Thursday marked the Self Assessment tax return deadline for anyone claiming a coronavirus Self-employment Income Support Scheme grant. HMRC will use data on 2018-19 tax returns submitted by 23 April 2020 to identify those eligible. The Government’s guidance states:
(As if you didn’t have enough to deal with.)
Use custom forms to get client info quickly and in a digital format
Instead of sending your clients a list of questions, a spreadsheet – or building forms from scratch in Word, AccountancyManager lets you build your own online forms. It’s quick and easy to do and you can create different forms depending on your clients’ circumstances. This is particularly useful when you’re preparing Self Assessment tax returns. In fact, we’ve created a default Self A ssessment checklist form to get you started, but you can customise it.
You get exactly the information you need, in a digital format, so no dodgy handwriting to decipher. And life is easier for your clients – which always makes you look good! Filling out the forms is like completing an online survey, much easier and quicker than having to edit a document with restrictive formatting or needing to print something out and scan it back in again.
Clients fill in their forms in their portal
AccountancyManager comes with a built-in document portal for each client, where you and your clients can securely share forms and other documents. Instead of emailing forms over – and risk them getting buried in a busy inbox – simply publish them to the client’s portal. Your clients access their portal through your website and you can ‘re-skin’ it to look like part of your site.
Chase clients for late or incomplete forms
You’ll get a notification in AccountancyManager when your client has filled in a form – or partly completed one. Then you can move on to your next task in preparing the submission. Until your clients complete their form, AM will continue to chase them with automated emails and/or texts.
Although these emails and texts are sent automatically, you have complete control over what they say and how often they go out. You set that all up first – just once – and AccountancyManager will do the rest.
How to use Custom Forms
Create and preview forms
To build, edit, view or delete custom forms, go to: Tools > Custom Forms. Here you’ll find a default Self Assessment form which you can customise.
Choose who’ll receive the form
Control who you send a form to by clicking Edit next to the form and ticking the options under Send To in the Form Details section.
For example, you can request that certain Client Types complete a form or choose whether the form is sent to clients that are currently registered or clients that are just registering.
Send forms individually
Once a form is created, you can keep all the Send To options turned off and just request that specific clients fill out this form. To send a request to an individual client, navigate to their client file and click the Custom Forms tab.
View unsigned custom form
You can find an overview of Uncompleted Custom Forms by navigating to Clients > Uncompleted Custom Forms.
To set up automatic reminders for clients to fill in their form, navigate to Settings > Automation Settings > Uncompleted Custom forms, you’ll find a template for this email in Settings > Templates > Standard Emails > Uncompleted Custom Forms Automated Email.
Need a hand?
If you need any assistance using Custom Forms or the portal, give our support team a call on 01926 355366 or drop them a message and they’ll be happy to help.
