No doubt we all have our own way of keeping track of items that we must get done at some point. We’ve tried everything from post-it notes, random scribblings on note pads with a big square ready to tick off at some point, the latest cloud-based tool - they can still get missed or  neglected as your day progresses and you get swept up in the working week. 

As accountants, we’re all very methodical - We love prompts, reminders - anything that gives us that sense of control over a job that must be done.

This is where Tasks come in. You can begin to move on from note pads on your desk, post-its, forwarding & snoozing emails and hope that they get actioned. 

Create Tasks in the system so that it appears in Engager on your Dashboard and must be completed like any other Statutory deadline. 

Tasks are there to be your To Do List and Reminder system and they don’t just have to link to a client or a piece of work. Check out some of our examples below of how Tasks can help improve your practice and also help with stress levels!

Examples

Check RTI submissions every Friday before leaving - try and correct any that perhaps fail on the Government Gateway. You set this to be a weekly task and High Priority - if you have a Payroll Manager, assign it to them directly - or if it’s a team, you can select multiple team members!

Workforce Planning - Monday morning for all managers

In this example, we’ve created a weekly task for our managers to check the upcoming week for any staff holiday / absence and bottlenecks - anything that could derail a working week or month ahead. 

Remember, Tasks can act as your reminder or to do list; it doesn’t need to link to a client in Engager. 

Sound good? Let’s get these set up 

How to create a task

Head over to your Jobs tab

Once in the Jobs tab, select ‘Create Task’ on the right hand side of the screen. 

You’ll then be prompted to start entering in information about the task / reminder. You use this as a recurring task and any schedule that you can think of, complete the fields to your liking 

In the example below, we wanted to create the same task for multiple staff members, and you can do this by selecting the ‘multiple person icon’ on the right hand. Simply select the team members relevant.

WIth the Details window above, why not include some bullet points or number your steps for others to follow. 

Once this has been saved, it will appear on everybody’s dashboard for them to complete.

When in the Task, leave your notes, track Time spent on the job and when ready simply select ‘Complete’

We can now see that 1 of the team have completed the Task, the others are yet to do so

You can even see all of your completed jobs by selecting Reports, towards the top right of your screen - super handy to keep track!!

Select ‘jobs completed in a given period’

This is great, what else can you do with Tasks

While adding tasks as prompts and reminders for any manner of application is all very well and good - you could have a task against a client for recurring yearly birthday messages if you really want - but what about more practical applications? 

How about email? We all live in our inboxes; forwarding them on, snoozing them or delegating / dumping them. I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of replying to a client immediately saying that we’ll get their accounts out them at the end of the week or month. Well, lets be more accountable, by creating tasks from emails

Creating Tasks from email 

Let’s use the above example, a client has emailed in with a request to have their accounts ready by the end of the week as they’ve got a meeting with a mortgage advisor, so they want them a little earlier than usual. 

You can reply back to the client and then set yourself a Task to complete the account before the weekend, if you’re not able to action this right away. 

*If you don’t have your emails flowing through Engager, why not? 

Select Emails from your top bar

Then when emails, find the relevant email and select ‘tasks’ on the right hand side of screen, 

Then select New Linked Task

You will then need to make sure that you’re assigning the task against the appropriate client - the system will do it’s best to do this for you, however if the client isn’t linked to that email, you will do this manually like below:

Then select Confirm

Then complete the details of the task like above, but this time, check out the Details box - we’ve pulled through email for you as a prompt! How many times have we forgotten the action required, or a squiggle on a notepad that simply says ‘Dave - Accounts’ ????

Creating tasks can also be an incredible delegation tool for you and your team, as you can assign your team actions based on emails and the tasks thereafter. 

When you start using tasks, you’ll see these in your Jobs view, and directly via the Dashboard. 

You could even use our filters to see all tasks across the workforce

You can even change the filter to see what tasks have been completed, simply change the filter Due State to Completed

The options and practical application are endless.