Product Updates

Action emails on your terms, more control over user permissions, track time based on profile roles. Client team custom fields to oversee work items, and beta test new features—duplicate contacts, bill by colleague rate, and control budgets by amounts.Save Triage items for ‘Later’Action emails and notifications when you’re ready, without cluttering your My Week. Move them to a new section of your Triage called 'Later’, so you can reach Triage Zero faster. Work on what matters, when it matters to you.You can move emails and any Triage item into Later, including:Notes Work assignment notifications Task notifications Client Request notifications Invoice, timesheet and billing run notificationsUnlike your Low Priority folder, adding items to Later is done on a case-by-case basis, specifically because you need to action them some time in the future.Moving items into Later is also available in the Karbon mobile app. Make sure your mobile app is running on the latest version (5.6) to access this feature. Remember to log out and then log back in to activate the update.  Enhanced user permissionsStrengthen your data security with enhanced user permissions, giving you more control over who can create, edit and delete work. This helps avoid unauthorized use, accidental changes, and data inconsistencies across different systems.To customize Work permissions, Admins can set them up for individual users in Settings > Colleagues > choose a colleague > Permissions > Edit. From there, you can control who can change the status of any task or work regardless of whether it's assigned to them, edit work details including due dates, tasks and assignments, and who can create or delete work items.   Restrict roles for time entriesTo prevent billing errors and reduce the need for later corrections, an additional setting has been added to Time and Budgets. Firms can now limit users to only record time against roles allocated to their profiles. For instance, junior staff with lower rates won't accidentally choose roles with higher rates. Admins can set this for the entire firm in Settings > Time and Budgets > Time Tracking > Roles for Time Entry.  Merge Contacts (beta)Take charge of duplicate contacts to ensure information stays organized and accurate. Identify duplicate contacts and combine contact details, work, and timelines into one record. To merge contacts with similar names and email addresses, navigate to a contact, click on the three dots, and choose merge duplicates. From there follow the steps to complete the merging process. For the security of sensitive data, private contacts cannot be merged. For step-by-step instructions, read the guide.  Bill by Colleague Rate (beta)Billing efficiently is a vital part of your workflow. Having the flexibility to bill by a staff member eliminates the need for workarounds, allowing you to work the way you need to.Admins with permission to view all amounts, can add a colleague’s billable rate in Settings > Colleagues by clicking on the colleague name. On the profile page, you can then specify a dollar amount under Billing Rates. To learn more, read the step-by-step guide.  Control Budget by Amount (beta)Stay in control of your budget and decide whether the budgeted time or the budgeted amount is a priority for your firm. This level of flexibility enables you to stay firmly on track, even when rates undergo changes.Previously, budget control was based on time. If your billable rate on a task changed, your budgeted hours would remain fixed, and the total cost of the task would change accordingly.  Now, you can choose whether you’d like to control your budget by time or amount. Admins can select this option in Settings > Time & Budgets > Budgets > Budget Estimates. When you choose to control the budget by amount, even if the billable rate changes on a task, the total budget for  the project will remain the same because the budgeted time will automatically adjust.  To learn more, read the step-by-step guide.  Client Team custom fields (beta)Accurately represent the various client team responsibilities within your firm’s organizational structure to efficiently filter and oversee work related to specific clients.With the addition of two new custom fields, alongside Client Owner and Client Manager in Settings > Contact Settings > Client Team, admins have the ability to assign these to specific positions to suit your firm’s needs, such as Tax Managers, Directors, and/or Financial Controllers. This way, they can have a view of work items, even if they’re not directly responsible for that work.To update individual contacts and include these new custom positions, go to Contact > Details > Client Team. Once this is done, you can easily filter work items on the Work List and Kanban view to allow you to focus on work items that are directly relevant to each position. To learn more, read the step-by-step guide.  

Optional two-factor authentication (2FA) on loginAn extra layer of security is available for the client portal login with optional 2FA*. You can manage your clients' security settings in one place, at Settings > Client Portal > Security and Two-Factor.  There are three options to choose from: Magic link + Login (Default): Clients can access the client portal using the magic link and their login credentials. Magic link only: Deactivates the portal login for your clients—they can only access their requests through the magic link. Magic link + Login 2FA: The highest level of security, requiring clients to enable 2FA. For the third option, clients will need to download an authenticator app to be able to access the client portal securely.Whichever option you select will be applied to all clients across your firm, and can be modified whenever necessary. Read more about two-factor authentication and supported authenticator apps. *Optional 2FA is only available for Business and Enterprise subscriptions. Check who has a client portal accountNow you can easily keep track of your clients and their access to the client portal. In the Contacts > Details tab, there's a new section that shows whether a client has created a client portal account. If they do, you'll see their email address, which also helps if they forget their login. If this is blank it means the client hasn’t created an account and it’s a good reminder to do so. In the same section, you can also click 'Edit Login Details' to reset a client's 2FA access if they can't get into the portal for any reason. This makes it simple to manage access and make sure everything runs smoothly for your clients. 

Send Client Requests to multiple clientsYou can now send Client Requests to multiple clients at the same time. After creating a Client Request in a new or existing work item, simply click Send Client Request, and choose your contact/s. You can choose up to 10 contacts, and the email will display who has received the Client Request. After the request has been sent, you still have the option to manage the client list by adding or removing contacts. Click on the Client Request header or use the options menu (...) to select Manage Client Request and make any necessary changes.If you remove contacts, they will no longer have access to the Client Request. If you add additional contacts, the Client Request will be resent to everyone, providing visibility to those newly-included contacts.  Karbon AI updateKarbon AI is currently being beta tested. If you would like to be part of the beta testing group, please sign up now. Email summaries have been improved to handle longer conversations. This means you can quickly and easily condense more emails from the same conversation into concise summaries—improving the efficiency of your inbox and helping you stay organized and on top of your communications.  Bulk work creationWork items can now be created for multiple contacts from a single work template.This new functionality, available to Admins, combines creating work combines creating work, adjusting repeat settings, and managing multiple contacts, simplifying the process for you.In contacts, multi-select the required contacts and click Add Work. You can edit information to suit the different needs of your workflow, such as assignees, roles, and automatic Client Request recipients on individual contacts, or use the section's bulk selection feature, to edit multiple contacts at the same time. For more details, read the guide to bulk work creation.Bulk work creation is being released to Karbon accounts in phases, and will be available to all customers within one-two weeks. 

In a work template or work item, you can now create a new task type—an email.  This removes the need to navigate away from your workflow to compose and send emails separately.To use this feature, simply go to a work template or work item and select Add Task > Add Email. Choose an email template from the drop down menu or create one. If you are in the Karbon AI beta program, you will have a choice of using an email template or opting for the AI prompt. By using the AI prompt, you can effortlessly draft concise and impactful content, saving you time and mental effort. If you would like to be part of the Karbon AI beta testing group, please sign up now. Once you've created the email task within the work template, you can send the email directly from your workflow without having to navigate away. The sent email will automatically be saved to the timeline, giving everyone in the firm visibility and preventing duplication of work.This enhancement simplifies email management, and improves overall efficiency in your workflow.  

Two-way contact sync with Xero Practice Manager (XPM) Karbon and Xero Practice Manager are connected, allowing users to sync their contacts in both systems. With this two-way sync, it's easier than ever to keep your contact and client information up-to-date. Any changes you make in Karbon will automatically be updated in XPM, and vice versa. This means you can keep your contact and client information centralized and easily accessible.Setting up the integration is simple. For instructions on how to do so, visit this support article.  Global Search All view The new ’All' tab in search, another highly requested feature by our community, will help you find what you need quickly.With a single search, instantly get a snapshot of the top three results from work, contacts, notes, and email all in one place. The results are neatly organized into the respective sections, so you know exactly where to look. Click ’See more results’ to uncover the complete search result list for that section.  Exclude search words using a minus sign (-) Refine search results even further by adding a minus sign (-) in front of any words you want to exclude. For example, to search for ‘tax’ and exclude any results with the word ‘income’, you would type: ‘tax -income’.The minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded by a space. You can exclude as many words as you like by using a minus sign before each one. Search for a contact by phone or registration numberSearch for clients or organizations using their phone number in search. The search is flexible and works regardless of whether the phone number includes the country code, area code, or additional symbols like + signs or dashes between numbers. Even if you only have partial phone number information, the search results will display contacts or organizations that match the country and area codes. As you add more digits to the phone number, the search results will become more refined and accurate.In addition to searching for clients or organizations by phone number, you can also search using registration numbers such as VAT, BAS, TFN. For a comprehensive list of supported registration numbers, refer to the support article. As a reminder, you have always been able to find a contact by client ID and/or email address, using the same method. Karbon Practice Intelligence - Contact informationAdditional contact information has been added to KPI. The Client table has been expanded to include extra fields and a new table called Dimn_Client_Accounting_Details has been introduced to store accounting details.To add this to one of your existing reports, visit this support article for more information. Karbon Practice Intelligence - Resource Planning Workbook (coming soon)This workbook is designed to help you understand your team’s capacity and the ability to manage additional work. It provides a clear view of the work your team needs to complete on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis using My Week and Budget Estimates.  See planned and assigned but unallocated work to gain a holistic understanding of pending tasks and your team's available capacity. Begin with an overview of the firm-level capacity and delve into individual team members' weeks to see their assignments and expected effort. The workbook also highlights team members who may be overloaded, helping you identify constraints and bottlenecks. If needed, you can easily reassign work by accessing the work items directly from the workbook and adjusting budgets in Karbon.For team members with scheduled time off, you can specify task types that reduce capacity. This enables accurate planning by reflecting the reduced availability in future time entries for the designated week. To get access to the newest workbook, navigate to the Intelligence tab in Karbon. 

One of the most highly requested features by our community—email templates—are now available. These templates play a crucial role in ensuring consistency across all communications, including message content, tone, and brand identity, regardless of who is sending the email. Admins can create custom email templates for the entire firm to use. To access this feature, simply navigate to the Settings > Email Templates. From there, Admins can easily create and manage templates that reflect your firm's unique communication style and branding.When composing, replying or forwarding an email, you'll find a dedicated icon in the messaging editor to easily apply an email template. If no templates are available, the icon will be inactive.If you’ve selected a template but have changed your mind, click the icon again to select a different template. 

Synchronize your Karbon contacts with the VXT integrationSynchronize your Karbon contacts with your phone using VXT—a cloud-based VoIP phone system. Automatically generating work items and contact notes from your calls—making it effortless to review specific parts of your conversation at a later date.  Save time and effort, but most importantly, minimize risk by keeping accurate and detailed records against the relevant timeline (work, contact, or, an organization) in Karbon.With just one click, you can initiate calls directly from Karbon. Launch the VXT app and instantly match your Karbon contacts with caller IDs, which provides real-time caller identification when answering the phone. Now that contacts are available in VXT, you can search by name in the app when you need to make a call.The integration lets you stay connected, handle calls, and manage your communication from anywhere, whether you're using a mobile device or desktop.Unlock the power of VXT and Karbon integration to consolidate your communication, improve productivity, and maintain accurate records. Setting up the integration is simple. Visit this support article, for step-by-step instructions. Karbon Practice Intelligence TabKarbon Practice Intelligence Workbooks can now be accessed from the Intelligence tab to give you greater convenience. Whether it's a new addition or an updated version, you'll have the most up-to-date workbooks right at your fingertips. If you need your locator/region to set up the workbooks, refer to the following support article for step-by-step instructions.  My WeekPreviously, it was difficult to find a note that wasn't linked to a specific work item or contact. Now when you add a note and assign it to yourself, it will automatically appear in My Week, removing the need for manual searching. And if you assign a note to a colleague, it will continue to be visible in Triage, enabling them to action it.Mobile fixes for AndroidPerformance enhancements have been made to the Android app. This update specifically focuses on resolving crashing issues that some users experienced. Update your app to benefit from these improvements and enjoy a smoother and more reliable mobile experience.Karbon AI beta updateKarbon AI is currently being beta tested and will be released to all customers later this year.If you would like to be part of the beta testing group, please sign up now. Gives you the revolutionary power of generative artificial intelligence and GPT technology right in Karbon. By embedding the technology into your Karbon workflow, it provides you with new ways to automate your tasks and work faster.There is no switching back and forth between apps, and you maintain security and privacy over your data.Summarize email conversations and internal discussions: Instead of sifting through a lengthy email chain, get a concise summary that highlights the important and actionable points. Simply click on an email and press "summarize" to obtain a bulleted list of its contents.Compose emails: Easily create a first draft of a new email or reply by using prompts or keywords. Within any email, click "compose email from draft," and Karbon AI will automatically generate the email or reply for you. You can review and make adjustments before sending.Provide personalized client updates: Keep your clients informed about job progress by setting a task within your Karbon work item. This task will draft an email reflecting the progress and other prompts you provide. To add an email task, go to the work item, click Add task > Add emailImprove writing tone: Enhance your outgoing client emails by making them more conversational, direct, apologetic, or neutral. With a single click, you can adjust the tone to suit the situation. In an email, click on the "change tone" option in the email toolbar.

The Karbon Practice Intelligence Budget workbook has been improved based on customer feedback. It has been designed to consolidate your budget tracking, enhance data quality, and simplify clean-up procedures, all of which contribute to optimizing your bottom line.With this new version, you can track your budgets in real-time or retrospectively once they have been completed. Client level and employee level roll-ups have been introduced, which enable you to easily identify areas and individuals that are exceeding the budget. Ultimately, this workbook helps you focus on what truly matters for your financial success.What’s more, data quality and clean-up features are now integrated directly into the workbook. The new Data Quality tab allows you to quickly identify any potential discrepancies in your Karbon data that might affect your reporting. This empowers you to swiftly and conveniently perform a clean-up process. The ability to filter work items without budgets has also been added, ensuring you can still make the most of the report before conducting a clean-up. 

An external name field has been added in the details tab for work items including repeat schedules. It also appears on work templates so you can set it up once. If populated, this external name field will replace the work item name wherever it is mentioned on client request emails and in the client portal. This gives you the flexibility to have an internal name that your firm recognizes and an external name that is more appropriate for your client.  Set up is simple. For instructions on how to do so, visit this support article.  

Karbon AI, a GPT-powered artificial intelligence tool embedded within Karbon, is now in beta. Karbon AI is designed to make you more efficient with email and how you communicate with clients. Karbon is already saving each individual user an average of 16.5 hours every week, but this is just the beginning. Karbon AI will provide new ways for you to be more productive across client management, reporting and insights, work management, capacity planning, team collaboration, email, and more.  Here are some examples of what you’ll be able to do: Summarize long email conversations and internal discussions. Rather than spending time getting up to speed through a long email chain, a bite-sized summary can show you what’s important and actionable before you choose to dig deeper. Compose an email draft. Karbon AI can create the first draft of an email based on some short prompts or keywords. You can then review and adjust before sending. Provide personalized updates to your clients as their job progresses. Set a task within your Karbon work item to automatically draft an email reflecting your progress and any other prompts you provide. Prioritize your inbox. Karbon AI assesses urgency, sentiment, and tone to show you which emails need your attention first. Improve your writing. Improve outgoing client emails by making them more conversational, direct, apologetic or neutral. With one click you can adjust the tone to suit the situation. Because Karbon AI is embedded into the Karbon practice management platform, there is no switching back and forth between apps. You also maintain security and privacy over your data, because Karbon AI is powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. Based heavily on feedback and input from customers, Karbon AI will continue to be developed with capabilities that expand across your collaborative workflow in Karbon.Currently, Karbon AI is in a beta release, but will soon be available to all customers. Karbon customers can register their interest for early access to the beta program here.

The XPM and Karbon integration will allow you to quickly and easily keep your contact information centralized and up-to-date—changes in Karbon are sent to XPM and vice versa.  You can run the data sync manually or automatically and set it to create new contacts, update existing ones, or link contacts to existing or new companies. Setting up the integration is simple. For instructions on how to do so, visit this support article.If you would like to be part of our beta testing group, please sign up now.   Previous releasesIf you missed an update, you can still see a list of what we released in Karbon. For API releases, see the Karbon Developer Center.

It’s a big day for Karbon and Xero customers!Karbon is now a Xero Certified App. And in just a few weeks you’ll be able to integrate Xero Practice Manager and Karbon to automatically synchronise contact data between both systems.Joint Xero and Karbon customers will be able to maintain accuracy across their new and existing client and contact records, without the need for manual updates. Read the full Press ReleaseWe’re so excited, hope you are too!    

Two-way contact sync with QuickBooks Online AccountantsWith a two-way contacts sync, you can quickly and easily keep your Karbon and QuickBooks Online Accountant data centralized and up-to-date. Once connected, when a change is made in Karbon or QuickBooks Online Accountant, it’s automatically sent to the other.   You can run the data sync manually or automatically, and set it to create new contacts, update existing ones, or link contacts to existing or new companies. This feature is available now in your account and takes less than a minute to set up. After logging into Karbon, click on Settings in the left panel, navigate to ‘Connected Apps’, look for the QuickBooks Online Accountant option and select ‘Connect’. Read our support article to learn more.It’s that simple. You’ll spend less time managing CSV files full of contact data, and more time on what really matters. Access Karbon contacts and organization data in SuiteFilesBring your Karbon contact and organization data directly into SuiteFiles and auto-populate templates, documents, emails (and more) to use in a variety of ways. For example, the next time you onboard a new client, you can create that organization and the contacts in Karbon. Then, via the integration, you can use that data to auto-populate an engagement letter, send it to your new client for signing, and have a secure spot for the new client to share files and collaborate. To take advantage of the integration, read the support article.Previous releasesIf you missed an update, you can still see a list of what we released in Karbon. For API releases, see the Karbon Developer Center.

Karbon Practice Intelligence (KPI) newest workbook: Repeating Work For many, it’s a busy time of the year: swamped with tax work while balancing all of the other tasks that are due. You might also be spending hours tracking and managing your team’s work to see that nothing falls through the cracks—that could result in surprises closer to April. If this sounds all too familiar, discover how the Repeating Work workbook will alleviate the pain.   The Repeating Work workbook helps you track your progress and compares it with previous years. The visual indicators assist you to see where the work is and who it’s assigned to—which is a critical path to determining whether you are ahead or behind schedule. As a result, you are able to identify bottlenecks early and know how likely your firm is to get the work done on time. Work items can easily fall through the cracks if you don't have all the information or if input is required from others on the team. To prevent this from happening, the Repeating Work workbook identifies which work items have been in a particular status for too long, so you can take action before it’s too late. Don’t forget to take a look at the other workbooks in the KPI series.

Updated Karbon Practice Intelligence (KPI) Work Status workbook The updated Work Status workbook has come a long way from its first release 6 months ago.New filters have been added, including work type, client, and client manager, in addition to the existing ones for time and status. Your custom statuses have also been included to give you a deeper understanding into your process.The workbook is designed to help you identify how the status of your work has progressed over time and how your firm has performed to date. After selecting the desired work type(s), you can quickly see your average completion time and how that has changed over time, how much work was completed, and how much of that work was completed on time. Not only can you drill into average completion times and understand which work items took the longest, but you can see how this varies by client, client manager, or even who was assigned the work. This helps you understand where the bottlenecks are and where you could make adjustments.To see the workbook in action, watch this videoThe power of these workbooks increases when combined. For example, when you combine the Work Outstanding workbook, with the Work Status workbook, you can see all the work due and apply lessons learned from the Work Status workbook. You can use the Work Status workbook to understand which clients' work traditionally take the longest and account for this in the Work Outstanding workbook.To experience the power of the other workbooks refer to release notes dated Nov 17, 2022

Thanks to all who joined me and our Product Managers on our 2022 recap webinar.It was great to see so many familiar names on the call. For those who weren’t able to join us live, we recapped on our key improvements in 2022, including a sneak peek at Billing and Payments coming in 2023.Catch up on the recording to see: Insights and KPI Triage My Week Client Portal Document Management Time API Billing & Payments  We’d love to hear what you think, and any questions or feedback you have. You can add your thoughts in the comments below. 

Use smart suggestions to complete work faster and easier when sending Client Requests, and truly understand your firm's process flow with the updated KPI work status workbook.Smart suggestions for Client RequestsSmart suggestion functionality has been added to Client Requests. This is the same experience you will have seen when sending emails from work timelines. From the Client Request sending modal, Karbon now suggests a list of 6 contacts to send to, based on contacts that are associated with the work item. Sending Client Request emails is now faster and easier because you no longer need to search for the appropriate contact.  Plus, it gives you full confidence that you are selecting the right contact. If you have multiple contacts and emails, the ones associated with the work will be displayed.Updated KPI Work Status Workbook (coming soon Dec 19)The newly revised Work Status workbook improves on the initial workbook released in June 2022. While the original version showed the time, status, and number of completed work items, this version provides more detail and allows you to truly understand your firm's process flow by breaking down your work by client, client owner, employee, and work type. The workbook is designed to help you identify how the status of your work has progressed over time, and gives insights into how your firm has performed to date. This historical view will help answer critical questions such as: Where are the bottlenecks in my process? What is my lead time for delivery? Which customers’ work takes the longest to complete? And What is the time it takes for my employees to complete their work? Combined with the Work Outstanding workbook, you can see all the work due and apply lessons learned from the Work Status workbook.

 To date, we have released multiple Karbon Practice Intelligence workbooks that support you in managing your firm. The newest addition measures work outstanding. Need to know how much work is left to complete in the coming days, weeks, or months? Or, more importantly, if the workload is well-balanced amongst your team members and is able to be completed on time? The Work Outstanding workbook helps you answer these questions quickly and easily–before work becomes overdue. Firm owners, managers, and team leads can quickly see the work remaining and how it’s distributed across your team (work items, tasks, and budget hours). This provides the ability to balance workloads or reassign responsibilities so work is prioritized, which saves you both time and effort when managing your work. Rather than navigating through unorganized information, or creating your own extracts of data to support your standups, this workbook focuses on the work that needs your attention or is at risk of not being completed on time. As with all of the new workbooks, you get access to your data through KPI. This newest release means there is a new table available in your Snowflake account. The Work Item Internal Task Details is now available and provides you with a snapshot of all your tasks. This allows you to gain better insight into the work distribution across team members at more granular levels. Our help article will guide you through getting access to this table in existing KPI Workbooks.The other suite of workbooks includes:BudgetStay on track and under budget by measuring performance, including tracking both time and costs against each work item budget. This provides the ability to manage ongoing work and identify where you are close to going over budget, so you can intervene before it’s too late. It also helps you analyze work over budget and understand both the impact and root causes. EmailUnderstand your emails from both a volume and response time perspective by filtering out the noise so you can see insights into your high-volume clients. This workbook also provides a true measure of your response time to and from your clients, meaning you can effectively measure your service level agreements while also understanding how effective clients are at getting back to you.TimeSee your time data how you need it. This is flexible and provides you with the means to aggregate your data based on the attributes that make sense for you. Whether that’s the individual raw time entries or an aggregate view by week, client, user, work type, role, task type, or work item, this workbook can answer all your time-related questions.If you’re not already using Karbon Practice Intelligence, speak with your Customer Success Manager or Sales Executive to learn how KPI can help your firm excel.

WorkNew ‘In Status’ columnIf your firm uses the First In, First Out (FIFO) or Last In, First Out (LIFO) for production planning and processing, being able to sort work items based on when their workflow status changed is essential for knowing what to action next.To enable this, a new column called 'In Status' has been added to the Work List. When a work item changes into a new status (including creation), the duration it has been in that particular status will be included in the work export (date and time). Items without a status change date will always be at the bottom, regardless of sort direction.Client PortalEntities with the same emailFor clients that manage multiple entities with the same email address, we have added the client name to the request. This increases transparency over who the work belongs to, so they know what to action and for which entity. This will appear on both the magic link view as well as the logged-in view.SettingsPermissions page is easier to navigateThe permissions page has been redesigned to make the user experience more efficient for admin users who want more control over employee access levels. Basic user permissions for standard, restricted, and admin are now under ‘Access’. ‘Extras’ has been renamed ‘Permissions’ to make it clear that users have an access level and then additional permissions. Descriptions have been included under each section, so users don’t have to leave the page to understand what permissions include. Finally, the Invite Colleague modal has also been updated to match these new improvements.Company Details new fieldsCompany Tax Registration Number, Phone Number, and Address fields have been added to the Firm Details section. These additional fields extend your ability to map to invoicing when it is released.TimeTime admins can edit colleagues' time entriesWe have added extra permissions in settings for time admins to edit and submit a colleague’s timesheet entries in cases where the user can’t do this themselves. Admin users with this permission can now make adjustments to a colleague’s timesheet. Click on the time entry that needs editing, and edit the required information including notes. The admin user can submit, approve or decline the colleague’s timesheet.View history of time entry changesThe timesheet activity section has been expanded to include additional information including an overview of all changes made and by whom, so admins can keep track of who did what and when.KPI workbook (released Oct 10)New time workbookThe new time workbook allows powerful flexibility to view your time data how you need it. Quickly view your time entries by team member, customer, work type, or even work item. The new workbook also provides you with the raw tabular data, so you can see everything from individual time entries to aggregated results. Previous releasesIf you missed an update, you can still see a list of what we released in Karbon. For API releases, see the Karbon Developer Center.

TriageRespond to meeting or event invitations in TriageConnecting your calendar in Karbon will ensure you can respond to meeting invites directly via Triage. Responding with your preference to the meeting or event will automatically be added to your calendar. You can change your response at any time by clicking on the calendar event in My Week. Karbon Practice Intelligence PowerBI workbookAnalyze budget to plan for inefficienciesWe’ve added another workbook to Practice Intelligence. The budget workbook allows you to perform a detailed analysis and look at the budget retrospectively.  Have visibility and answer critical questions about potential reasons that actual time/cost are over the budgeted amounts, view active work items that are already over budget to look for efficiencies, and plan accordingly.  Use filters for work types, team members, and work item status directly in Karbon to explore detailed information and understand which clients are over (or close to going over) budget. Document managementAuto-create new folders for repeating work itemsRepeating settings for work items is used to set and forget work items that need to be repeated on a regular basis. Document management users in Karbon, can automatically create the required folders in your Document management system and start copying work files when a repeating work item is started (ie. when tasks and budgets are created for the work). This will ensure that you are always on track with up-to-date information in your folders which avoids confusion, making it easier to navigate for everyone in your firm. To configure, we have added a new section in Repeat settings > Connected folder to auto-create folders.  My WeekView information faster with an overlay in your calendarSimilar to the work overlay released earlier this month, this functionality has been added to the calendar. After you drag and drop a work item into the calendar, you can view event descriptions in an overlay via the work title. This will enable you to work faster and view critical information about work items, directly on the calendar. 

Karbon Practice Intelligence PowerBI workbookWithin Practice Intelligence, a new workbook has been added to allow you to analyze email activity and performance. The new email workbook will give you the ability to understand the volume and response of emails sent to and from clients. You can explore detailed information by using filters like date, contact, or client manager and navigate to each conversation directly in Karbon to action if required. My Week In-page search You can now find information quickly with in-page search in My Week. The search will return results for notes, emails, and work items. The first 100 items will be displayed, and you can scroll through to find more items using the arrow keys.Calendar collapse and expandBy default, the calendar in My Week displays an expanded view. You can now collapse the panel to provide more space to display your work items. To collapse, click on the cross in the top right-hand corner of the calendar. When you want to expand the calendar, click on the calendar button in the same place. WorkFind information quickly with overlaysSimilar to My Week, when selecting a work item in Work, an overlay will give you an at-a-glance view of the high-level information. In the overlay, you can mark tasks off quickly or click ‘View the full work item’ to go directly to the entire work item view. To bypass the overlay and navigate directly to the work item, simply right-click on the relevant work item.  Duplicate a section in TasksTo save you time and effort, we have added an extra option in the navigation menu in tasks, so you can quickly duplicate a section. This gives you error-free and easy access to edit information rather than retyping. Compose emails in context with TriagePreviously, when clicking on an embedded email address within an email, you were redirected to your email provider outside of Karbon. Now, Karbon will automatically open a new email modal, so you can stay in context with your workflow. Time & BudgetsNever miss a time entry againCharge clients accurately for work performed for time entries. You can now make Task Type and Role fields mandatory for time entries. When a new time entry is created, users won’t be able to save until these fields are populated. You can turn this on in Settings. 

Today we’re introducing the new Karbon Client Portal. We know visibility and efficiency are critical to your practice, so we’ve made it easier to engage with your clients, securely share information, and communicate with ease. The portal allows your clients to manage and comment on specific tasks, and ask questions all in the context of the work item. Your team is immediately notified and can take action. This eliminates the need for email and keeps everything together in one place, so it can be viewed anytime.As well as improving existing functionality, we’ve added new features to help you engage with your clients, making it easier for them to accomplish what you need them to do.Magic linksThe PIN has been replaced by a magic link. A magic link is a unique URL that clients receive via email along with their tasks. When clicked, your client will immediately (and somewhat magically) be able to view the latest requests and complete them on their desktop or mobile device. Plus, clients can easily access and download documents your team has sent at their own convenience.Because a magic link can only be accessed from your client’s inbox—and only used once—it’s a more secure alternative to a sharable or guessable PIN. For added security, the magic link expires after 30 days. If your client attempts to access the link after 30 days, they will need to generate another one. Client loginBusiness plan subscribers get the added benefit of clients having their own login section, allowing greater flexibility to view everything, including a history of open and completed requests, plus the ability to upload and download documents. Renamed headingsThe heading in Work > Tasks has been renamed from ‘Client Task’ to ‘Client Request’, which better aligns with terminology across the platform.SettingsThe Client Tasks tab has been renamed to ‘Client Portal’ where you can add your firm’s logo, set auto-sending options, and find a dedicated link to your Client Portal. You can add that URL to your website and/or outgoing emails for a great way to promote the feature and save you administration time, and allow your clients to access their information quickly. If you are a Karbon customer, register for one of our upcoming global webinars, where we’ll cover: An introduction to the Client Portal How to collaborate effectively with clients How to empower your clients to self-serve, find information, comment, and ask questions Session 1: Monday August 22, 9am PDTSession 2: Wednesday August 24, 9am AESTSession 3: Thursday August 25, 11am BSTClient AssetsVisit our help centre article for assets to introduce this to your clients including a video and email template.

Sync both ways with Google and Outlook calendars Calendars are at the center of most of our working lives and based on your feedback, we know a calendar integration in Karbon is in high demand. With that in mind, we're thrilled to announce our two-way calendar sync in My Week.This new feature allows you to sync Karbon with your Google or Outlook calendar (Exchange coming soon), allowing you to see your availability all in one place and lessening the burden on context-switching between calendars.The fact that the calendar integration is a two-way sync means that your calendar is updated in real-time. Google or Outlook calendar events will immediately appear in Karbon and vice versa.This means that all your calendar events will be current and accurate. You can book with confidence, knowing that there’s less possibility of multiple bookings and schedule disruptions. Fast and easy setupIt takes less than 30 seconds to set up the integration. Simply navigate to My Week and click on ‘Connect calendar’ and sign in to your calendar provider.An example is a Google Calendar connection Stay focusedOnce your calendar is connected, you’ll be able to respond to a single or repeating calendar event. Your Karbon calendar entries will replicate all the event details, conferencing info, description, organizer, and attendees. Hovering over a particular event will display more information, for easy referencing. Join meetings via Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and Skype right from the event in your calendar in My Week. Plus, time entries from your calendar event will appear on timesheets in Karbon, saving you time and double handling.You have the ability to view your calendar by day, schedule, and week or choose a particular date through the date picker. And you can easily block out time by dragging and dropping items from My Week into the calendar (day view only) to prioritize work and plan your day.Easily see the color coding of your events in Karbon from your calendar provider, to make it simple to glance at your schedule and quickly see what your day, week, or schedule looks like. And you’ll instantly understand where the majority of your time is being spent so you can adjust accordingly if needed.  Automatically connect repeating work items with your Document Management System (DMS)Once you connect Microsoft OneDrive, SharePoint or Dropbox to Karbon, you can set up your repeating work items to automatically connect to your specified DMS folders, guaranteeing your team a single, centralized source of truth. In the ‘Repeat Settings’ of any work item, a new section has been added called ‘Connect Folder’—this is where you can connect your DMS folder and start copying files automatically.  The connection won’t take effect until tasks and budgets are created.   To the comment section! We know you’ve waited a long time for calendar integration and will have lots of great thoughts on how you’re excited to use it today, and how you’d like to see the feature further develop over time. 

Below is some information on the Client Portal Security. For more information on the Client Portal please see this FAQ and How to Guide. To see it in action, please see this demo video.  Client Portal SecurityKarbon takes our responsibility for our clients, and their clients’ data security seriously. The Karbon Client Portal is a Karbon platform feature that allows trusted advisors to engage with their clients and share information in a manner that is more secure than email.This document outlines our security approach to Karbon’s Client Portal Magic Links and client login.Client RequestsThe Client Portal is protected by many of the same safeguards that protect access to the Karbon platform.All client request messages are configured with transport layer security (TLS) encryption protocol (an advanced form of secure socket layer - SSL encryption) to encrypt client request messages and submitted client documentation or artifact during data transmission (i.e., data travel) activities over the internet.This encryption transfers all messages and artifacts within the Client Portal over the internet in ciphertext, reducing the likelihood of your data being compromised during your client’s use of the Client Portal. Encrypting the Client Portal with TLS means that your client’s use of the Client Portal is secure and our client’s activities and data is encrypted and safely shared. Magic LinksMagic Links, provide a convenient and secure method for a party to verify their Identity. When a client receives a Client Request from Karbon, it will include a unique Magic Link to access the request from the body of the email.Magic Links can only be used once by a single device. A magic link can only be used a single time. Once it has been used, the device that received the email is considered a trusted device. Any attempt to reuse the link on any other device will be declined. If a client wants to access the portal on a second device they can request that a new link be generated and sent to them.Magic Links expire after 30 day. Regardless of whether a link has been activated or not, its access to the portal will expire after 30 days of being generated. At this time the client will be prompted to generate a new link.Magic Links are only valid for the lifetime of the work item. Once a work item associated with a magic link has been marked complete, the magic link is no longer available for use.Magic Links are unguessable. Unlike a PIN, which could be guessed, a Magic Link cannot be guessed ahead of time.Only one Magic Link can be valid at a time. If you resend a Client Request to a new email address the link in the initial request will immediately become unusable.Magic Links cannot be used to download sensitive documents. Documents uploaded by clients via client requests are not able to be downloaded via Magic Links. Documents uploaded by clients are only accessible inside the Karbon platform. Full Access via LoginIf your clients require access to all open and completed requests (including comments and documents), they can log in to the Client Portal, which is a password-protected web application. This differs from a magic link, which only provides access to the request details for a specific work item.The Client Portal requires that your client submit a username and password prior to gaining access to the portal. Submission of a username and password requires that the Client Portal validates the identity of the user prior to gaining access to all of the client requests sent to the client.Only your clients can access your Client Portal. To access your portal, the email address needs to be associated with a contact in your Karbon account. Once logged in, your client will only see the client requests sent to the email address they logged in with.  Security Best PracticeFirms using the Karbon platform to send magic links and request items from their clients are responsible for securing 1. their use of the Karbon platform, and 2. their associated email provider utilized to communicate via Karbon.The Karbon platform authenticates based on the credentials of the firm's email provider, selected during the Karbon account registration process; therefore, client requests and magic link communications are sent via an authenticated connection to the selected email provider.We suggest that you keep the security of emails ‘top of your mind’ when using the Karbon platform and its features. As the vulnerability of your emails lives in your email provider, it is your responsibility to implement appropriate security safeguards at this level. Please ensure there is a process in place for your firm's email security. We’ve outlined some best practices for securing your emails:Strong Complex Password Credentials - A strong password is one you can’t guess or crack using a brute force attack in a reasonable amount of time. They consist of a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special symbols, such as punctuation. Enforcing these for all personnel can increase your security. The most secure way to protect your password is by using a password manager. Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) - Adds an additional layer of security. This means that anyone trying to log in to your account requires two or more verification factors to gain access. Rather than just asking for a username and password, MFA requires one or more additional verification factors, such as an SMS code, which decreases the likelihood of a cyber attack. Security Awareness Training - Firms are vulnerable because of one key factor: human error. 98% of Cyber Attacks in 2021 involved some form of social engineering, so it’s important that all personnel within your firm understand the basics of information security and asset protection. We encourage you to deliver security awareness training on best practices for password protection, phishing attempts, and your firm’s practices for information security.Karbon Platform SecurityAll information stored within the Karbon platform, including Client Request data, is encrypted in transit and at-rest using enterprise-grade highly scalable cloud servers and databases.Karbon has implemented many additional security practices to safeguard data processed by the Karbon platform. These security practices are evaluated during periodic internal audit activities and external security audits, including the SOC 2 Type 2 examination. A copy of our general use SOC 3 report covering Security, Availability, Confidentiality, and Privacy service commitments for our Karbon web application can be requested here.Karbon customers wanting a copy of our more comprehensive SOC 2 Type 2 report should contact our customer support team. If you have any additional questions about the security of the Karbon Client Portal, please contact our customer support team at support@karbonhq.com

This is a reminder that changes to the Karbon Client Portal will be live next week. An overview of the changes are:Changes The heading in tasks will be renamed from ‘client task’ to ‘client request’ to better align with terminology across the platform The PIN will be replaced by a magic link (a one-time use link). The magic link is secure, as it can't be accessed by anyone other than the users it’s sent to. But more importantly, it reduces friction and allows users immediate access to action their items in a list view Changes to settings - Your logo placement will move from Company Details (now renamed Account Settings) and will be under Client Portal tab (previously Client Tasks), where you can also pre-set auto sending options. A dedicated link to your Client Portal which can be added to your website and/or outgoing emails and is a great way to promote the feature and save you administration time. It allows your clients to quickly access their information. The URL will be in the Client Portal tab. Coming soon - you’ll be able to send the client request to multiple Karbon contacts What’s new? Your client will receive a magic link rather than the PIN, as outlined above. A log-in section, which provides your clients with greater flexibility to view everything including open and completed requests (history), as well as documents that have been uploaded. Clients can comment and ask questions. Please note this is for business plan and above only. What will happen when the new Client Portal is live? Existing client tasks already sent prior to us making the new functionality live, can only be accessed by your client through the PIN in the email If you resend a client task, it will be accessed via the magic link if your client accesses it from the email If a client task is set up to auto-send in the future, it will be accessed via the magic link if your client accesses it from the email Any new client task that is sent will be accessed via the magic link if your client accesses it from the email If your client logs in, they will see up to 100 open requests and the last 100 closed requests.  The FAQs can help you respond to the needs of your clients more quickly, but, if you have more unanswered questions, please reach out to your customer success manager.To make it easier for you to communicate these changes with your clients, we have included some suggested wording and a how to guide, that you can adapt to your branding if you haven't done so already.We will send you an email when the changes are live.