Arti Patel Martinez, ProAdvisor Training & Certification Leader: On today's episode of In the Know, we'll be exploring the ProConnect Tax feature in Intuit Accountant Suite.
Hey ProAdvisors, it's Arti, and you're watching In the Know, where you get exclusive access to demos of Intuit product enhancements by the leaders who built them.
Let's jump right in with Hailey, who will show us a demo of what's new with ProConnect Tax in Intuit Accountant Suite.
Hailey, welcome!
Hailey Garcia: I want to start talking a little bit about another thing we've been doing, about how we can help you manage your workflows and how to stop jumping between so many different softwares.
Similar to Books Close, we were hearing from accountants that they have to jump through so many different workflow management tools, including ProConnect Tax, to track progress across different tax prep work and filing across all of their clients. We took the model from Books Close and created customizable workflows that allow you to assign, track, and complete tasks all within Intuit Accountant Suite, so you don't have to keep switching into client files.
Talking a little bit more about tax, here is an overview page about what's happening. You guys are kind of getting a sneak peek today because this is coming live this month, so you'll see it soon. When you go into your Tax Prep tab, you will see the option to sign up and get started with Tax Prep. Tax Prep is free, but you have to have a ProConnect Tax subscription to file the returns and use it in Intuit Accountant Suite across your clients.
Let's jump in to actually see how the Tax Prep module will work. So now that you're still in your Work Tab, you can go under tax and to Tax Prep. You'll see a very similar screen to what you see in Books Close, an overview where you can track across your clients the different engagements, your federal e-file status, an e-signature status, the return type, and different task management things such as the number of tasks that have been done, your preparer, your approver, and the status.
Let's kind of put this a little bit differently from how we talked about Books Close, but I want to start with how you can get set up here. You similarly have different assignees, and you can rename and customize however you need. You can customize your status in whatever way you need as well, but we also have more standard templates to support your tax engagement. Here you can make a copy of the different templates and make edits that you might need. These are the ones we'd recommend just to get started, and you can apply this once you create a tax engagement. Here we have the different tasks, and you can assign to different people similar to how you can do it in Books Close. Let's just use our default template for now, but definitely take a look and customize the template as you need.
Now that we're in our tax overview, let's actually make a tax engagement. Let's say I am trying to make a tax engagement for my client. What I'll do is select my client, select the tax year, and then I can select which engagement type I want and which return type. Maybe for Christina's Crepes, my client, I want to make an engagement for one of these corporate filings. I'll start putting my engagement name, and I'll select a template. Because it's a business, I'll do a business return. I'll select my preparer, viewer, and approver. Then, I can save and start.
Now this brings me into the tax prep page. Here, I have all those tasks that you saw earlier, and I can work through the tax prep process and mark things as done and manage my process across all of my clients. This is where I'm doing my work, and this is where a lot of the magic comes in. This is how we're bringing ProConnect tags into Intuit Accountant Suite, so when it's time to start a return, I can just click start return, and it will bring in Pro Connect tags, so I have to start my actual first tax return. So I'll click create, and here you see this little blue dot that says tax return that signals that ProConnect Tax has been brought into the Intuit Accountant Suite.
I can go and start doing every step for the tax return here, and when I click X, I go back into my prep page, and we also have actions for every key step of the tax return, so if I need to request an e-signature, I don't need to go through and find that page, I can just click on that direct link within my workflow and start that process. Service delivery tax is meant to help you do the work and to manage the work across all of your clients at scale. I definitely recommend checking it out in the next few weeks. Really excited to be sharing that!
Arti Patel Martinez: Amazing, Hailey, thank you so much for that walk through!
If you find this update interesting or helpful, go ahead and like, comment and subscribe. That's all we have for now.
For more product updates and demos, check out our In the Know hub. We'll catch you next time.
*This information is intended to outline our general product direction, but represents no obligation and should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. Additional terms, conditions and fees may apply with certain features and functionality. Eligibility criteria may apply. Product offers, features, functionality are subject to change without notice. Product screen images simulated. Video sequences shortened.
