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We are looking for a solution to centralize key client information.

We offer accounting/tax, bookkeeping and payroll services and often have team members off (vacation/sick/transition), so we’d like to ensure we have a centralized place we can see this information for the different services. Things like:

  • Tax/Accounting notes to ensure are they are incorporated into the next year’s file
  • Bookkeeping notes: how-tos and client preferences on communication, etc.
  • Payroll: common tweaks, things needing updated, problem employees, etc.
  • General notes about client’s goals, systems, family, etc.

We have tried:

  • Pinned notes in the timeline: these are helpful, but there’s no real way to sort and these can get unwieldy very quickly
  • Customized Templates: These can work, but we found that any change to the core template would overwrite these adaptations.
  • Google Sheet: This is the option we are currently exploring, but worry that it will just be ignored and don’t really want this stored outside of Karbon.

I am curious if other people find notes like these necessary and if so what solution have they come up with that’s working for them. Bonus would be any pitfalls or accountabilities you have had to implement.

Hey Joe,

I tend to use a task section within a recurring work item to include related notes that I want carried forward. I can see this working for regular bookkeeping, payroll, and year end work items.

In terms of information relating more to the client in a general sense, I’m finding the various details that can be utilized and added within the client contact information are becoming our ‘source of truth’.

My two cents (twenty two cents with inflation)  :)

 

-Ali

That’s what we do too, the first task on the recurring work is notes that can be checked before moving on. We add any general client notes in the description on the client details. 

I’ve done the above as well, but I have also created a standard template of information I want to follow and placed it on the details tab in the description box. This would be information as you suggested and not one months follow up task/note. 

Then I would also include a task to remind the team member to check the details tab and timeline for relevant information prior to doing the work.

As @Terri W suggested, I’ve used the Details box in the description. You can set placeholders in the work template for key client information that you want people to fill out. I’ve used emojis to help structure this in the past, for example ➡️ as bullet points. There’s (sadly) no formatting, but if you paste a URL it converts to a link when saving, for example adding a link to their Drive folder.

If you reset work to a template, anything in the Description tab will remain.

Annoyingly, you can’t make a Details template at the client level, although I’d encourage filling in as many of the available fields as possible as a best practice. You could have a template elsewhere that gets copied/pasted into the Details box when a client is created, and then gets edited.

We use the details section as well because it survives a recurring work item’s reset to template.

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