling 75% of our capacity to make room for emergencies and overruns.

Is any of that helpful?

Userlevel 5
Badge +9

I understand the transparency and need to reduce client communication requests. However, our workflows are too complex and I’m not sure I want them seeing too much. If there was a simply way for us to reflect status of work vs showing our true statuses we use, perhaps that would be more useful. I don’t want a client creating their own expectations based on what they see.

Userlevel 6
Badge +7

Very interesting on how firms manage this. Two things I dislike are the Quick Question email and the Status Update email. I understand we are a service based industry, however a small firm (me and maybe one other FTE) just cannot reply to everything without work falling behind.

I use a program called ShortKeys to save my email replies so I can just pop standard templated language into an email or task comment. When we receive documentation the client receives an email indicating documentation received and the tentative timeline.

I do try to manage expectations at the start of the season with proactive mass communication on the process with guidelines on when returns will be prepared, with mass updates as the season progresses, however they are guidelines.

Not sure I would want more information going out to customers. Generally it is only a handful of customers now asking for status requests.

Userlevel 2
Badge

There is a ‘Pizza Tracker’ style notification system called the Karbon Tax Tracker that I designed using the API that is available for purchase.

https://karbonhq.com/resources/remove-bottlenecks-tax-workflow/

If you are interested please DM me and we can setup a time to go over what it looks like together.

Userlevel 7
Badge +19

Skip to 43:28 on the video to see Paul talk about it! 😊

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