On February 11, 2023, we published a significant update to TaxFolder that upgrades the connection process for new users, expands the TaxFolder website and adds e-signatures in French.
This release refreshes and expands the website at www.taxfolder.com. This includes:
Help topics directed specifically at your clients accessing and using TaxFolder.
A news feed to address timely communication of client-facing news.
Support for French content and switching between those pages.
New Process for Inviting Clients or Team Members to TaxFolder
This update introduces a new process for inviting clients and team members to TaxFolder, laying the groundwork to allow single sign-on (SSO) from other services, such as Google or Xero, at a future date. For detailed instructions, see the Connect Your Account to TaxFolder help topic on taxfolder.com.
Changes include:
TaxFolder no longer automatically creates a TaxCycle Account when you invite a client or team member to join the service. Instead, the new user receives an email inviting them to connect their account to TaxFolder and if they don’t yet have a TaxCycle Account, they can choose to create one. Connecting a TaxCycle Account to TaxFolder now requires a valid invitation link as well as the successful completion of SMS verification for clients or Shared Secret for team members.
For existing TaxFolder clients or team members, firms can now connect a new TaxCycle Account by resending the TaxFolder invitation email. By clicking the button in the invitation email, the new user can create a new TaxCycle Account (or use an existing one) and connect it to the TaxFolder record.
Changes made to the client or team member email address in TaxFolder do not update the TaxCycle account used to connect to TaxFolder. This allows you to use a different email address to sign in than TaxFolder uses to send email notifications.
If your client needs to change their email address, you can update it in the TaxFolder Client Dashboard, but the client will need to update the email address in their TaxCycle Account for their sign in credentials. (Alternatively, you can send a new invitation link to the new email address to allow the user to connect a new or different TaxCycle account.) The email address will also need to be updated in the TaxCycle tax return to match the new email address for the client in TaxFolder.
The changes in the SSO process, above, also address several customer requests around the management of multiple client portals or firms with a single TaxCycle Account.
Clients can now use one TaxCycle Account to connect to multiple client portals within and across multiple firms.
Users with access to multiple accounts must now select which firm and which type of user account they wish to access when signing in to TaxFolder.
The same TaxCycle Account can now connect both clients and a single preparer within the same firm.
Team members may only connect their TaxCycle Account to one Team Member account in each firm’s TaxFolder instance.
Clients and team members can switch between TaxFolder firms, and between client portals and client dashboard through the menu at thetop right of the window.
Note: Print from TaxFolder will only support printing to one Firm and does not support multi-firm yet. Please wait if you are considering adding a team member to more than one firm as a preparer.
French E-signature Process
This release adds support for signing and approving documents in French.
Signature requests sent from TaxCycle to clients with French as their language of correspondence will receive a signature request email in French and can complete the signature process entirely in French. For French instructions on signing documents, see Comment signer un document dans TaxFolder.
If you invite a client to TaxFolder to access the client portal, they will receive an invitation in French and can proceed through the connection process in French. However, the client portal will still appear in English as the translation to French is coming in a future release. See Connecter votre compte à TaxFolder.
Other Changes
Improved the readability of client email notifications in dark mode.
Improved the usability of password reset email notifications sent from TaxCycle Accounts.
Added more validation of email addresses entered into TaxFolder.
Added an automatic page refresh after the client deletes a document from the client portal.
Updated the design and behaviour of pages that appear after signing out of TaxFolder to better redirect clients and team members to their next task.
Added error handling for signature requests in progress where an engagement is deleted.
Documentation Updates
We have updated and created various new help topics to reflect the changes in this release:
Customer Reported Signatures not completing where a preparer was not assigned to the engagement.
Customer Reported Signatures rendering on final signed copies in portrait in PDF documents that were saved or sent in landscape.
Customer Reported T183 timestamp 12-hour format instead of 24-hour.
Customer Reported Logos not displaying correctly on TaxFolder PDF files in some cases.
Customer Reported Pages printing in the wrong order when a batch of documents were uploaded to a signature request in TaxFolder causing the signatures to appear in unexpected locations.
