Weekly Live Session - July 29, 2026
This week's Weekly Live covered three small quality-of-life updates going live the following Friday, automatic TaxCalc tax reference pull-through, and a run of practical Q&A on shared contacts, workflow automation and secure document sharing.
Andy took questions live throughout the session from firms already using Engager day to day.
Key takeaways
- [3:13] Email addresses in client records are now clickable, opening a compose-email window directly rather than requiring a trip to the communications tab.
- [4:53] The deals board can now be filtered to all active, all closed, closed won, or closed lost deals.
- [5:45] Services can now be set to automatically enable for every new client you create (for example onboarding or AML review), so you don't have to remember to switch them on each time.
- [8:21] If you're connected to TaxCalc, corporation tax and self-assessment payment-on-account dates now pull through automatically into tax references.
- [9:38] If a director sits across several companies, link one contact to all of them rather than creating separate contact cards, so they only need a single portal login.
- [15:14] For workflow automation, map out your phases on paper first, then set a status-update email and a job status change against each stage in Engager.
- [22:13] To share documents securely with a client's other advisers, restrict a folder to just what they need and invite them to the portal rather than emailing.
- [23:49] Build a reusable "key client data" document template with placeholders (UTR, VAT number, PAYE reference) so handover documents populate automatically instead of being typed out each time.
- [40:14] Services marked as internal only never appear on the letter of engagement, even when they're set to auto-enable.
- [48:39] Clients can be bulk archived: select them, then Bulk actions > Edit client status > Archived.
Session recording
Full transcript
[0:04] Good evening everybody. Hope you all uh good evening everyone. Hope you are
[0:11] all well. If you can see and hear me, please say hello in the comments. That would be fantastic. Good evening Shellyley. Hello Jennifer.
[0:21] Cheryl says loud and clear. Good evening. Thank you Cheryl. Good evening Kathy. Chris,
[0:28] Kirsty, Anna, all here. Lovely. Lots of people. I'm just going to give it a couple more seconds for everyone to pile
[0:36] in before I give the usual housekeeping rules. And then I've got a few new updates to show you. Oo.
[0:44] So, uh, uh, Miriam's here. Loud and clear. Evening. Evening, Miriam. Hope you're well.
[0:51] Fantastic. Okay. Hey, usual housekeeping rules guys. For those that have been here before and those that haven't, here's how it all works. This evening is all about you. I'm here to answer your
[1:00] questions as best I can, talk you through things or divert you to the right places for the resources that you are looking for.
[1:07] Um, so throughout the evening, if you've got any questions, please put them into the Q&A box rather than the chat. The
[1:15] webinars chat's lovely. Everyone gets a bit excited. I can't keep up. So, if you have a question you want me to answer,
[1:23] put it into the Q&A box. And to find that, it's either a speech bubble with a question mark in and Q&A written under
[1:31] it, or it might be hidden under the more button, which is a round circle with three dots in and the word more written under it. If you click on that, then
[1:38] you'll find the Q&A speech bubble uh saying Q&A and a question mark inside it in there. So throughout the evening, you
[1:46] can ask any questions you like about engager, running a firm, softwares, whatever it is you want. I'm here to share my expertise and knowledge.
[1:56] Um, and we are going to get kicking off by me sharing my screen and taking you through not one, not two, but three new
[2:05] updates. All three have been requested by users. Two of them were on sleek plan. One had 30 odd votes, the other
[2:13] one had 20 odd votes. They were nice, quick, easy wins. So, we've built them ready for you. And they should all go
[2:19] live on Friday morning. That's this Friday morning in 48 hoursish. 24 36 hours. Let's call it for 36 hoursish.
[2:31] Um, so you should all wake up Friday morning with a whole new thing. So let me just
[2:40] uh I've now lost Zoom. So Oh, give me a moment. Right, let me share my screen and we will jump on in.
[2:53] Uh we are on desk. Nope, I want that one.
[3:01] Okay, so if you can just say hello in the comments and confirm that you can see my screen. just so that I know that's sharing properly. That would be fantastic.
[3:09] Yep. Yep. Yep. Fantastic. Okay.
[3:13] So, update number one. I'll do these in kind of smallest to largest orders, I suppose. When I go to clients,
[3:22] you've got your email addresses. Now, you'll notice now if you hover your mouse over it, there'll be a line underneath it. That normally means
[3:30] something is clickable. Remember guys, don't try looking for this in your engages right now. It's not there. It comes out on Friday.
[3:39] If I click on that, we now open the compose email box for you to make life a bit quicker and easier to save you
[3:46] fuffing around having to go into the communications tab or something. Or if you are in a client, go to ABCD, go to
[3:55] related clients. I'm in here. Actually, I need to send that person an email.
[3:59] Tada. You've now got the ability to open a compose email box by clicking on an email address.
[4:08] Um, and what this will also do, so if you click the email address in the individual's own record, it will save
[4:16] the email to the individual's record. If you click the email address like I have inside a company or charity or
[4:23] partnership, it will save the email to the charity company or partnerships communication record instead. So, we've even thought that bit through for you.
[4:33] So, just a nice little tweak uh a nice little quality of life improvement, but
[4:40] it had like 20 or 30 odd votes in in the uh sleep plan. So, we're pleased to be testing that.
[4:48] Uh the next one is in the deals board.
[4:53] So if I go to deal owner, sorry, if I go to uh stage, what we've now got is all
[5:02] active or all closed. So maybe I want to see only my active deals. Then I'll click all active and it gets rid of all
[5:10] the all closed ones. If I want to see my closed only deals, I can do that and I can see closed one and close lost. So
[5:19] that's another little tweak. We had that feedback a few times at road shows um and at accountex just to make life a little bit easier.
[5:31] Um Shel says, "Yay, we were just talking about the closed deals." And Jennifer says, "Good. It was starting to get cluttered." I mean that's a good news,
[5:39] Jennifer. If it's getting cluttered, that means you're busy with deals. That's never a bad thing.
[5:45] Um, Cole, right, the third update, and this one I think you're going to like, if I go to settings, I go to services.
[5:57] Let's say I'm going to go to onboarding. Okay. And this is onboarding company.
[6:04] Ignore my warnings.
[6:06] Sometimes you don't want to go to the hassle of turning a job on for a client which is on for every client. So every
[6:14] client you create will probably need every on boarding every client company client that you have will probably need
[6:21] the onboarding company service turned on for them so that they can as part of their process. Well, instead of having
[6:28] to turn it on every time now you'll now be able to go to services automatically enabled for new clients.
[6:35] Select the type. So I want the company to be turned on for all of these clients. Save.
[6:41] In future, every new client will have the onboarding company service turned on by default.
[6:48] Let's go to uh
[6:56] um let's have a look another good example. Have I got a client catchup?
[7:01] I'm going to decide I'm going to catch up with all of my clients and this is a service that I want turned on for all my clients. So, why forget to turn it on when I can have it turned on by default?
[7:15] AML review. Let's make sure that's turned on by default for every client.
[7:19] Remember though, look guys, this is for every new client. It won't go back and change any records.
[7:25] We would we just keep turning it on for the next lot of clients. So, I'm going to do AML for all of these clients.
[7:33] So, there that's it. They are your free new updates.
[7:39] Um, so let me just go through. Kirsty says, "All like AML is switched on with all clients." Exactly, Kirsty. Just as I
[7:46] showed you. Um, Jennifer says, "What a fab week for updates, saving us loads of time." Thank you, engaged team. You know what? It's
[7:54] always the little ones, isn't it? It's the little updates that just make the improvement.
[7:59] Uh, like the big features like the deals board, they're cool, they're fun, we love it, but these little updates, that's the cool stuff. Chris White says,
[8:07] "That's amazing. It's one I miss from time to time." Uh, Kirsty says, "ID run out, ID expiring on for everyone." Exactly.
[8:21] Uh, and Chris says, "Great set of updates with tax updates as well." Uh, yes. So if you are connected to tax calc
[8:30] you will be able to go to I can fix it for example go to the tax references
[8:38] and there's now the corporation tax here. So that would pull through if there was a corporation tax bill uh or tax return with the latest figures. If I
[8:47] go to a individual and go to tax references, you can see
[8:54] it's pulling through my January uh the payments due on January 31st for 2526 and 2425
[9:02] and the payments due on July 31st 2526 and 2425. And there's a load of placeholders in ready for you to use all
[9:09] of those as part of you bulk and bulk sending or manually sending uh updates for your clients.
[9:17] So, that is all ready and raring to go.
[9:20] That came out last Friday. The stuff I've just shown you before the tax part came. It's coming out this Friday.
[9:28] Cool. Any questions, guys? Stick them in the Q&A for me. Um, Chris says, "Great set of updates with tax updates." I've already covered that. Thank you, Chris.
[9:38] Kirsty, I have a director that is involved in three companies with three separate emails. Should I still link him to the other two companies?
[9:46] No.
[9:48] So if you are you doing a tax return for the director? Do you do any individual services?
[9:56] Um no. So right. So Kirsty, what I would do, I'd have him as a contact for each limited company with the appropriate
[10:03] email address, but then I would have um him as a separate contact linked to all
[10:12] three companies. So he's got one login to the portal because at the moment if you're giving him a different email address for each company as a contact
[10:20] that's fine because you're creating free contact cards each one linked to a different business but that means he would then have free
[10:28] login for the portal. We want to make his life easy. So, why not? So, I'd create a I'd either link one of the
[10:36] three contacts to all three limited companies or if he's got a fourth email, like a personal one, then you can uh add
[10:45] a fourth contact and link that to all the companies so that they all show up in the portal at the same time.
[10:56] So, we'll do that. We'll update him. No problems at all, Kirsty.
[11:01] Okay, any other questions? For those of you that are new here, if you've never done one of these before, please do not be afraid to ask questions. It you might
[11:11] think it's a really dumb question or really basic question. Personally, that makes my life a lot easier. Uh, but also
[11:18] the amount of times regulars like Kirsty and Chris and Shel and everyone, they see a big a new person's question and
[11:26] go, I'd forgotten it does that. So they get a reminder of what the product can do that they've forgotten about because
[11:34] there's so many features in engager it's easy to forget what they do. Even I forget it's got certain features at times. So please feel free in this very
[11:44] safe environment to ask questions any questions you like um in the question in the Q&A box.
[11:54] Jennifer says, "Yep, no silly questions here, so please ask. That's why I'm here every week. Everybody is learning from everybody.
[12:02] That's what we love. And you never know what ideas you're going to get move away with. Um,
[12:09] so whilst we're waiting for some questions to come in, just a reminder, if you go to our website,
[12:17] probably should have loaded this up before I started sharing my screen and stuff, but never mind. Uh if you go to our website, we've got free training
[12:25] sessions every day of the week covering different record different parts of the processes and systems. Please feel free
[12:32] to sign up to any of these. Might want to do one a week just so you can work out a feature. You might not come and do
[12:41] any of these for a long time and go, you know what, I'm going to start using the proposals and uh letters of engagement engager. That's great. Let's start that off with ch tuning in to a webinar.
[12:53] On top of that, we've always got our road map. As you can see, the things that I've just told you are currently in testing.
[13:01] We've then got our help center, which has moved. I will get the updated link in a moment for that.
[13:08] Um, and that's the same thing.
[13:13] Cool. Uh, right. I've got some questions in.
[13:18] Uh, Shelley says, "I always ask the silly questions, leave the webinar, and think what a wally I am." As Jennifer says though, you would be a wally for
[13:27] not asking. So, yeah, very true, Shelley. That is what we are here for.
[13:31] If people weren't asking questions, I wouldn't be here every week, give or take a few weeks, for the last three years doing this.
[13:40] So, uh, the first question in is Jason Smith. I haven't been here for a few months. I've just seen the tax data from Tax Cout. Can you update me on that
[13:48] feature? Thanks. Uh, Jason, what I'm going to suggest is you I've just covered it slightly, but there's a full
[13:55] webinar that was done on Monday and it's on YouTube.
[14:02] So, I would sit and watch that because Robin Nick delivered it. There we go.
[14:08] This is where you find out all my YouTube secrets.
[14:20] We go to engager over a thousand subscribers.
[14:24] Ask the accountant's very jealous about this. Um, and if you go to videos, the latest video there is from fi filing to
[14:34] follow-up. That is the webinar you want to look at, guys.
[14:37] uh have a watch of that and it will take you through all the way through all the features exactly how you turn it on and
[14:44] enable it in engager and in tax calc because there's a little permission you need to tick in tax calc
[14:59] I'm not going to go too any deeper into it Jason I'd leave you to watch that 43minut webinar there between Nick and
[15:06] Rob and Jennifer says it was a really useful really useful webinar on Monday. So there we go.
[15:14] Um Anna, I'm about to start setting up my workflows, so make things a little more automated. A refresher on how to do this
[15:23] would be great. No problem. So of course there's lo there's a webinar every two weeks about this and there is also videos in our help center on this and
[15:31] help guides. Um, but basically the functionalities that we've got in our
[15:37] workflows. Okay. So, if I go to my work, what we want to do is try and make things as automated as possible. So, if
[15:46] we go to settings and services, we're going to edit a service.
[15:51] We're going to ignore all the warnings I get on my demo account.
[15:56] Okay. So, there's nothing up here really. So that automates things.
[16:04] Okay. So we keep scrolling down past the pricing and down to the phases.
[16:17] So first of all, we need to set out our phases. If you've not done phases or steps of workflows before, Anna, what I
[16:26] would suggest doing is go old school. go and get a pattern post-it notes and a
[16:32] pen and on each post-it note write down at each step you think you need to do to
[16:40] do a workflow. So the a business coach I used to uh listen to used to do a used
[16:47] to get tables in a room to write down the steps required to make a cup of tea because every single table came up with
[16:55] a different number of post-it notes and a different number of steps. Some people went milit uh very detail orientated.
[17:04] Others went fill kettle, turn on kettle, wait, pour boiling water.
[17:12] Other people went, "Lift kettle off base, remove lid, turn cold tap on, pour water up till max line, turn cold tap
[17:21] off, put lid back on, put kettle on base. Check kettle's plugged in.
[17:28] Push down the switch on the kettle.
[17:30] Await x amount of minutes for the kettle to boil.
[17:34] pour the kettle into the water. Then it got controversial. Did they put the tea milk in first with the tea bag? It got very controversial. But basically what
[17:42] it teaches is everyone has a different perception of the level of detail in each step that in the amount of steps you need to do for a
[17:50] different workflow. So get your post-it notes out and make put down all your steps. Have a look at the
[17:59] amount of steps you've got. Maybe you want to reorganize those steps. That's why Post-it notes are really good for helping visualize and move things
[18:07] around. Maybe you go, "Actually, there's too many steps. I'm going to consolidate some stuff and screw some Post-it notes
[18:14] away and throw them away." Then come into engager and start adding to your phases and setting them out.
[18:26] And then we start doing our automation.
[18:28] So once this stage is completed, well actually we'll start on this. Once this stage is completed, do you want it
[18:36] to send an email to the client? So we're think this is what we call status email updates. You complete a phase, an email will pop up in a template that you've
[18:45] already designed saying and you press send. So think Amazon, right?
[18:51] We've got your order. Your order is going to be delivered on this day. Your order is out for delivery. Your order will be delivered between this time and
[18:59] this time. Your order is x amount of stops away. Your order is x amount of stops away. Your order's been delivered.
[19:06] So, you've had a load of emails and a load of notifications, but you felt informed and kept up to speed at all times. And that's what this feature lets
[19:15] you do. So, request records, right? I might not put an automated email on this.
[19:23] And when I but when I complete this phase, I might want the status bar to update to awaiting records.
[19:32] Preparation is the next one. Now, I might want a template to go out here saying when I complete this, send this
[19:39] email, I might want to go, uh, thanks for sending all your records.
[19:46] We've now finished the preparation. It's now going to be reviewed by a member of our team. Now, I I like to be a bit of a
[19:53] I like to put blow a bit of smoke up the client's backside. So, I go, "Oh, we've now finished preparing your accounts.
[20:01] The they're now being reviewed by our head of accounts." Clients sat there going, "Oh, check me out. I'm being reviewed by the head of accounts." Um,
[20:09] you you can expect a response in the next 7 to 10 days. So what we've done there is we've given the client a sense of importance because the head of
[20:17] accounts is reviewing my accounts. Led but we've more importantly updated them with what's happening so they don't have
[20:25] to chase me or my team going where are my accounts when are you going to get my accounts and we've set their expectations of when
[20:34] to expect the next communication. So they go okay 7 to 10 days that's fine.
[20:42] If I don't hear from them in that time after 7 to 10 days, I'll email them. But if I I'm going to go on the assumption I'm going to hear from them and I won't have to email them. They'll call me. I don't need to call them.
[20:54] Okay. So, and not only do I want to send this report uh email, I also want the status to automatically update to in
[21:02] review on the job. And basically, you do this all the way through your workflow.
[21:08] So, post-it notes to work out your sta stages and then work out on completing this stage, what do I want to happen? Do
[21:16] I need the status of the job to update automatically?
[21:20] Do I need an email to send out to keep my client up to date?
[21:24] One of the biggest reasons, it was the biggest reason when I got into accounting 10 years ago, it's the biggest reason still today that
[21:32] accountants leave their providers is they start they cite a lack of communication.
[21:39] None of my clients dare to mention lack of communication when they leave me because they get all the communication.
[21:47] We keep them informed at every step of the way.
[21:52] So, that's my recommendation for workflow, Anna. Hopefully, that helps.
[21:56] If you've got any follow-up questions, stick them into the Q&A for me.
[22:01] Uh, uh, William, some difficult clients
[22:13] never save their uh, company house personal code and keep bothering us to send them the code. Any ideas how we can put this code somewhere in the portal?
[22:23] Not a doc to upload if possible uh and just direct clients to the portal when they ask for it. Here's what I
[22:32] would suggest. Miriam, I would when I've got a client and I'm finished on boarding the client. So, I'm going to go
[22:39] to Mr. Yangori. Have I got any data in here? Not really. Uh but anyway, so I'm going to go to Mr. Yahangori here. Let's
[22:48] assume I've just finished on boarding Mr. Yangori. I've got his UTR numbers.
[22:54] I've got his company's house code. I've got the lot. Very pleased with myself.
[22:59] And what I can do, I can go to files and I can go into any folder I want.
[23:07] Maybe correspondence.
[23:09] And I'm going to create a new PDF. And in my firm, we've got a template already. Now, I don't think I've put the template in here.
[23:22] Is that the one I want? Nope.
[23:32] No, I haven't got it in here. But basically, in my firm, I've got a template
[23:39] where I have called it uh client details
[23:49] and all I do is I go write personal UTR
[23:56] placeholder UTR personal tax UTR and auto corrects kicked in.
[24:10] So I've already built a template. So, if you wanted to build this as a template, you go to settings, document templates, and you build it in here.
[24:20] Don't think I've got an an example really here.
[24:27] Um, I think though there is one in the help center.
[24:32] Um, but yeah, so I think I've put a Oh, no, I've not put an example for this one in the help center. I'll do that. But
[24:40] basically, I create a template.
[24:45] Uh, put it in any of these headings.
[24:56] Key key client data.
[25:00] Great. And I would create uh and I put in here like their UTR number.
[25:12] Uh VAT number. That's one they always forget, isn't it?
[25:20] Obviously, I put like a heading next to it saying this is personal UTR VAT.
[25:31] Then I might do payee office pay ref.
[25:42] I'd put there personal ID code etc. So then I'd put all the
[25:49] placeholders next to this save there and then as part of my oh my mouse is my mouse handpad thing's
[25:57] falling apart. Um, and then as I
[26:03] um I go to my client once I finish their on boarding, I've got all their information in. I lally go to files as part of my onboarding task.
[26:14] Let's call it client upload. You can save it wherever you like. Click on new PDF. Choose key client data. Insert.
[26:24] name it
[26:31] and then I can just save this PDF and that's it. They've now got a place
[26:41] that you can send them to every time and you don't have to fill it all out manually because you've built it once as a template. You've got the placeholders and it just populates the information.
[26:53] So hopefully that helps.
[26:58] Uh Kirsty says, "Oh, I like that job for me or maybe my sis." Absolutely. I've had the joys of AML today. Anna says,
[27:07] "Great idea. I'll be doing that." You see, and that's what it's all about. You find me another software vendor which will come up with ideas like that. This is the benefit of me running my own firm
[27:16] and facing the headaches you will face on daily basis. To be fair, my headaches are worse because I've got a staff team that complain to me about the behavior
[27:24] of the client. So, it's not me having a headache because my client's not doing it. It's worse. It's magnified by my team complaining to me.
[27:33] Um, Kirsty follow-up. I somehow have that person on twice. Can I merge him?
[27:39] Messed it up. As I said, he had two extra companies. I have his wife correct. Uh, so if you've got him on
[27:46] twice, delete one of them. Kirsty. Well, archive one of them or delete one of them. Um, and then go from there. Miriam
[27:55] says, "Brilliant idea. I'll be doing exactly that. Thanks, Sharon. No problems." Um, another example of that
[28:02] template stuff. You know, when you get a letter of professional clearance saying, "I want all this information about the client. I have the exactly the same kind
[28:09] of template with all the different fields with all that key information but more like national insurance number, dates of birth, address, the lot. So,
[28:18] but if anyone leaves us, my team just go new PDF uh professional clearance acceptance for
[28:26] uh letter and basically what we've got in our professional clearance letter is an evolution of what's in here.
[28:37] So, you've got this. This is what most people do. Oh, no. But you've got the opposite of this saying, "Thank you for
[28:44] your letter, for your email. Um, requesting professional clearance. We see no professional reason why you
[28:52] shouldn't." And obviously, I can edit it if I do have issues. But then underneath this, I have a page break in mine. So on
[29:00] the next page I have a line saying um please find below all relevant
[29:11] data points we have on record for this client.
[29:20] Now obviously I have a different one of these for companies versus individuals.
[29:26] So you need to choose the next one the right one.
[29:29] Um, but I then have all my placeholders and headings
[29:35] and if I then have a if a
[29:41] heading is blank, it means we do not hold this data for the client.
[29:55] So, no one wants to waste time on clients leaving.
[29:59] So, and I'm add to that that I'm exceptionally lazy and I don't I don't do repeating work.
[30:06] My team come in, they generate this PDF.
[30:09] It has all those fields that you potentially need to hand over listed ready. You generate the document.
[30:17] We call it handover. generate this document.
[30:25] And I've got placeholders. That won't work.
[30:39] So, I've got my letter and then on the next page, I've got all the data points.
[30:48] Um, so yeah. Uh, wow. I've been thinking of creating that as well. There you go, Miriam. Um,
[30:57] Kirsty followup. Oh, no. I've already answered that, Kirsty. Thank you. You're a gem. You're welcome, Anna. Now, give me a minute cuz there's a new link for
[31:05] the help center and it's just populating in places at the moment.
[31:11] Oh my god. Uh, give me two seconds, guys. I'm just trying to find it.
[31:23] We've moved the help center onto our HubSpot system.
[31:30] No, that wasn't what I wanted.
[31:35] help.app dash.
[31:42] Sorry, Ash sent this to me at like 5:00 and I've not done anything with it.
[31:47] tax engine. There we go. So, this is just a nicer looking engager center. If
[31:55] you go to engager templates, proposals, email templates, letters of engagement, other look, I've already put
[32:03] them in here. I put them in here months ago, Sarah. So, this is my professional letter clearance data sheet.
[32:11] These are all the placeholders written out for you. Just go in and copy it, guys. Again,
[32:20] that's the front page of the professional clearance as well. So, yeah, these went in here back in May.
[32:26] Look, and that's when we moved them in here. I think they were cuz we've been building the help center for quite a while in here. Uh I think we did this back in January, February time.
[32:38] Uh Sarah says, "Amazing. I need to check the help center more often." That you do, Sarah. You also need to turn up on time, Sarah, because you've missed all the exciting news. Sarah says in the
[32:47] question answer, "What have I missed?" Well, Sarah, let me take you through what you've missed.
[32:53] We've got three new updates rolling out on Friday. Nice small ones, nothing major, but all good quality of life improvements. Update one, you can now
[33:03] hover over an email address, click on it, and we open a compose email but window. Nice and easy.
[33:12] If I go into I can fix it and go to related individuals. I'll click on the email there. Because I've
[33:21] clicked on it within the limited company, this email will automatically save to the limited company's communication log.
[33:29] If however I went to Jake Smith and clicked his email here and his individual record, it would save to his individual record instead of the
[33:38] company. So we thought that bit through for you. Uh second update.
[33:44] Uh so all three of these updates have been requested. Two of them were on sleep plan. One is feedback we've picked up at the road shows and live events um
[33:53] and in web on sessions like this. Uh so this one is feedback that we've picked up from events and stuff where we've now
[34:00] got the ability to see all active or all closed or all stages.
[34:08] So the two new ones are all active. So you you're not being distracted by the ones that are won and lost and you're not being or you can be seeing you can
[34:15] just be looking at a closed one and patting yourself on the back.
[34:20] Third update and this is the big one. When you go to a service,
[34:28] you can now decide to turn a service on automatically for every new client that's added. So on boarding company
[34:37] So this is the company on boarding thing. So what I can do is now there's this new option service automatically
[34:43] enabled none or selected type. So every time I create a limited company, limited liability, partnership, partnership,
[34:50] charity or trust, this service will be turned on automatically. So you don't forget to turn it on. And then obviously we already remind you when you've not put dates in things.
[35:01] So, in my firm, we've turned on the onboarding automat to turn on automatically. We've turned on the um
[35:11] catchup client catchup service. We have we've turned on So, that one's turned on automatically. We've turned on the AML review one to turn on automatically.
[35:21] Any services that you want on by default, you can now do uh so you don't risk forgetting to turn something on.
[35:29] The amount of clients I've been through today that don't have the AML service turned on. I mean, ridiculous. My team are in for the high jump.
[35:40] So, Miriam says, "For professional clearance, can you give temporary access to the client portal to your accountant for any docs that you have to send to
[35:48] them?" You certainly can. You certainly [clears throat] can, Miriam.
[35:53] I'd caveat it though. First of all, you don't want the accountant to see every single document. So, what I would do is
[36:01] I'd go into um my client. I'd go into the folders and I would go into client uploads for
[36:10] example or I'd have a new folder sat in my company structure like professional clearance or something or I'd create a subfolder or something.
[36:22] But basically, let's imagine this folder was called professional clearance. Yeah, I make sure first of all once I've added
[36:29] the accountant as a contact. So, we'll do that just so we can replicate this.
[36:36] We're going to add a new accountant.
[36:41] New accountant. Obviously, you'll probably have their names because you're a civil person, but I'm just going to call him new accountant.
[36:54] save.
[36:58] I can then go into my files. I can select which uh I can go to restrict access. I can go to account, good luck,
[37:07] new. Click on this and select which folder I want him to only have access to.
[37:14] And then I can move the documents I want to share with them into that folder.
[37:18] That way you're not giving away of your any of your own intellectual stuff like your working papers or anything like that. They only see what they what you
[37:25] want them to see. And then you can go into that client contact that new accountant and invite them to the portal.
[37:34] I will be honest, we do this every time.
[37:38] I've never had an accountant actually use it. They've insisted we sending information by email. At which point I do take great joy in emailing my account
[37:47] my client saying look we've tried to share your documents with your new accountant in a safe secure GDPR manner
[37:56] but unfortunately your accountant is insisting we send this information over by email. This is against our company
[38:03] policy but we will happily do this with your written consent via email. Can you please respond to this email confirming
[38:10] you give us permission to send your secured your documents in an unsecure manner via email? And of course, I CC in
[38:19] the new accountant just to show them they're doing things wrong. Some might say I'm being petty. Others might say
[38:25] I'm being educational. That's whoever's opinion you want to listen to.
[38:31] But yes, so you can absolutely do what you want to do, Miriam. Um, but
[38:39] I'll be honest, I've never had an accountant actually go in and download them. But it's a great opportunity to just give that one last harrah to your
[38:48] client and go, I'm, you know, you think I'm rubbish, check out this cowboy that you've got coming in.
[38:58] We've actually had a client uh cancel his uh disengagement with us because of that. So, could work as a sales tactic.
[39:08] Um, because he he was going away because we weren't as cheap as this new provider. Then he realized cheapness isn't always best, so he stayed.
[39:18] Uh, Miriam says, "Great. Uh, I've created a professional clearance folder in files." Kathy says, "The client may return eventually with their tail
[39:26] between their legs." The client had barely walked out the door before he turned around on that one. But yes, you're completely right. If you do these
[39:33] things professionally, you highlight the flaws in their prof in their behaviors,
[39:40] then yes, of course, they may well turn around and come back at some point. And you've left them on a professional
[39:46] level, which is good. Okay, Kirsty's just got a client returning.
[39:54] Excellent. Always the best kind.
[39:58] Fantastic. Uh, I've run out of questions, guys. So, who's got some more questions for me?
[40:04] In fact, while you're uh asking me questions, I want to scroll through.
[40:14] Sarah says, "Oh, I like that." The only thing with that though, will it show on the letter of engagement? Sarah, if you've only turn if you set services as
[40:22] internal only, so like AML checks, etc., then they never show up um on the letter of engagement even if they're turned on.
[40:30] So if you go to a service um so let's go with on boarding
[40:37] these warnings are doing my edit see how it's this is marked as internal only yes that basically means it can be turned on
[40:46] but it will not be in the letter of engagement.
[40:50] So all the services I think of that I would turn on by default are all internal ones like our
[40:59] annual fee reviews, our AML reviews, our um client catchup uh that we keep kind
[41:08] of discretionary etc etc. They are all things that we wouldn't list on the client on the letter of engagement.
[41:18] So, they would be marked as internal only and then they can be auto enabled with no problems at all.
[41:26] Sarah says, "I had one leave for a cheaper fee, came back four months later and the email header said, you were right. New accountant is shit." Well,
[41:35] there you go. Um, Chris, when inviting accountants to the portal, do they see the pricing? No.
[41:43] Oh, they would, I suppos. Yeah. Okay. So I see what you mean there. So basically Chris what you can what you can do is if
[41:52] you go to the client portal general settings most fe most most firms I've spoken to
[41:59] have this turned off. Show fee for each service under its name. No.
[42:06] So if that's turned on yes then the accountant you've just invited to the portal will see the information. But
[42:14] I've I don't think I've met anyone yet that's got that turned on because most cl most people don't want to keep reminding the clients how much they're
[42:22] paying for something. They like to keep it like you signed your letter of engagement, you're paying your invoice.
[42:27] Let's not remind you of the pain anymore.
[42:33] um with the template. I've tried to make a
[42:42] new one and it's coming up blank. Do we just paste it in from the help screen?
[42:46] Uh yes. So, literally all you need to do is paste
[42:54] uh let's go to the actual one. So, all you need to do is copy and paste this.
[43:05] Don't copy and paste the disclaimer because that would look silly.
[43:14] Um, then you go to your templates, new template.
[43:28] I won't bother putting in a category. Do that.
[43:39] Obviously get rid of this bit. Save.
[43:50] And then if I go to a client, need to find one that's actually got some information in it.
[43:55] Go to my files. Create a new PDF data.
[44:05] No, not that one. Clearance. Insert that.
[44:13] Call it a test. Oh, I think someone's changed this.
[44:26] Oh, right. Right. Someone's put in placeholders to remind you. You could put in different things. So, we can change that.
[44:37] You can change that. Generate.
[44:43] And then it's put the date. It's put the DSM blah blah blah. And then if you had the other placeholders, it'll be there.
[44:51] Um, I'll have to test the soul trader one at a later point. say Kirsty, but I'm sure it was working when I put it in there.
[45:00] But it does look like someone's gone in and edited them um and changed some of the things around.
[45:07] That would be the marketing product team thinking they know better than me.
[45:12] Uh but yeah, so there's it's a even if you build them out yourself, at least you've got an example to start with and give you a bit of direction. You might
[45:19] want to put your own wording and stuff on there anyway.
[45:23] Cool. Final 15 minutes, guys. Any other questions for me?
[45:45] Anything whatsoever?
[45:51] Oh, don't forget um Fusion Edinburgh is on the 9th of September.
[46:02] Yes, 9th of September. Um, so if anyone's in and around, I don't know,
[46:08] from Newcastle up to Perf, Dundee maybe, and wants an absolutely fantastic day
[46:15] out. Um, we are at the Oh,
[46:21] down by Hollywood. We are at a I can't even remember the venue now.
[46:31] It's an absolutely fantastic venue though. Um,
[46:36] just down from Hey Market Station. Um,
[46:43] Natural Planet or something. I can never remember its name, but it's an amazing venue. It's one of the biggest venues we've booked for Fusion. So if you want
[46:52] to come along, learn all about tax calc and engager, meet myself and the engager and tax calc team. Uh we have some
[47:00] fantastic sessions lined up as per usual with the road show events. Uh it's on the 9th of September. It's a free day.
[47:08] We provide you link lunch, drinks, and there's plenty of coffee because what what accounting event can work without coffee?
[47:17] Uh Nissa tax calc integration. And I'm always having a warning come up certain clients regarding the address. They
[47:24] can't can't be updated, but the address looks the same. Am I missing something?
[47:28] We got a notification of changes that we can't seem to clear. Uh there is some issues with addresses, emails, and telephone numbers. We're working on
[47:37] them. We should have releases coming out over the next few weeks to fix all of them. So, just bear with us. If you're
[47:44] fed up with the notifications, then you can turn them off. So go to settings and go to
[47:52] uh he says notifications and you find the one that's talking about tax calc.
[48:05] There we go. And you just make sure these are all unticked and there's no one listed below.
[48:13] But each time you log into that, you go into that client, you will get your warning box. Just ignore it for now. Um,
[48:20] and then you will be able to um, it will all get fixed in the coming weeks. Basically, there's lots of
[48:28] updates coming over the coming weeks that will fix all of that and a few other pieces and a few other new features. So, watch this space. Chris, is it possible to bulk archive clients?
[48:39] If you go to go to your clients, select all or a subset bulk actions edit
[48:47] client status archived submit. That will archive them all for you, Chris. So, yes. Yes, it is.
[49:05] Right. Any other questions?
[49:16] Chris says 10 10 messes [clears throat] all gone. Fantastic. There you go. Nice quick and easy job for you, Chris.
[49:26] Yeah, over the coming weeks, uh, over August, September, going forwards, we're aiming to release new bits every single
[49:34] week. Some of those are going to be big things. Some of those are going to be small things that are off the uh sleep plan road map and ideas list that people
[49:42] have put forwards. So, lots and lots coming your way along with the usual refine refinement
[49:50] of everything like we've refined the help center to make it a lot better and stuff. So, it loads quicker etc. It searches just as easily.
[50:01] Um so, yeah. all ready and raring to go for you.
[50:08] There's also the live chat bot that can help you.
[50:17] Cool.
[50:20] Any other questions? Anything else I can help with, guys?
[50:26] Um, I don't know about anyone else, but I missed the updated guidance on AML that HMRC issued in January and then
[50:35] followed up on in July that apparently all governing bodies are being told they must start following. Um, so it might be
[50:43] worth having a search for that guys because it's made our AML risk assessment in my firm a lot longer.
[50:56] Uh, how to activate a notification of a task when it reaches a deadline date. I allocate tasks to myself but never receive notifications. No, we don't tell
[51:04] you when it's coming up to a deadline date. That's what the uh the jobs board is for. So, if you go to my work, you
[51:11] can see all your jobs. If they're red, they're overdue. So, the best way to do it is to go into the is to look at it in the camb board, not the list view. So
[51:20] this is the camb board. And group the information by due period. So this is overdue. This is due this week. This is
[51:28] due in more than two weeks. Let me So all staff members. So basically if you've got lots of jobs, the due by by
[51:37] due period thing shows overdue in one column, due today, due this week, due next week, due next two weeks, due more
[51:46] than two weeks time. And basically the way to do this is you come in each day, you deal with what's due today, and then you've got a decision. Do you try and
[51:55] get ahead of the work that's coming up for the rest of the week, or do you try and catch up with what you're behind on already?
[52:03] So, there we go. But we don't notify you every time a job's coming up. That would just be complete overwhelm of
[52:10] notifications and you just turn them off or you just ignore them. Everyone thinks they want to be notified about everything, but actually when you start
[52:18] getting notified about everything, you realize you don't want to be notified about everything.
[52:22] Like Teams has started emailing me to say someone's sent you a message like, "Yeah, I know. I've dealt with it. Why
[52:28] are you emailing me to tell me?" Um
[52:36] Sarah, I've started recently started using VXT. Would be great if there was a future integration. The problem is Sarah, every single firm uses a
[52:44] different mobile, a different phone system. So who do we integrate with?
[52:48] Like I know you're going to say VXT, but there's so many phone systems out there and there's none that have got the
[52:55] controlling like the majority of the market. So it's not like email where by integrating to Microsoft and Google,
[53:02] we've connected to 90% of all email accounts in the world. like 90% of them can connect to us because of those two
[53:10] integrations. But what we do have Sarah is if VXT is saved in your on your desktop or your laptop or whatever it
[53:17] is, if you go to a client's record, uh,
[53:25] and find a client's record with a telephone number there, that will help. So if I click on a telephone
[53:33] number, you'll get first uh first it will ask do you want to log a call? Whilst it always
[53:41] also does that it'll open VXT. It will put the phone number in there ready for you to press call and you press log a
[53:49] call. Yes. And it takes you to the call log so you can log it in the system. So whilst we don't have a direct integration, if any phone software
[53:58] you've got, so if you're on a Mac, that can work with your iPhone and call out.
[54:03] If you've got 8 by8, VXT, Google phone, whatever it is,
[54:10] then you can just click the phone number in Engager. As long as that phone system you've got, it's set as your default phone system to your laptop.
[54:20] Then you click on the phone number. It's it opens your default phone and types the number in for you
[54:28] and then you can type it also opens the phone log so you can type it in. Now if like VXT it transcribes the phone calls
[54:36] for you then you can copy and paste them into here as well to make it easier.
[54:43] Um, Jennifer says, "I wish I'd thought of
[54:50] bulk archiving the other day. We had a client with 10 directors to archive." Yeah, it takes a little bit of time, doesn't it, if you don't bulk archive?
[54:58] Nissa says, "That's so true." And about notifications.
[55:02] Sarah, I've been copying and pasting the recorded conversations, which works quite well. Cool.
[55:10] Uh, Ana says, "I use forcom and once I click the number, it dials dials it straight away." Fantastic. Some each
[55:17] phone system works differently. So, Apple, for example, always asks me, "Do I want to ring it?" Some just ring it straight away. So, it's just down to each software and how they work.
[55:30] Um, but yeah, cool.
[55:37] Any more for anymore in the final four minutes?
[56:00] Anything else?
[56:06] Nissa said, "I also want to say thank you for the search update in the emails." Awesome. Yeah, that came out quite a while ago now. Um, giving you the ability to search your emails.
[56:18] Uh, there's some other features coming to emails in the coming weeks and months as well. There's absolutely loads going on in engager at the moment. We've got
[56:26] like five developers working on all sorts of projects. business analysts building de and devel building what we
[56:33] need to what the developers need to build like designing it all and then developers then build it and code it all.
[56:39] Um are the previous webinars in the help center? Yes, I believe they all are.
[56:51] Engage your CRM engage started. Oh
[57:04] yes, if you search you will find all the weekly lives.
[57:18] Um so yeah, they're all in here. all three years worth three years.
[57:28] Um, so yeah, they are all there for you.
[57:34] Chris White said, "Just seen the AML updates." Oh, it's fantastic, Chris.
[57:38] We've got to ascertain whether a client is likely to be involved in modern slavery.
[57:46] And if a client uses another accountant, bookkeeper, or tax adviser for anything, they should be classed as a instant
[57:52] high-risk person because they might be trying to evade sharing information.
[57:58] Yeah, it it's going to be a headache with all this AML updates. Um Chris, if
[58:05] you got the link there for the AML updates, you can share in the comments because I've not got the link with me.
[58:11] Um, but I'll tell you what, guys, what made life really easy for me, uh, I read the AML updates last night. There you go.
[58:20] Thank you very much, Chris. Let's, uh, copy link.
[58:30] Sarah says, "When is the AML moving to FCA?" We don't know, Sarah, but I can tell you now, this has got the FCA's sticky fingerprints all over it.
[58:41] Um, but basically what I would suggest is you give this link to uh Claude or Chat GPT.
[58:51] Um, because most of these actually came into force in June 2026. No one's been told. Um, so we're already six, you
[59:00] know, five weeks behind, guys. No governing bodies have been covering this whatsoever.
[59:06] A and also these all came into force on the 30th of June, but it was only published on the 8th of June.
[59:13] Yeah, welcome to the government people.
[59:16] So, what I would suggest though guys is do what I've done. I took this link. I put it into Claude. In my case, chat GPT will do just a good just as good a job.
[59:27] I told it to read through all this all these articles and summarize the bits that we need to consider as part of our AML risk assessment questions.
[59:40] Then I gave it a copy of all the questions I already ask on my AML risk assessment. I said, "Right, here's everything I already ask. using this and
[59:49] the information you've discovered in this uh HMRC manual suggest the questions that we need to
[59:57] suggest areas and the questions we need to ask to make us fully compliant with this guidance. Claude came back with all the questions and even said look here's the ones you you just aren't asking.
[1:00:07] Here's the ones where you've kind of touched on the topic, but actually you probably want to ask a few more questions to be able to confidently say
[1:00:15] you've considered the matter and it did it all. It came for all those questions. I then created um guidance
[1:00:24] for my AML assessors that are intern my team whom so I've given them guidance to behind every single question now and what they should be bearing in mind.
[1:00:35] I've create a standard operating procedure of how we carry out an AML AML from for a brand new person or a review of a current person and Claude did it
[1:00:44] all. What would have taken me days to come up with and I'd have probably stopped, given up and walked away.
[1:00:50] Claude orch GPT came up with loads of content for me. Made life really easy.
[1:00:56] So I've updated my risk assessment questionnaires. I've done all this documentation. I just spent the morning on it and it that was an interrupted
[1:01:04] morning of phone calls and stuff as well. So yeah, all the fun and games.
[1:01:09] Cool. I hope this evening's been helpful to you guys. It is 8:31 so I am going to end the session here. Thank you as
[1:01:17] always for coming along and if you need any help with anything, you know where we are. Reach out to contact engager.app and we will go from there. Brilliant.
[1:01:27] Thank you very much, guys. I'll see you all next week for the next installment of Engage Live. Bye-bye.