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The proposal step, the tax-return and month-end-close flows end to end, and full billing parity
This release builds out the two flows a firm lives in, tax-return preparation and the month-end close, end to end, and brings the billing system to parity with how firms actually run it. A new proposal step matches the real sales motion: after you approve a quote you send the prospect a scope-and-fee proposal to win them, or blend it straight into the engagement letter for a warm referral. Everything stays gated by your approval. Steps that depend on an outside connection (e-file, KBA e-signature, document export, transcript reconcile, SMS) are built and clearly marked as waiting on that key, never faked or stubbed to look done.
The proposal step, the way a firm actually sells
A pre-engagement proposal sits between the quote and the engagement letter.
- →After you approve a quote (which locks the fee, it is no longer emailed on its own), generate a branded scope-of-services + fee proposal to send the prospect and win them.
- →Finance/Accounting proposals split a one-time onboarding fee from the recurring monthly steady-state fee; tax proposals are per-return.
- →Review and edit the scope and the cover email, then export to Excel or PDF, the way a partner already works.
- →Or Blend it: one click folds the proposal into the engagement letter so a single document goes out, for a warm referral you don't need to sell. The approved fee bakes into the letter either way.
- →Proposal documents auto-save to a Proposals collection, and the firm's scope-of-services template is editable per track in Settings.
Tax returns, from engagement signed to year sealed
An eight-stage pipeline that mirrors how a return actually moves through a firm.
- →Engagement signed, then an auto-generated request list and power-of-attorney go to the client.
- →Documents arrive (portal, email, upload), get classified and matched, and the tracker auto-chases what's still missing until it's complete.
- →Workpapers, then review: comments route back to the preparer with cleared/uncleared tracking, and each person gets a what's-on-your-plate queue of their returns ranked by what can go out with the least effort.
- →Delivery: a plain-English summary of the balance due or refund and its drivers (with a spousal breakdown where needed), signature tracking per signer, and a final check that nothing changed between sign-off and filing.
- →E-file, then the year is sealed and the record locks with a full audit trail.
- →The steps that need a connection (SurePrep export, CCH e-file, DocuSign KBA e-signature, IRS transcript reconcile) switch on the moment you add the key, and are clearly marked as waiting until then.
Month-end close, from trigger to sealed
A ten-stage close on each client's own cadence, with the bank-to-books engine inside it.
- →Each client closes on their own cadence (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly), which triggers the period.
- →Transactions and AP/sales channels pull in, then reconcile, with a QuickBooks-to-Bill.com tie-out that checks both AP posting events landed.
- →The open-items-to-client-clearance loop is explicit: open items go to the client and the close loops back to reconcile until they're cleared, and workpapers won't refresh until they are.
- →Workpapers, cash and FP&A refresh, variance commentary, partner review and the client close call, then the period seals and locks with a version trail.
- →The bank-to-books categorizer now lives right inside this flow and is findable in the nav, with every transaction showing how it was categorized.
Billing, to spec
The time, approval, reporting, and invoicing system firms asked for.
- →Only the assigned manager approves their own team's time (with an admin override), and time can't be billed until it's approved.
- →Cost-per-hour from real compensation drives the margin and cost reports; compensation is visible to admins only.
- →Submit a whole week of time at once for your manager to approve; capacity shows a billable vs non-billable split.
- →Reports add Project Details over a date window, margin by client as a monthly time-series, and a portfolio drill-down by person and task.
- →Invoices carry real line items (user, hours, taxable, amounts, totals) with Time-formatting and Expense-formatting panels and an expense capture model; personal-tax invoices route to TaxDome while corp/finance stays on QuickBooks.
- →Full leave types with PTO greyed out on the grid, floating holidays and overtime for offshore-tagged team members, configurable time rounding, and a seedable default task taxonomy.
Documents, sectioned and navigable
The request list and the client's files, organized the way a preparer reads them.
- →The open-items request list is now sectioned like a real tax-return checklist (income, deductions, and so on), and the staff and client views match.
- →Every client has a navigable binder with an in-app PDF viewer, so files open in place instead of only downloading.
Fixes & improvements
- •Approving a quote no longer sends anything to the prospect; it locks the fee into the proposal and the engagement letter.
- •The onboarding walk-through steps and their actions are aligned, so each step's button does its own action.
- •Integration tiles report their real state (connected, needs a key, or not yet available), with nothing shown as connected when it isn't.