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Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Community Feedback

New to the community? Introduce yourself here!

Welcome to the Community! We’d love to get to know you a better, so please introduce yourself! Here are somethings you can add to your introduction: Your Name What you do Favorite aspect of your job Favorite hobby to do outside of work Fun fact about yourself Reply with a quick introduction so we can get to know you better!

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

published in Share Tips & Best Practices

6 time-saving ideas for using Karbon Automators

I like to think of Karbon’s Automators as ‘if this, then that’ rules. You let you set task and work statuses, assignees or more to automatically updated based on a certain activity happening (such as the preceding tasks being completed). They are one of the most powerful ways you can use Karbon to take care of all that boring admin work, and save your team a ton of time in the process. Here are 6 of our favorite ways that we’re seeing Automators being used. If we’ve missed any of the go-to ways you use Automators, we’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below! Let your colleague know their tasks are ready to start. A lot of tasks in your workflow are dependent on others being completed first. If you’re preparing a tax return, the work papers can’t be started until the financial statements have been signed off. Or if you’re performing payroll, there is a lot that needs to happen before pay run can be scheduled. This might be OK if you’re the one completing each step in th

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Community Guides

How to: Attach images and videos to your post

It’s easy to add images or videos to your posts.Add an imageYou can upload images to your post by clicking on the small camera icon in the text editor: All common file formats for images are supported (.png, .jpg, .gif)After a successful upload, you can either leave the image in the attachment, or you can choose to embed it into your post. To do so, simply enter it at the part of the post where you would like to have the image embedded. Embed videosAdding videos to your post can be done by clicking on the film roll button: You can add videos from Youtube, Vimeo and Dailymotion.Note: Please paste the original video url, not e.g. the url for embedding videos.After the video has been added, you can choose to keep the video as an attachment, or to embed it into your post. For embedding, please go with the cursor to the place of your text where you would like to present the video, and click on "place in text".

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

published in Share Tips & Best Practices

Using TSheets with the new Time & Budgets feature

Are you looking to utilize TSheets together with Karbon’s new Time & Budgets functionality? As part of our Time & Budgets release, we have upgraded our integration with TSheets. In order to use the two together, you will need to have custom fields turned on in TSheets to record time against roles and tasks types. Where the ‘Time’ Tab initially was, we now have a ‘Time & Budgets’ tab. This can be found on both a contact view as well as the work view. The ‘Time & Budgets’ tab will show you information such as: Budgets by team member Time entered Expenses For those who are using TSheets, how has this experience been for you?

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

published in Share Tips & Best Practices

Using Zapier with Karbon to help automate your workflow

Zapier is a great tool that allows you to connect your Karbon account with more than 2,000 apps. You can sync your data with different cloud accounting solutions, sales and marketing tools, CRMs and much more. Here are a few of our favorite “Zaps” that can help you automate your workflow and save you hours within your week. Keeping your contacts up-to-date with your cloud accounting software:One benefit of this ‘Zap’ is that as you make updates to important client details within Karbon you can ensure that your other databases will stay in-sync with this Zap Trigger: Person/Organization Contact Updated in KarbonAction: Create & Update Contact in your cloud accounting appYou can also do this in reverse. For example, if a new client is updated in your cloud accounting solution, you can automatically update a new contact in Karbon.Trigger: Contact Updated in accounting softwareAction: Update Person/Organization Contact in KarbonPossible apps: QuickBooks Online, FreshbooksView the tem

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice: Re-prioritize the items in your To-Do list using Drag & Drop

If you prefer to see the items assigned to you in a particular order, one option would be to move around your items by using the Drag & Drop option within your Sorting Slider. You can then hold on to those items and drag and drop them into the order you prefer, keep in mind that it might be also helpful to further filter your view so that you’re looking at just the items that need to be taken care of. Has anyone else found their favorite way prioritizing their To-do view? If so, what do you do?

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice: Change the status, colleague, to-do date or due date of To-Do items in bulk

You can do bulk actions such as Change the status of a work item, task, note or email Re-assign a work item, task, note or email Change the To-Do date of a work item, task, note or email Change the Due Date of a work item, task, note or email Just go into your To-Do list, filter by the type of items you’d like to change and set up your sorting options to view in the view you need and in the options menu on the right make those changes. For Example: Re-assigning my tasks to my colleague for a specific client Filtering by: Type: Tasks / Status: Planned, Ready to Start, In Progress and WaitingSorting by: Client

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Work-around: Email templates

When sending out multiple emails at a time or sending out the same email to clients on a regular basis, I’ve found that having the ability to easily pull a templated email to send off quickly has been a time-saver. While Karbon doesn’t have email templates, here’s a suggestion I have for those that would like the ability to do this in Karbon. Create a work item called “Email templates” Give it a start date and a due date far in the future, so it doesn't pop into your work view or to-do list. Use the work type of Internal. Send emails to yourself using the subject line as the type of email and then add that email from Triage to the work item "Email templates". This way, you can easily copy from these emails and paste into a new email to the client.

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Work around: Using a spell checker when in Karbon

While Karbon itself doesn’t have a spell checker at them moment, because Karbon is an online platform you can utilize your browser’s spell checker. Steps for Google Chrome Open Google Chrome Settings Privacy & Security Click Sync & Google Services Toggle on Enhanced spell check Steps for Firefox Select the “Menu” button located at the upper-right corner of the screen, then choose “Options“. Scroll to the “Language” section. Select “Check my spelling as I type” if you want to turn spell checker on. Uncheck it if you wish to have it off. Steps for Internet Explorer 11 Select "General" from the PC Settings menu on the left side of the screen Scroll down to the Spelling section. Set the "Highlight Misspelled Words" slider to the "On" position to make Internet Explorer identify misspelled words by placing a red squiggly line underneath them.

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

Introducing Email Insights

In case you missed it, earlier this year we launched the general release Email Insights to Karbon. In my opinion, the best thing about Email Insights is that it doesn’t just give you some charts with no real purpose. It provides you with genuinely useful information about how your team is using email, that will drive behavioral improvements, identify coaching opportunities, and save time across your firm. You can see things like: Daily email volume across your firm, or for specific clients or employees Average email response times How client communication compares month-on-month The clients that consume your team's time most The team members most effective at managing Triage The busiest times of the day for sending and receiving email How effective your team is at anticipating client questions Learn more about what Email Insights can do. You can trial Email Insights for 14 days. After your trial expires, full access to Email Insights costs

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

asked in Ask a Peer

Question for everyone: How do you prepare for an upcoming tax season?

What are some things you and your team do to prepare for tax season? Or better yet, what are some tips you’d share on best preparing for the upcoming tax season? If you’re interested in learning more about what you can do to prepare, join us for our webinar on planning for a successful and stress free tax season. The webinar will be covering:A blueprint for a successful tax season, covering planning, execution and review. Techniques to obtain client documentation and details in half the time Methods to plan capacity throughout your team to ensure work can be completed on time Best practices for collaboration, handoff and ownership

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice: Remind yourself to remind your clients of outstanding client tasks

A good way to prevent you and your team from needing to chase clients up for information is by using Client Tasks with auto-reminders. One small caveat, however, is that there is a limit to the number of reminders that will auto-send for a single Client Task. After the fifth reminder to your client, they will stop (this is to avoid your emails to clients being flagged by SPAM filters). An easy way to identify when this happens, so you can re-send them if necessary. Step 1. Create a custom workflow status called, Re-send Client Tasks. We recommend that this sits under the In Progress primary status. Step 2. Apply the Global Automator that will update the status of Work when 5 Client Tasks are sent and they are still incomplete. For the status, select your newly created: Re-send Client Tasks. Step 3. Create and save a customized dashboard in your work view that sorts all work items by status (you can apply additional filters if it makes sense). You will quickly see any work items with th

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice Tip: Scheduling client meetings

Rather than going back and forth to schedule client meetings. Insert calendar links, video meeting links, and other details in your client tasks within in your workflow

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice: Keyboard shortcuts

When you need to add a new item in Karbon, try using our keyboard shortcuts to quickly create those items. Shortcuts: Alt + S Search Alt + E Email Alt + N Note Alt + W Work Alt + C Contact Alt + T Time You can find those shortcuts via the Help & Feedback

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice Tip: Turn on all filters when adding emails or notes to work

If you find yourself unable to find certain work items when adding an item to work, try turning on all statuses. Karbon funnels work through five main statuses; Planned, Ready to Start, In Progress, Waiting and Completed. Turning on all five statuses ensures you’re viewing all work items that exist.

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice Tip: Creating a personal private workspace

If you receive any emails or notes that don’t pertain to any clients in you account or have items that you’d prefer to keep private. Try creating a private contact in your account that only you have access to, to do this: Create your contact Go into the contact’s details tab and add yourself to the ‘Client Team’ Scroll down to ‘Privacy’ and make your contact either private or hidden (by default it will remain public). You can then store emails on that contacts timeline or create work (which will inherently be private / hidden and visible to only the Client Team).

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Following up with unresponsive clients

A great tip from my colleague @evanrnhall recently shared on Twitter how you can follow up more proactively with unresponsive clients using client tasks. Check out the steps below: Setup automatic reminders Make sure your Global Automator is set up to update work status to Resend Client Tasks after the final reminder is set. Structure your work template to create a follow-up task in your to-do list In this example, the Client Manager role will see the follow-up task only if the client fails to complete their client tasks prior to all reminders being sent. You can see more on this here.

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice: Allocate time to manage your Triage

When you come into Triage, as a best practice, we suggest that you tackle your emails by setting up a specific amount of time in your day where you can focus entirely on taking care of the emails that come into Triage - we suggest taking three or four 20 minute blocks each work day in order to stay on top of them all.

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice: Navigating your To-do list to see only the items that are ready to work on.

Since your To-do list is the place where you can keep track of absolutely everything—big and small—that is your responsibility. Try the following steps to ensure you’re viewing only the items you’re ready to work on right now: Step 1. Update your Global Automators (found in Settings > Workflow) so that the default status is Ready To Start for newly assigned emails, notes, work items that reach their start date, and work items that have had their first task checked off. Step 2. In your To-do list, add a status filter, and choose to only show items that are In Progress ** Tip: Use your filter options of ‘Type’ to further narrow down your view** What are some ways you’re managing your To-do list?

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

Best Practice: Creating a note or email from a timeline

Rather than creating a new email or note from the Global Plus button in Karbon, to save yourself time, try creating it in the associated timeline. This way you can make any necessary changes or updates within one place such as; Assigning to a colleague’s To-do list Adding it to your To-do list Changing the status of the item Add the note or email to more work or contact timelines Whereas when you create a new email or note using the Global Plus button, you would first have to search for that item to make any of the above changes or updates.

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

asked in Ask a Peer

Question for everyone: How are virtual bookkeeping companies staffed?

Hi All! I’ve received two great questions from @HOAFinancials that I thought I would share here for Community input. Does anyone have any resources or input on how staffing for virtual bookkeeping companies might be organized. Also, what percentage of virtual bookkeeping practices has anyone seen using 1099s vs W2 employees located in the US? We would love to hear your thoughts or review any resources you might have to share with us and@HOAFinancials

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Ask a Peer

Question for everyone: Have you used the new Time & Budgets feature? If so, what's your experience been like?

As many, if not all, of you know we had a release for our Time & Budget feature where you can estimate and track time to jobs and people. If you’ve been using the feature, what has your experience with it been like?

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

posted in Share Tips & Best Practices

How have you managed the emails and items that come into your Triage?

So much time in our days can be spent on managing our inboxes, what are some things that have helped you effectively manage your inbox? With the use of Karbon here are some ways you can manage your emails to help save you some time. Have a plan - When you sit down at your desk, before you do anything else, determine the top three things you want to accomplish for the day. Then, block out time to dedicate to these top tasks. Dedicated time to complete email - Allocate specific blocks of time to focus your attention directly to your emails. A best practice approach is to take three or four 20-minute blocks each day to work through your inbox.Triage - Use the 4 D’s to clean up your inbox Do it Defer it Drop it Delegate it Give someone a to-do, or do it yourself so the email is finished. If you need to defer an email, rather than leaving it in Triage, create a to-do so you have a clearly defined task with a due date. If you’re interested in learning more about email management and

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

published in Share Tips & Best Practices

Automating and streamlining your client onboarding process using Practice Ignition

Using Practice Ignition you can turn your proposal, terms of service and payment collection into a single smart contract. By integrating Practice Ignition with your Karbon account, you can create a seamless client onboarding experience. Once you’ve mapped out your services from Practice Ignition to your Karbon templates it’s as simple as your client signing the proposal and the integration between Practice Ignition and Karbon automatically creating that work item for you. Learn more about setting that up here or sign up for our Practice Ignition + Karbon Masterclass where you can learn: A practical understanding of how Practice Ignition can integrate with your Karbon account to save time across your team and ensure work is automatically allocated to the right people The importance of aligning your sales & service workflows to ensure every piece of work has a signed proposal and terms How other accounting firms are using Karbon and Practice Ignition together to benefit their e

Erin JamisonKarbon Team

Introducing Time & Budgets

In case you missed it, earlier this week we launched the full release of our Time & Budgets functionality to all customers on Business and Enterprise plans. This is one of, if not, the biggest update we’ve ever released to Karbon. It allows you to track estimates, actuals, timesheets and analysis, in the same place as your existing work and collaboration in Karbon. This doesn’t just mean one less app to navigate between. It means you get a whole new level of functionality, automation and insight that is only possible when you have all this detail part of your workflow. Learn how to set up and get started with Time & Budgets. With a Business and Enterprise subscription you will have access to this feature. If you are interested in upgrading your plan contact us via chat on Help & Feedback or email us at billing@karbonhq.com. Have you and your team tried out Time & Budgets?

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