Engagement information (all Modules)

I have used the T1 module for explanation; however, this would apply to all modules,

Every time I go into a file, I error messages on the office section because it does not match my system. The program should allow for me to have a Preparer, Reviewer and Partner signoff which is independent of the other.

Therefore, the staff can have the tax return preparer set, and the manager can sign off without adjusting the preparer etc. currently, it is all manual and a time waster.

James, do you have your options profile set up so that the ‘preparer’ tab is controlled by a local profile. I do not know about the 'reviewer’s status, as I do not use that in my firm (I sign off as approver/partner), but in my set up the tax preparer tab stays as the person that prepared the return, by having ‘preparer’ controlled by a local profile.

My preference would be to eliminate the items circles from the “office information” diagnostic and include a separate diagnostic for those items that we can turn off.

I thought they would have been in the preparer diagnostic, but I still get it when turning that one off, so I assume it is in the office diagnostic.

@matthew
yes, this area does need some work

Sorry to resurrect an old thread here, but have there been any solutions created regarding this issue? I’ve been looking for other threads on this topic but haven’t found any yet.

We’re just transitioning to TaxCycle and having a similar problem - I love that the preparer/reviewer/partner shows up in the client manager, which will be very handy at our firm; however, I haven’t figured out a good way to administer these settings.

We have multiple reviewers/partners/etc., and I don’t want them to be overwritten when a new preparer uses the “Update Office Details” function in the review note that’s triggered. Our preparer’s don’t just do work for one specific manager/partner either, so reviewers/partners can’t be hardcoded into the preparer’s settings. Our employees haven’t been good at filling these details out in the past, so I also don’t want to just disable the review message or it will likely be missed very often.

I was hoping there would be some kind of wildcard to use in the preparer options fields to allow them to be skipped when using the “update office information” function. For example, if the wildcard “*” was entered into the reviewer and partner fields in the "“preparer” options form, they would be skipped entirely - no review message would be triggered, and the field would be left out of an office details update. I haven’t been able to find one so far, but think this would be a good way to handle the issue.

Any help/tips would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

You could also just turn the existing review message off so that preparers are not prompted to update that information:

We could then add two separate review messages. “Enter reviewer / manager” when that information is blank. and a “Enter partner / approver” what that information is blank, along with a quickfix to populate the field with the information from options.

Thoughts?

~ Cameron

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Great idea - these new review messages would be perfect on the preparer side. We have another related issue in our workflow that I think could be solved in a similar manner (to keep things concise I didn’t describe it above). Our admin/efiler extraordinaire does all of our efiling, and if a file makes it through to her with outdated/incorrect office credentials it would be great to have a similar review message I could activate on her machine that wouldn’t be triggered by differences in the preparer/reviewer/partner fields, and also wouldn’t update them in the quickfix.

Thanks for you consideration on this issue!

@rick.s

Can you send me a screen shot showing the fields you’d like to have included in the review message for your efiler extraordinaire? I want to make sure I’m understanding correctly…

~ Cameron

Like @rick.s, we would really like the setup you have described.

@rick.s & @matthew –

I’m thinking of just removing the reviewer / manager and the partner / approver from the office info review message and office update quick fix altogether.

Instead, I’ll add a quick fix to the “Please enter the reviewer / manager” which will quickly populate the reviewer name from options. Same with the “partner / approver” field.

That makes more sense anyways since you can carry-forward those fields from the prior year.

Thanks for the feedback.

~ Cameron

Sorry, Cameron! After playing around with the engagement information a bit more today I realize my impression was incorrect regarding the current quickfixes that are in place. It looks like the “Update preparer information” quickfix already operates discretely to take care of the issue I thought we’d have with our admin, and she’ll just be able to disable all of the office information related review notes regarding preparer/reviewer/partner on her machine.

Sorry about that - clearly a newb here!

Regarding your solution above of adding two review messages, I’d request one tweak - could you also add a third review message/quickfix that focuses only on the office/preparer field? In that case I’d direct all our employees to only fill out their own name under the appropriate position in options, and only enable the review message pertaining to their position.

For example, this is how I’d have my options filled out in the options/preparer form:

My understanding of how this could function is first at the preparer level if we have a new person preparing a file this year (or if the office/preparer field is blank), they’d get a review message/quickfix to update only the office/preparer field to their own name, without changing the reviewer/partner fields that have been rolled forward. Similar at the next level, if we happen to have a different person reviewing a file versus prior year, or a blank office/reviewer field, it would be great for a review note/quickfix to be triggered that would only change the office/reviewer field (which I believe is what you had in mind with your suggestion above). Finally, the same could occur at the partner level.

We currently use a big excel spreadsheet to track these details, so having them visible in client manager and kept up to date through this type of review note/quickfix functionality would be a huge benefit for us!

Thanks again for your consideration, and have a great weekend!

Alright…

I think to solve this we need to do a few things:

  1. Remove the “Update Office Information” link that appears at the top of that section on the engagement form. I don’t think we want anything that updates everything at once for this section… it’s just confusing.
  2. Create 4 separate review messages that can be turned on or off as required
    a. Preparer/Preparer Number do not match options.
    b. Office Id does not match options.
    c. Reviewer/Manager does not match options
    d. Partner/Approver does not match options.
    In all cases, the review messages a through d would not show if there is no information in the options for that field.

With that system, preparers would just have a “preparer name” in options, reviewers would just have a “reviewer name”, etc, and then just their position would highlight on the engagement form, when there is a mismatch.

Does that make sense?

~ Cameron

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That sounds perfect! Thanks again, Cameron!