Client Checklist
ProSeries Professional
With Client Checklist, you can quickly communicate to your clients which tax documents you need from them to prepare their return. Using prior year data, this highly customizable feature will create a personalized checklist for each of your clients and allow you to modify it based on life, work or financial changes. And, explanations tied to each line item help make it even more clear what you need. Once you complete it, simply print and mail, or email securely.
The client checklist for each client is created using the Client Checklist template and information that was transferred from the client's prior year ProSeries/1040 client file. The program generates a list of tax documents using the client's prior-year 1040 tax information.
Client Checklist is included on your ProSeries HeadStart CD so you can begin using it right away:
- To use for a single client, simply open a return, then choose Tools and select Client Checklist. From there you can edit and then print or email.
- To prepare for multiple clients, simply highlight any number of clients from Homebase, choose Tools, select Client Presentation and then pick either Batch Print Checklist or Batch E-mail Checklist.
Customizing the Checklist
You can customize the Client Checklist template and the information in specific client checklists.
To customize the checklist for one or all clients:
- Open a client's return (if you want to customize for a specific client, open that client's return).
- Select Client Checklist from the Tools menu.
The left side of the Preview/Customize Client Checklist dialog box is a Print Preview area, and the right side of the Client Checklist dialog box is a Customize area.
Modifying Explanations
Click the Modify All button under Tax Document Explanations to change the wording for any of the Documents (whether shown for this client or not).
Adding items to the Additional Paperwork Section
ProSeries provides global checkbox items based on the client's prior year tax data. You can add new items using the numbered fields to the right.
Emailing the Checklist
The Client Checklist feature also includes an e-mail template that's used when you e-mail a client checklist (as an encrypted PDF file that's attached to the e-mail and password protected) to a client.
You can customize the Client Checklist e-mail template and the e-mails for specific clients.
The upper part of the Preview/Customize Client Checklist dialog box is for the client checklists that will be attached to e-mails, printed, and perhaps saved to PDF files. The lower part of the Preview/Customize Client Checklist dialog box is for the e-mail that's used when e-mailing client checklists to your clients.
Important: The E-mail portion of the Client Checklist feature may not work with some e-mail programs. The E-mail portion of the Client Checklist feature works when the preparer's computer has a MAPI (Mail Application Programming Interface) compliant e-mail program, such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Exchange, Hotmail, Groupwise 5, Yahoo Mail, AOL 9, Gmail, or Eudora.
Saving Changes
To save the changes you've made to the checklist screen to be used as part of the template for all clients, click the Save Changes for All Clients button at the bottom. ProSeries also prompts you to save for all clients when you click Close.
If you only want to the changes you've made to apply to this client, click the Save to pdf button and when you are asked to save changes for all clients upon clicking Close, be sure to choose No.
The only option for saving a "custom" checklist is to print to PDF. Otherwise all changes that are made and saved will be saved globally.