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maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

HTML in Client Task Emails - Send Beautiful client tasks

Goal:Make collecting information from clients as easy as possibleSteps:Create a questionnaire in Typeform Add hidden fields Publish (You’ll get a URL that looks like this but with your own typeform_key and form_key) https://typeform_key.typeform.com/to/form_key#preferred_name=xxxxx&client_name=xxxxx&work_item=xxxxx&contact_name=xxxxx Add a little HTML link to a Karbon client task. This page may help you understand what’s going on here: https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_links.asp Replace the placeholder “xxxxx” with your the dynamic tags in Karbon (update typeform_key and form_key to your unique values) Add dynamic text between the <a> tags <a href="https://typeform_key.typeform.com/to/form_key# preferred_name=<%preferred_name>& client_name=<%client_name>& work_item=<%work_name>& contact_name=<%contact_name>"> <%client_name>'s <%work_name> Questionnaire</a> Send and

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Ask a Peer

Seeking Insights: Implementing Real-Time Feedback to Improve and Promote Our Services

Hello everyone,I'm exploring effective ways to gather real-time feedback from our clients to continuously improve their experience with us. Given that we update our systems and processes incrementally throughout the year, clients who interact with us annually may find these changes quite significant. My primary objectives are: To capture genuine client feedback shortly after they've experienced our service. This feedback is crucial for understanding their perspective, especially considering the incremental changes we implement throughout the year. To identify our promoters and detractors. This classification will help us tailor our follow-up actions more effectively. Specifically, we aim to: Engage with detractors to understand their concerns and rectify any issues, ensuring a better experience in the future. Encourage promoters to help enhance our online reputation through positive reviews on Google and social media platforms. I'm curious to learn from those who have systematically

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

asked in Ask a Peer

Any plans to integrate Docusign into the portal?

Does anyone know if there are plans to integrate IRS compliant E-Signature software into the Karbon portal?

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

asked in Ask a Peer

Add and access organization address, phone number, and email address via API

When requesting an organization by key, I don’t see where the phone numbers, email addresses, and addresses are listed.I checked the docs and there’s no information about what I can “$expand”.Here’s what I see in Karbon:Here’s the request I made:url = "https://api.karbonhq.com/v3/Organizations/xxxxxxxxxx?$expand=Contacts"payload={}headers = { 'Accept': 'application/json', 'Authorization': 'Bearer xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'}response = requests.request("GET", url, headers=headers, data=payload)print(response.text)Here’s the resulting code form an API request:{ "@odata.context": "https://api.karbonhq.com/v3/$metadata#Organizations/KarbonService.OrganizationDTO(Contacts())/$entity", "@odata.type": "#KarbonService.OrganizationDTO", "OrganizationKey": "xxxxxxxxxx", "FullName": "test full name", "ClientOwner": null, "ClientManager": null, "ContactType": null, "UserDefinedIdentifier": null, "RestrictionLevel": "Public", "LastModifiedDateTime": "2023-02-04T1

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Karbon AI

Anyone have prompts that work well for them when drafting emails?

I’ve been using ChatGPT to generate prompts for the email drafter in Karbon but I haven’t had much luck. I don’t know if it’s because the models are different. The 500 character limit is also an issue.My main issue is that I’m getting fill-in fields returned in the email subject and body, like work item title and relevant period, to which I assume the model has access.Prompt: Update the client about the progress we've made on this work item. Use the name of the work item in the subject line of the email.Result:It seems to be pulling information and commitments from its… uh… from nowhere.Also, I’d like to see if anyone is getting it to address a human instead of the organization related to the work item.

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Ask a Peer

Karbon AI -- What do you hate? What do you love?

I’ve challenged myself to only send emails generated from draft. I tidy them up and change them if needed, but I’m trying to learn how to prompt the AI to get what I want quickly. Overall, it’s been surprisingly helpful with some hilarious flubs.I have not started experimenting with the email item in a work item that generates from a predefined set of prompts, but I think that will be amazing based on what I’ve seen so far.I’m curious how others are using the AI? What makes you love it? What makes you hate it?@Silvia Evans, I saw your post about it here:I’m curious what about it you love. 😁

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Ask a Peer

Financial Statement Software -- Looking for suggestions

Hi Karbonites,I’m looking around for a software to help us streamline our financial statement preparation. We have played around with TenkeyATB, but there are a few red flags:The website lags pretty badly when doing regular activities. The saving operations are not straightforward and we have moved ahead without saving and lost progress. It’s way to easy to delete things like account groups, journal entries, etc. without warning or confirmation. The report writer is extremely basic and doesn’t link with the financial statement. Account numbers are required.I’m curious if anyone has found a software that:Imports data from QBO/Desktop/flat file Allows account grouping and re-classification. Book and tax JEs with good workpaper representations Financial Ratios Visually professional statement and report output Statement-linked report writer with notes library Cloud-native (preferred, but will go self-hosted if necessary) UltraTax line mapping and export (preferred but not required)Other so

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

asked in Karbon AI

AI Prompt Limits and other input issues

Hi All! 😁I’m working on a little project where I use ChatGPT to design prompts for my Karbon Email tasks, but there seems to be a 500 character limit to the prompt window. When text overflows the visible prompt window, regular navigation techniques do not work to see the text that’s in the window.I’d love to see:Character limit expanded to something reasonable. A dynamic character limit displaying how many characters left. Scroll bars in the input window to facilitate editing larger prompts.

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Ask a Peer

Exploring the Integration of AI in Accounting: Let's Discuss! 🤖📊

Hello fellow Karbonites,With the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), I feel like our industry is on the verge of something incredible… like we have discovered the wheel but can’t quite figure out how to use it.I'm considering hosting a video call on Microsoft Teams to discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI into accounting practices. The session aims to:Provide an introduction to the potential of AI in accounting. Discuss the challenges we face in harnessing this technology. Share real-world examples and insights. Offer resources for further exploration.If you have experience or if you know someone who would be a great guest speaker, let me know. I’d love to have time set aside for a few specific examples/demonstrations.Would anyone be interested in joining such a discussion? If yes, please comment below or send me a direct message. Also, if you have specific topics or questions you'd like to be addressed, feel free to share.

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Human Accounting Mastermind - Collaborate to solve complex business problems through human-centric continuous improvement.

[UPDATE] Indefinitely postponedI’d like to try again with less rigidity and more collaborative sharing. Less seminar and more “Here’s a problem we had and how we solved it” and “Here’s a problem we have, how are y’all solving it” framework. The NewsMastermind DatesLink: Subscribe to Calendar (Tap the dates below to add individual dates to your calendar)July 7, 2022 August 4, 2022 September 1, 2022 October 6, 2022 November 3, 2022 December 1, 2022We are experimenting with holding the meetings at 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET. That may change upon receiving more feedback (drop a comment! 😀)The HypothesisTaken together, the companies in this community have solved most of the problems accounting firms face. The more we share, the more we can collectively learn to be better, more human-centric companies.The ExperimentWe will be experimenting with hosting a monthly video call where the people who join will work through the steps to define and improve complex business problems. We will run it like a

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Connect Karbon API to Excel

Skip ahead:Introduction Template Files Instructions Troubleshooting Use-Cases and ExamplesIntroductionThe goal of this post is to help you connect the Karbon API to Excel.I will be updating this post with better code (more comments), and instructions on how to get this set up. I may do a series of posts loosely related to pulling in data from Karbon to model and use in Excel using Power Query and Power Pivot.If you use any of these functions or have better ways of executing this code, I would love to see your comments.Specific use cases should be addressed in new topics and then linked back to this topic. The most useful and interesting use cases posted in the comments will get added to this OP.Template FilesLink: Human Accounting Mastermind Document RepositoryIn the link above, you will find template files for Excel and Power BI (coming soon). These files have everything you need to get started, but there are some additional setup steps that I will cover below.InstructionsHow to add y

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

asked in Ask a Peer

Real estate tax retun referral — anyone intersted in a few extra tax clients?

I’ve got a client or two who have some real estate trusts and partnerships in different states. I’m looking for someone with specialized knowledge related to real estate operations in different states. Anyone willing to point me in the right direction?Thanks in advance. :)

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Add notes to Karbon from your iPhone with the push of a button using speech to text

BackgroundI got a little side project up and running last night. It’s an iPhone shortcut that you can add to Siri or your phone’s home screen. It asks you to dictate a message then adds it to Karbon as a note. You have the option to set the author, assignee, and a few other parameters.Link: Add Karbon note from iPhone shortcut (tap from iPhone)Use caseAfter a client meeting while ideas are fresh, tap this button on the ride home and spill all the details for an assistant or admin to get started right away. Great for between multiple meetings on the same day. A fellow staff member walks by and tells you something important about a client… pull out phone and dictate yourself a note to hit your triage later for when you are back at your desk. Get a text message on your phone while golfing (I hate golf) and add a note to Karbon quickly instead of leaving the text unread/forgotten.Things you’ll needAn iPhone API Application Key and Bearer Token - register Patience 😉InstructionsGather your

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Ask a Peer

Scorecards and KPIs - Anyone love what they track?

We’ve recently started tracking our business on a weekly scorecard.Our first draft leading measures:Past due work count for each: Bookkeeping Accounting Tax Unbilled WIP AR over 30 Days New Business PresentationsOur lagging measuresYoY Revenue Growth 365-day Revenue/staff Gross Profit % Net Profit %We have targets for each of these numbers. I’m curious what other firms are tracking. I don’t want to track too much. Smaller groups will eventually have their own scorecards to track details related to their work area.My premise states that if we are doing these activities (completing work on time, billing work timely, collecting on billed work, and offering proposals for new work), our lag measures will head the right direction, and if they aren’t, there’s a deeper issue we can explore (like pricing, efficiency, etc.).

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Ask a Peer

Update roles on existing work using the API

General Info Issue Possible countermeasures More Information Code Samples** UPDATE **There’s a bug in the API that does not let us GET or PUT “UserRoleAssignments” so this project is on hold until the bug is fixed. Here’s the email from the ever helpful @StuartK.General InfoThis post is under construction… I will continue to update and add more content here based on conversation below.IssueCredit: @Tom Kneeland When using Intuit Practice Management (IPM), there are certain limitations that we will address here.Possible countermeasuresProgrammatically add or update roles using the API and Python (doable) I have programmatically added roles with Python API calls I’ll share code when I fully understand the issue Automatically add roles using webhooks and a webhook handler like Azure Logic apps or Zapier (doable at a small cost) Explore, submit feature ideas to fix issues with IPM (Subject to others)More InformationTom’s original post:...I am an IPM user, which is still Karbon. It turns

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

asked in Ask a Peer

Client request gentle reminders with multiple client request due dates

Anyone know how this reminder works with different client request item due dates?I checked the help files and they do not seem to address if you have more different due dates for different client request items (we make the tax questionnaire due before the documents).Do the reminders go based on the earliest due date? What if there is a client request without a due date? The instructions in the blue box say to add due dates to all tasks. What happens if the due dates are within 7 days? Does the first reminder get skipped or just go to the back of the line?I will test this, but I’m curious if anyone knows so I can get my answer more quickly. 😊It would be cool to get clarity in the help docs, too @Aliesa Jackson. 😁

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Book Club

Many of you all actively seek excellence.What books have made the most impact on your journey?Why did they have an impact?Feel free to add a quote to a book already listed. I’ll go first and will add to this list as people add books in the comments. 😁Table of ContentsTable of Contents Professional Development Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn The Toyota Way to Service Excellence Personal Development Crucial Conversations (Third Edition) The Power of When Fun Books The Enderverse The Casual Vacancy Biography Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World Alexander Hamilton Professional DevelopmentLearning to Lead, Leading to Learnby Katie AndersonKatie had the amazing opportunity to spend many hours interviewing, learning from, and discussing leadership with one of Toyota’s key executives. It’s an interesting window into wise leadership through ups and downs throughout his career. - @max The Toyota Way to Service Excellenceby Jeffrey Liker and Karyn RossThis book uses storie

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

asked in Ask a Peer

Unsuccessfully trying to add work schedule using the API

issueI get 4005 (when I modify the structure) or 5001 (when I run according to documentation) when trying to add a work schedule via POST request.detailsThe documentation seems a little light (didn’t include a few fields I thought would be necessary), and I’m getting an internal server error whenever I try to add a work schedule.I performed a GET request on an existing work schedule I want to repeat. I am using the values from that get to populate my template POST request.troubleshootingAfter my first attempts didn’t work, I added WorkItemTitleDisplayText and AssigneeUserKey. They are not added in the documentation, but perhaps they must be added/updated via PUT once the schedule creates. I noticed that the GET request returns a JSON element as a string. I de-escaped it to see if the API expected JSON instead of a string coming back, but I got a 4005 error. The offset integer for the variable portion was passed as a string in the GET request but as an integer in the text portion, so I

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

asked in Ask a Peer

What can go in the description when adding an organization with the API?

I’m working on a little script to clean up some bad data and I noticed there are keys in the description field:This makes me think there are other types of data we can put in the description field. Just curious. 😁cc: @StuartK

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Client onboarding with API automation [Human Accounting Mastermind Group Project]

PurposeWe want to reduce the stress our staff and clients experience. Specifically, we want to make onboarding new clients easy for the staff to be perfect and a smooth process for the new client.ProblemOur firm uses GoProposal, and I know other firms use Practice Ignition to automate the proposal and engagement letter process. These two companies have integrations with carbon that add the work to Karbon. We like that nothing gets missed, but the work comes over to Karbon with several issues:incorrect start dates no due dates work on the wrong sub-entities no fee informationAfter a proposal is signed, we spend between 30 minutes and two hours, cleaning up the work. - Max Here is our struggle and my wish list! ... [Client] Requires: 1 Group creation 6 organizations need to be created 2 people contacts need to be created 1 onboarding work item to the group 10 annual work items for the tax returns to the organizations and they need to be set to recurring annually 1 bookkeeping wor

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

asked in Ask a Peer

Upload documents when creating a note via API?

I use an Apple Shortcut to create notes in Karbon from an icon on my phone’s home screen, but it would be nice to be able to snap a photo at the client site and attach it to the note from my phone while I’m there.I could accomplish this by uploading the photo to the client’s file in OneDrive, snagging the link, and then passing it as input to the shortcut, but I would like to do something simpler and reliable for the people receiving and acting on the note in Triage.https://developers.karbonhq.com/api#operation/Notes_PostIn the documents I see that we can create HTML notes only. Am I understanding that properly?CC: @StuartK

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

2022 Karbon Stats

This is kinda fun. 😀

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Ask a Peer

Philly-area Karbon Users Get-together -- would anyone join?

I’m in the Philidelphia, Pennsylvania, USA area for a while and I was wondering if anyone else was nearby. Maybe we could get a little happy hour or something going.Is anyone nearby and interested in enjoying some good food and drink, and meeting each other in-person?

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Karbon API Examples

Skip Ahead:Introduction Examples Add a template-based work item to a list of clients Basic tools for running API requests (Python) IntroductionPlay along at GitHub: https://github.com/dchrm/human-accounting-mastermindThere are certain things in Karbon that I cannot automate the way I want, so I found that the API has worked in many cases. I’m curious how you are using the API. What problems are you solving? I’ll be sharing my implementations here and I welcome anyone to join and share theirs as well. I’ll edit this post with your examples so that we can start to build a repository of real-world DIY API implementations.ExamplesAdd a template-based work item to a list of clientsOur firm is focused on continuous improvement, so we quickly learned that annual recurring work items carry forward with them the poor layout of the year before. We are continually updating our templates with new learning, but our recurring work was missing out on the new way we were approaching work. We d

maxSr. Karbon Community Guide

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

meet Gehn -- Karbon API powers bot to keep our work types tidy

ProblemOur work types are tied to our service codes in QuickBooks Online (QBO). When one of our staff members add a work item with default work type, it doesn't map to any of our services in QBO. I manually searched for work set to default work type and added notes for people to pick the appropriate work type.Current countermeasureI put together a function that acts like a bot. I called it Gehn, and it checks work items to see if they have an appropriate work type. For any work set to default, Gehn creates a note on the work item timeline, assigns it to the work assignee, and asks them to pick the appropriate work type. The note includes a direct link to the work item’s details page, which makes changing the work type simple.Here’s what it looks like this in triage: Here’s a list of other things I would love to see automated:For all company phone calls, search Karbon for a business card with the corresponding phone number and add a note to the timeline asking staff to recap the call an

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