I REALLY, REALLY, do not want to have to remember to switch on Visibility: Allow Client to View & Download EVERY TIME I upload a document. It is a waste of my time and my staff’s time. We would not want to hide uploaded documents from clients – there is no logic in doing so. If I want to hide a document why would I upload it to their folder!
Either there should be:
A global option to default to ‘Always Visible’ so the user only switches this off when they do not want a client to see a file, or
A ‘Hidden from Client’ folder in each client’s document area
Also, it is very poor that we have to set up a document folder structure in EVERY client, instead of having a default folder structure that we can use for ALL of our clients e.g.
Files from accountant
Files from client
Old and revised files
Scanned client correspondence
with the option to add individual folders to a client if required. Again, setting up a folder structure individually for EACH client is a waste of my time and my staff’s time.
In addition, we should be able to save ‘reports’ for different tasks. We can set a custom task view, but we need to use a number of views e.g. Accounts outstanding, SA100s and SA800s outstanding, CT600s outstanding, CS01s outstanding, VAT100s outstanding, onboarding outstanding, sundry tasks outstanding, etc. So just having one custom view is not helpful. Again, it is a waste of my time and my client’s time to filter tasks in different ways EVERY TIME we want to see what is outstanding for a particular form.
We also need the ability to add several different contacts, directors, internal accountants, etc to each client, with the ability to select WHO is to receive the document/e-mail and WHO is able to approve. The current one primary and one secondary user is VERY limiting.
Hi Bryan. Your idea addresses 3 x areas of improvement in BM, which I support:
Improved Documents/Portal Manager - our practice management does not use it for now because of its present limitations. Your ideas for improvements make sense. A default folders structure, actually several depending on the services subscribed to (ITR only, Payroll only, full accounting services, etc.) that users can define and upload automatically for each client, without having to wait for them to, would be useful. The visibility point makes sense as well. A 'hidden' folder would be used if you do not wish the client to see the documents uploaded on the portal. In addition, and this ties up with your third point re-contacts, users should be able to allow/restrict access to folders to different actors in a company. But for that, you need to be able to have more than 2 x contacts in the system
Improved tasks reports - this is going to be improved soon within BM I believe. However, in the mean time, it is possible to save dedicated task views using your browser own bookmarking function. Once you have filtered the tasks you want to appear in your list, save the list as a bookmark in your browser
Improved contact management within BM - hopefully coming soon. :-)
Many thanks!
This would save so much time. So annoying to have to wait for the client to connect and then loading the relevant files