Here’s a recording of our quarterly roadmap preview webinar for Q2 2022


Earlier, I was joined by my fellow Product Managers and our Chief Product Officer, for an exclusive preview of the headline features that are in development right now and launching in the coming months.

Watch to learn about (and see):

  • Calendar integration
  • New Client App & magic link
  • Dropbox & One Drive integrations
  • Billing

 

We’d love to hear what you think, and any questions or feedback you have. You can add your thoughts in the comments below. 
 

If you would like to sign up to participate in any of the upcoming betas mentioned in the webinar, here are the links: 


This was great, looking forward to using many of these features as they rollout!! 


Thanks to all on the quarterly roadmap this afternoon.  Really looking forward to the upcoming releases (and the ones you’ve been tantalising us with in the “Insights” section!).

 

I have signed up for all but the ‘billing’ betas - we offer Finance as a Service (FaaS) and everything is subscription based, so the billing bit is of less interest.

The new client app and document filing will be game changers for us and will change the way Acumist tries to shoehorn existing practices into Karbon’s ecosystem.  The calendar is also a great addition but may be of limited use in it’s early stages due to the way we use feeds into multiple calendars from other apps (payroll and travel management apps as well as Calendly and personal diaries for holidays etc.). I am sure it will develop quickly though.

 

Thought I would use this as a shout out to the new Xama integration too - been looking forward to that for a while!

 

Thanks team!


Great to see these!

  • Calendar: Looking forward to being able to assign to calendar from Karbon
  • Client app: Great to be able to see completed tasks
  • File management: Any timeline on the Google Drive integration you mention? And when the folders are created is there a choice to access options in Karbon or would this need to be managed through the DMS?
  • Billing: Question: We bill through ignition pay and to work for us we would leave recurring there but would need project billing from Karbon to route to ignition (and then onto Xero as part of their integration) - Is there any chance of this?

Thoughts from our firm on the upcoming releases:

Calendar:

  • very excited to be able to RSVP to calendar events and open zoom links from within Karbon!

Client App:

  • Different logins for each “client” in Karbon is going to be very messy. People hate managing logins and emails. Requiring a contact to have a separate Karbon login for each of their two businesses, their trust, their parent’s returns, their child’s returns, and their own personal returns… ugh. I can hear the complaints now! Ideally there is just one email/one client app account per Karbon contact, which we would choose when setting the contact up in Karbon. Then, we would have the ability to select which email addresses (client app user accounts) can access the client task section we are sending when sending the client task section, as well as have the ability to add or remove contacts who can access the client task section after sending it. That would give us granular control over access to each individual client task section and prevent the need for multiple logins. (We could choose emails/client app user accounts different from the Karbon contact/organization or group that the work item/client task section is tied to.)  A dropdown on the client app would allow them to switch between various contacts/organizations/groups they have access to with associated client task sections they’ve been granted access to. An example: we have a business income return that includes an accounting scrub client task section and then a final review and signature client task section. The business owner has an employee who handles the bookkeeping and the owner really doesn’t know much about it, but at the end of the day the owner doesn’t want the bookkeeper to see the final return. Both the owner and the employee would have their own client app login. When we send the accounting scrub client task section, we could allow both to view (or maybe even just the bookkeeper). But when we send the final review client task section with the actual return, we could allow only the business owner to view it. (There wouldn’t be a login for the business. The contacts would have their own logins with access to client task sections for the business that we’ve given them access to.)
  • The video notes that clients will “taken to the new comment in the client app” when they open a client task section notification email, that sounds just like the way it is now and our clients complain that they cannot see/figure out which is a new comment and which is an old comment. Please highlight or clearly separate/identify all new comments since the last time they viewed the client task section (or logged into their client app account), similar to how unread emails & tasks show up in Triage (or better yet by straight up highlighting the new items with an obvious color/shaded background!).
  • It would be nice to have the ability to leave a comment without sending a notification (for when we’re just posting an emoji or just saying “Got it,” etc).
  • It would be even better if we could choose to make the text of our comment visible in the email that the client receives. A simple “lock/private” vs “unlock/public” comment toggle. If the lock is clicked the client receives a notification that they’ve received a private comment and must log in to view. If the public/unlocked option is selected, they will see the text of our comment in the email notification they receive---no need to log in at all, saving them time and avoiding potential frustration, all while maintaining increased security where needed.

File management: 

  • Thank you thank you thank you for the ability to select which files we want to download vs the all or nothing current approach. 
  • Please give us the ability to rename client files in Karbon before downloading! Clients often upload documents with file names that don’t describe what they are. (As an aside, this is likely why we will not use the “automatic download/sync to Dropbox” feature.)

Billing:

  • we’re monthly and/or one-time fixed fee, so this one doesn’t impact us.

Thoughts from our firm on the upcoming releases:

Client App:

  • Different logins for each “client” in Karbon is going to be very messy. People hate managing logins and emails. Requiring a contact to have a separate Karbon login for each of their two businesses, their trust, their parent’s returns, their child’s returns, and their own personal returns… ugh. I can hear the complaints now! Ideally there is just one email/one client app account per Karbon contact, which we would choose when setting the contact up in Karbon. Then, we would have the ability to select which email addresses (client app user accounts) can access the client task section we are sending when sending the client task section, as well as have the ability to add or remove contacts who can access the client task section after sending it. That would give us granular control over access to each individual client task section and prevent the need for multiple logins. (We could choose emails/client app user accounts different from the Karbon contact/organization or group that the work item/client task section is tied to.)  A dropdown on the client app would allow them to switch between various contacts/organizations/groups they have access to with associated client task sections they’ve been granted access to. An example: we have a business income return that includes an accounting scrub client task section and then a final review and signature client task section. The business owner has an employee who handles the bookkeeping and the owner really doesn’t know much about it, but at the end of the day the owner doesn’t want the bookkeeper to see the final return. Both the owner and the employee would have their own client app login. When we send the accounting scrub client task section, we could allow both to view (or maybe even just the bookkeeper). But when we send the final review client task section with the actual return, we could allow only the business owner to view it. (There wouldn’t be a login for the business. The contacts would have their own logins with access to client task sections for the business that we’ve given them access to.)
  • The video notes that clients will “taken to the new comment in the client app” when they open a client task section notification email, that sounds just like the way it is now and our clients complain that they cannot see/figure out which is a new comment and which is an old comment. Please highlight or clearly separate/identify all new comments since the last time they viewed the client task section (or logged into their client app account), similar to how unread emails & tasks show up in Triage (or better yet by straight up highlighting the new items with an obvious color/shaded background!).
  • It would be nice to have the ability to leave a comment without sending a notification (for when we’re just posting an emoji or just saying “Got it,” etc).
  • It would be even better if we could choose to make the text of our comment visible in the email that the client receives. A simple “lock/private” vs “unlock/public” comment toggle. If the lock is clicked the client receives a notification that they’ve received a private comment and must log in to view. If the public/unlocked option is selected, they will see the text of our comment in the email notification they receive---no need to log in at all, saving them time and avoiding potential frustration, all while maintaining increased security where needed.

Hi John 

For point 1, this is how it will work. Any client tasks sent to the same email will all be visible through the login - they are all synced to the same person. If you have a client that also works with another firm that uses Karbon, that is when they will need an additional Login. It is one per account. 


For point 2, the latest comment is shown in the collapsed view (like Triage). When they expand, they will be able to see the history of comments and all comments are timestamped. 

 

For points 3 and 4, thank you for these suggestions. We will look into them. 

 


Very excited to see the calendar integration coming soon. Its one of the few times I have to come out of Karbon so this makes complete sense to have it built in. Would be great to be able to schedule meetings, block out time etc etc in the near future. 


When is the bi-weekly update going to be released, eager to see what is that release.

Thanks.

Mike