Weekly Live Session - October 7, 2026

This week's Weekly Live was hosted by a member of the Engager team standing in for Johan, who was away at an industry event. The session covered the new granular module-level permissions that control what each staff member can see (invoicing, deals, automations and more), an update on the TaxCalc two-way sync fixes, and a walkthrough of the newer Deals and Prospect Forms features for capturing pre-onboarding information before a lead becomes a client.

The rest of the session was a long run of practical Q&A covering invoicing limitations, archiving versus deleting clients, portal access, job card deadlines, bulk actions, document templates and the upcoming AML Centre integration with TaxCalc.

Key takeaways

• Module-level permissions: staff access can now be switched off per module (for example invoicing, the deals board or automations) rather than only at a broad practice level, so firms that outsource work can stop specific team members seeing financial or client data they don't need.
• TaxCalc two-way sync: the address-syncing issue between Engager and TaxCalc has been resolved. The next item being worked on is a formatting issue with SIC codes failing to sync correctly.
• Invoicing is limited by design: Engager is not a standalone invoicing platform. Invoices can only be raised by pushing them to a connected bookkeeping package (Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent), including directly from a job card once that connection is set up. There's no native support for automatic recurring or bulk monthly billing – recurring invoices need to be set up in the connected bookkeeping software itself.
• Deals and Prospect Forms: deal stages are fully customisable in Settings, and the newer Prospect Forms feature lets a firm build a branded data-capture form (for pre-onboarding questions, services of interest, or qualifying criteria) that can be emailed to a prospect or embedded directly on the firm's own website, feeding responses straight into Engager as a prospect. This is expected to become a chargeable feature in future (an indicative 15% of monthly fee was mentioned, with no confirmed date).
• Portal access sits on the individual, not the company: a limited company record itself is never invited to the portal – only the individual contacts linked to it are. Login problems are usually best solved by disabling and reinviting the individual's access rather than troubleshooting the original invite.
• No backup/export facility for closing a practice: there's currently no way to export all client data before closing a practice. The recommended approach is to archive clients down to the lowest-tier plan (currently five clients for a low flat monthly fee) so the data is retained rather than deleted.
• Statutory vs internal deadlines: every service can have both its statutory/hard deadline and an internal, aspirational deadline. Internal deadlines are useful for spreading out workload – for example staggering a large batch of self-assessments across several weeks instead of leaving them all due on the same day – and can also be used to flag and prioritise complaints.
• Bulk actions: deadlines and service activation can be applied in bulk across many client records at once, though only one type of change can be made per bulk action.
• AML Centre integration is coming: TaxCalc's AML Centre is being rebuilt and is expected to integrate directly into Engager's onboarding flow within the current year. No change to the existing AML Centre subscription cost is expected – it's planned to continue as part of the existing TaxCalc fee rather than a separate Engager charge.
• Bespoke PDF/document templates: the built-in ad-hoc document designer is fairly basic for adding logos or images. For more polished results, it's recommended to design the graphic in a separate tool first and then insert the finished image as a single element, rather than placing and resizing multiple images directly in the designer.

Full transcript

This transcript is auto-generated from the session recording and lightly cleaned up for readability.

Hi guys. Uh, it's me. It's not Johan. Um, Johan is away. He's at the the Daz event in London. Um, lucky lucky guy. So, I'm afraid you've got me um for the session. Um, I don't have a lot to talk about. Uh, I'll I'll be completely honest, guys. Um, so it may be a shorter session, which might not be the end of the world being, you know, a VAT deadline. Um, let me just quickly jump into the chat. Um, just want to say hello guys. Can you see me? Can you hear me? Uh, I've had nothing but issues with my headset uh all day today. So, I'm just keen to sort of get a sense for if you can actually see me and hear me. So, if I can get a thumbs up in the chat or just a yes. Brilliant. Nice one, guys. Um, hope you're all having a solid week. Um, again, appreciate. Hi, Kay. Uh, Charles, nice one. Thank you. I'm sure Chris is lurking somewhere. No doubt.

Um, Nadine. Oh, nice one, Nadine. Um, yeah, I'm sure you've had a crazy week. I'll try and keep this one short and sweet. Um, if you got any burning questions, there's the Q&A se uh section. So, if you click on more, you should see Q&A and I'll try to get through those as we go. The last time I run one of these was a while ago and there's 120 people and it was chaos. Um, everyone's chiming in with all their questions in the chat. So, it was a bit it was a bit hectic. Um, but yes, um, feel free to ask some questions in the Q&A. There's one killer feature, um, that we've just done, and it's something we've wanted to do for absolutely ages. Um, but I think you guys may have already seen it. That's that's the thing. If I could share my screen, uh, let's flip the old screen. If I share my screen, um, that that's just my jobs board.

Um, but it went live. Um I I've I've had a couple of weeks off so I'm sort of playing uh a little bit of catch up myself. Um what with all the features and just the sheer amount of development um you the guys have been doing uh behind the scenes all of a sudden module access it just sort of landed and I I wasn't aware of it. So I've sort of scrambled trying to find the any notes on it. Um but I think it's been live for might be might be the whole week. Um, but this is going to be absolutely killer, you know, for for people that outsource, you know, for for people. Um, we get lots of people that are very sensitive about the invoicing side of things um for, you know, for their users. They don't want um users seeing how much they invoice. They don't want them sending invoices or anything like that.

And, um, we've always had the ability to turn off time logs. Um, but now you can do it at a granular level. you know, now you can sort of you um chop and change all of your permissions per user um based on what we're now sort of called in modules. So if you want them to not see your time logs of the invoicing, brilli module access and then you you've got your practice defaults, but really I think what you're going to be doing more is the finetuning which going to be based on your sort of staff member. to say I've got Chris the consultant over here. Um, I don't want him to be raising any invoices. I've got somebody else to do that. I can click on edit and just say no. Uh, you know, you can't see that. Or perhaps, you know, you're not in sales, so there's no need for you to see the deals board.

You know, your job is primarily to get the the accounts in and done. I also don't want you tinkering with any automations, Chris. You know, so I can really sort of focus in and hone in on like more permissions because we didn't have them previously. We had we had small permissions. We didn't have like the ability to sort of lock off each one of these uh these modules. So, um I can't I haven't set it up as a demo. I can't log in as Chris because they're fake people. Um but effectively when Chris now logs in, he won't see deals, you know, he won't see uh have access to invoicing or the automations. These modules across the top here, they will just drop off. Um and you know, we we've wanted to do that for a long long time.

Certainly for people, you know, that outsource, you know, they don't want um, you know, they don't want the outsource team to see clients as an example. Uh, certainly not invoicing. So, some people have subcontractors. People get really sort of, um, a little bit tent about that. Um, so, um, as far as I'm aware, this is like the start of, uh, you know, the start of a, um, of more sort of restrictions and controls, uh, because clients seems a little bit too too broad. You know, I'd want it to sort of be like clients, well, I I only want to see clients in my name. Um, you know, I'm not allowed to see other people's clients. Blocking off the whole thing, I've got a feeling we we will work on something that will be, you know, a bit more granular. Um but yeah, it's been just just a hectic week. Like um I didn't realize we'd done this.

Um so I sort of Johan asked me to sort of take over this session and I was like what what have we done recently? Check some notes and I realized we had this. I didn't even see it. Um so I'm just sort of playing a little bit of catchup with that one. Um I mean have you guys um feel free to sort of dive into the chat. What's wrong with Chris W? There's everything wrong with Chris W. We know you are Chris. I've just said that. Um the abuse starts. It [snorts] does Chris. It does. It has to. Um, but yeah, I don't know if any of you guys have tried using this yet or, you know, have had any sort of feedback that you want me to sort of pass on. Um, but literally brand new feature. I think it dropped Monday.

Uh, along with um some address syncing issues with Tax Calc, obviously, you know, for for those that have been using Tax Calc and, you know, you got your client's link, the address has been oh, it's been a bit of a sore point. um you know with the with the two-way sync and it all came down to something really uh really silly like the way we handled an address. You might have two lines for you know like flat number and road name um but then companies has to have something different and then tapcat would have something different and then like there wasn't a way to universally mash those sort of addresses together. So pushing and pulling data would knock one thing out. You know if we updated company's house it would then throw out and it just you got caught in a loop.

So the address thing has been painful um for for you guys but also us you know trying to get this thing developed and out there but I think that's done. Uh I haven't seen anything from that um which is really really good. The next thing um for uh the two-way sync for you tax cap guys is the sick codes. So that's that's the other big ticket item that's that's been problematic. And again, I think it's just like it's the number of characters, it's the spacing, it's the brackets, you know, it's um anything that can knock out an API. APIs will go, "Oh, that isn't 100% spot on." And and it has a little padding. Um and then it just doesn't work. Um so the guys have been at that for months and months and you you think it's something so small and innocuous. It's not. It's massive in terms of dev builds.

Same goes for this this module access. like it's incredible what it can do now. Um but people like oh we we must have more restrictions and controls. Um but for us behind the scenes you know certainly Pete and Ash and everybody like that our dev guys man this has taken them ages you know because it is such a big build. Um what I was going to say because obviously I don't have a huge amount to sort of demo uh today is have you been on to the Facebook have you seen um Cat Lin? She's one of our um she's just been got this new position in Task. She's incredible. She's really welcome um to feedback and she's building out um I think she's building out the email systems. Um so I think did if I can find it for you in here, make sure you give her a bit of love, but also dive in there if you want to see um I need to find the post, don't I?

Uh where is she? Where is she? I could just search a cat, couldn't I? Here we go. Cat Lin. Um, so yes, she is helped building out shared mailboxes. So that's another thing, you know, like um you can have 50 staff, everyone gets their own mailbox um and one shared. But previously, we wouldn't be able to say, well, info app, team app, payroll, anything like that. We're building it. So if you've got any strong thoughts on it and you want to speak to Catch, he's absolutely lovely. uh dive onto onto your Facebook onto this bit here and make sure you get yourself booked in with her because she's one of the most welcoming people I've spoken to in terms of dev and I've worked with lots of dev people in previous companies. Yeah, you know, she she's she's great.

So, if you if you feel strongly about that, uh Libby, I know if you're around here, you might be on on the on the list. Where are you, Libby? Are you here? Let's have a look. Is Libby here? Is Libby here? No, Libbyy's not here. Um but yeah, what what one of my favorite um engager users, Libby, um she is desperate to get timed emails. So to create an email and send tomorrow morning, you know, that kind of thing. Um but yeah, I need to get her to speak to Cat.

Um but yeah, I've um since since obviously, you know, we've been working more and more with Tax Calc, um I've never seen such a um a great bunch of guys that are so receptive to feedback. um you know whether whether it then be just you know looking at sneaker plan like getting all that stuff in and digesting it and then building it um but actually being actively getting out there asking you know what do you think of this UI UX um and previously you know because I' I've been engaged just over two years it was like well this is what we'll build and that's that's kind of it you know Yohan was our feedback vessel um so yeah I think we're getting way more user feedback before we build um which is something I used to do in in a previous uh in a previous role.

So I think the builds are going to be bigger and tighter and better like the the amount of depth that went into the deal forms. Uh I don't know how many of you you guys have been using the deal forms but that was so well thought out uh and considered. Um so yeah um I I think we're we're getting a good change of we're going to build this. What do you think? You know will this work? Will that not work? um and actually engaging uh you guys way more um than than I think we've ever done in the past. So um it's great to see those sort of changes um coming in. Um Chris will be better once the admin issue for it is sorted. Uh yes yes I I do know what you mean there Chris raised me eyebrow. Um Q&A time. Let's have a quick look. Uh is there a backup facility? We are closing a practice and want to keep the tech.

Ah um no I'm afraid not so um been asked the question is there a backup facility we are closing the practice want to keep all the data signed engagements signed accounts and all of the conversations the best thing you can do for that um is to once you know you're going to wind it down is oh put the wrong button there um archive everybody. So get your yeah go to general info and then you can archive. So whittle it down to you know say five because you you need you need a couple of clients in there. Archive them. Um so that will lower the amount that you pay. Uh and then you can just uh sort of tain the data and I think it' be like nine quid a month. Um so the lowest plan that we operate is oh that's changed. Um so up to five clients nine quid a month. So yeah, when you're ready, archive your clients so they they're not active.

They'll move to archived and then you'll just maintain £9 a month. That that ensures we won't delete the data. Uh as soon as there's not an active sub, you know, you get a message from us to say your subscription's um failed, you know, do you want to keep using it? You get a few emails and eventually we say we're deleting. We'll never retain your data uh in line with our own company policy. So yeah, archive your users. um it will retain all their bits and pieces. Uh that will be the best way to do it and then that way you can just keep you know 9 quid a month ticking on in the background if that makes sense. Um I'm receiving the message not enough slots. Um right. Okay. So um when you add a new client type um even if it's a prospect. So this this is a bit of an issue.

Um, so if you're trying to add an archive client or a prospect, you know, you it looks like you got an active slot or you might be right at the limit. Um, it it wants you to upgrade to the next plan. So, you can't get past that. What what you end up having to do is either work back through like your limited, you know, am I still, you know, are they active? Are they archived? Um, sometimes it's probably best to look at this particular client type, so individuals or soul traders. If they're down as an individual soul trader, but actually you're not doing them a tax return, then change their record to contact only. You know, they they don't if you're not giving them um a self assessment service, change them to contact only. They can still sign off limited company accounts, you know, if they're marked down as the director.

So, that'll be the first check. You know, can I reduce down? But then realistically, I hate to say, you're going to have to suck it up. So you you upgrade to the next plan, add that prospect. Once it's added, you can probably quickly downgrade it. So the system will ask you to pay to to upgrade, but then you drop it back down. Um I can't remember if you get the money back um the next month, but it um because it's Stripe, it auto adjusts. Um it's just to get past that mechanism because the system thinks you're at the limit. It is a thing. Um it's something that we want to that we do want to fix. Uh because it is a little bit clunky and it's not quite right, is it? Um but unfortunately that's that's what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to either look at your clients. Can I reduce them? Yes or no.

If you can't then you're going to have to upgrade the plan to then add the prospect and then once it's once it's um saved as a prospect um it's still not active. So you can drop it down. It's just it's fiddly. U we we know that's fiddly. Uh, I'm sorry in advance. Um, hope that helps. Um, guys, um, I I could talk all day about engager, but I don't think you want me to cuz you're expecting the the the man, the myth, the legend that is Johan. Um, yeah, I'm I'm happy to sort of stay on for for another sort of 15 minutes or so, but get your questions in now. So, um, so there's no dead air. Um, I feel like I'm on the radio. Um, but yeah, I know I also know it's the seventh, you know, I also know it's a bit of a nightmare uh day. Um, anyway, for people um, right? Uh, for a limited client, how can I see if they have access to the portal?

Uh, it's not the limited company. So, if you click on the limited company, you'll see nothing over here on the right hand side. So, keep a mental note of this bit here. Absolutely nothing. So the company isn't invited. It's the individuals that are invited. So in this example, that's the company, but these are the people within. Click on that. And then now you can see access. So you can invite, you can disable portal access. You can do it all here. But it's the individuals, not the company that are invited. So I hope that makes sense. Do do we currently have the functionality in engager to automatically generate invoices based on the services? Ah okay. Uh so let me quickly read.

Do we currently have the functionality in engages to automatically generate invoices based on the services we have set up together with the agreed pricing and billing arrangements? Okay. So uh Mega So we we're not really an invoicing platform. So um it's We can only invoice if you have uh one of your bookkeeping softwares connected. So if you've got your zeros, your QuickBooks, your free agent, great. You know, get those connected into the system. You can push an uh an invoice from Engager to your native bookkeeping and out. So let me see if I've got an example. Um yeah, here we go. So um this person is connected to Zero. Uh I can click on zero here. I've got my invoices here.

So it will show me any invoices raised uh and it will tell me if it's overdue which is super super helpful uh once you have your sort of bookkeeping software connected and also just on that if I go into my dashboard if I search for zero um it's keeping an eye on my datas as well. So that's one of the extra sort of advantages of having your bookkeeping software connected not only locking in the data but also you know we're looking at your datas and stuff like that. And now if I click on Molly Baker, let's quickly move that over there. Baker. There we go. Um on the right hand side here. So what you've got here is straight away it's telling me um I can see visually, you know, that um there's there's outstanding. So if your team are working on it, um Molly, yeah, I can help you, but you know, yours is 538 quid. Um you know, please pay.

Uh and then you can dive in there and you can re-ra the invoice. But in terms of like um monthly billing, it doesn't do it. It doesn't repeat. So you would have to create an invoice in here for say like a100 pound a month and then in your native um bookkeeping software mark it as a recurring invoice. It can't be done in engager. So the functionality is is uh limited mega. Uh, one of the things that I really do like um about having your bookkeeping software connected is this option here, having the invoicing option via the job card. So, this is probably a good case in point. Working away happy as Larry, done the review, sent for approval. Um, there could be a stage here that says, you know, actually that sees the status awaiting payment.

So, if that was a waiting payment, uh you or your team could basically go, "Right, well, um I've already raised an invoice here. You know, it's overdue." So, I could email and you know, get that resent and done. Or you can create an invoice that's linked to your job card. So, for those of you that are doing like ad hoc billing, it's kind of useful to have it connected. You'll get this option because normally it's comments, time logs, audit. Uh but obviously with the invoice connected also the bookkeeping connected you'll have that option there of invoice. Um but yeah it's not quite it's not really the invoicing platform that a lot of people want it to be. Um can you run through deals Andrew? Maybe [laughter] I I need to get up to speed on forms. Um but yeah let's have a go.

So deals um so deals when it when it first came out it wasn't met with a lot of fanfare um because it was quite manual um I don't know if you guys saw it when it but it launched in sort of May June time um but it was very much well I need to create this person I need to create the deal I need to tell engage where it is in its journey all of these headings here you can change you know um these are all customizable so I know that people have been on us for for for ages um to custom statuses. Uh, and you've probably seen that obviously we've added a whole bunch. You know, there's there's more options here um than ever before, but people always want more. People always want to be able to create their own. It will cause havoc long term. Um, but interestingly, we've made these completely customizable.

So, in your settings and then you've got your deals to do, deal stages. I can make these up um as far as I'm aware. So yeah, I can give it my own name, um, different colors, anything like that. So we've given you that kind of status, but just not job card status. That's a bit I get it. It's a little bit disjointed there. Um, but yeah, the idea is you would just have the company name, what they're interested, how much it's worth, and then you would just move these along, you know, move these along, you know, steps, uh, you know, just just along in in the journey. The cool thing, Andrew, that we've done recently, and this is going to blow people's minds when when they start using it, and if they want to start using it, is the the deal forms. So, I speak to a lot of people that do um you know, we've all got on boarding tasks for for clients.

Um and I I always try and say to people before this was built um I consider it pre-onboarding and on boarding. So for me, pre- onboarding was having a conversation with the client, asking them a few questions, sounding them out. Do you want to work with this person? Like your own internals, you know, when it comes to qual uh qualifying clients, you know, you don't want to work with everybody, you know, um you know, so you could have your set criteria of what you want from a client up front. And previously, you know, everyone wanted to do that and engage it in the portal. Well, that was a massive headache, wasn't it? because you can't do that stuff in the portal until they're signed and they're active as a client. So, your pre-onboarding work had to sit somewhere else. Um, and it was a bit bit of a pain.

So, what I used to say to people was um you could use stuff like you could be a bit creative with um your you know your custom fields like build build out your your columns and stuff like that. And then what I ended up doing uh for somebody was I had it somewhere. Um I built like some qualifying questions. Uh I did what was it these? I can't even remember now. It was a while ago. Uh supports Tottenham. There we go. Don't want to work with them. But basically I I built my my my pre- onboarding checks in here. You know, have we had that chat? you know, are they uh are they people that I want to work with? You know, have I got all their information? That kind of thing. And I would just have it here tick tick tick before I would then send the LOE. So, I'd break my uh my on boarding down into two stages. Pre- on boarding and on boarding.

Pre-on boarding I try and use custom fields. Not ideal for people and lots of people would send them like a Google form, right? Uh but then that doesn't have a Zapia into engager. So, the whole thing's been a bit clunky until now. Uh, which is the really really cool thing. So, um, go into settings, deals. What you want is prospect form. Oh, no, that's that's the wrong demo account. Sorry. Uh, prospect form. And then let's just do a get a quote one. So, this is one that Johann's made earlier. You can you can see the preview. So, it's all branded with your colors. It looks and feels like you. Um, so what information do you want to data capture? So this is giving you like forms in the portal but pre-portal. So it's killer. So we've we we've built a mechanism for you to capture as many bits and pieces of information that you want.

But you could have national insurance number, Nino, sorry, Nino's date of birth, UTRS, all that sort of stuff you get up front before they're a client. Then you can tell them, well, what services do you want? You know, and they can just tick this stuff off. What what are you interested in? Custom questions. Awesome. you know, you can build this stuff. Uh, all of this information will get sort of sent to them um in in in slightly different ver um in slightly different vessels. So, when if you built your form, you can then get it um added to your deals and the client, you can simply email them this URL. So, that's built them a form, a page uh and then they can fill it in. That information should be sucked back into engager. uh I think it comes through as in a prospect um as well.

But what some people are doing as well is they are um rather than just sending the link to fill in, they are I think some people have been really clever. They're starting to embed their prospecting forms once they've built it and played with it for a little bit. Once they got their final version, you know, they're building it and then they're embedding contact um they're embedding it as code on their landing page. It could be like, you know, um inquiry form. Click that. People are going getting sent to their website because of SEO and marketing and stuff like that. Great. And then they fill in their details up front on your landing page, but it's really coming into engager, which is absolutely killer, right?

Because all of that data capture you then have to duplicate by copying and pasting, popping it into engager, marking it as a prospect, then getting that sort of stuff out.

This stuff should be a bit of a game changer for a lot of people um that have, you know, quite a lot of visitors coming to um you that are coming to their website. you know it they it's not always easy to manage your leads you know it's it's not um so I would just have a bit of a play start building your own forms um you know it's we give you like a bit bit of a flavor of what you can add and what you know to give you a bit of inspiration but make it your own what are the qualifying questions that you have you know for your clients up front um in previous places we've had some quite strict criteria so get that up front and then you could just say nope you know just even as a prospect but they'll never come on board. You can bin them off, mark them as close, lost, you know, don't waste your time. So, have a bit of fun with it.

Um, and obviously if you look at the banner, it's good. It will be eventually a chargeable service, guys. Um, but now I think because we just built the forms, we want everyone using it, seeing if they like it, get value, and if it's something they want to keep using. I have no idea on times or dates or anything like that. Um, but it'll be 15% of of your monthly. Um, so just be wary of that. Um, so if if you you know if you're only on board maybe like one person a month, yeah, it's you know it's a great it's great, but you know, you know, you just have to weigh up whether it's going to be worth your time. But all of you guys that have multiple uh visitors to the website, you know, and you're you're sort of drowning with with the leads coming through or you don't have a sales team to sort of manage it, it's worth every penny.

U it's a no-brainer if if this is going to then help you convert this stuff. Um we're also working on this a lot as well. So we're going to keep keep on working um to expand on it as well. Um because it's in its infancy, you know, we we we'll always keep working on bits and pieces uh as as we go. Um do if you click on the link to zero when a client is a prospect, does that give you access to the zero? Um so with the zero um integration, um it's really only linking to your um your firm. It won't link to, you know, any sort of bookkeeping like unreconciled bits and pieces or invoices and stuff like that um to the individual. It's only going to be looking at your company. Um so yeah, but you should be able to do it um whilst whilst they're a prospect.

Um you just need to make sure that you've gone into settings, you gone to integrations, you gone to zero, and you've got it all set up in the background first. uh and then then retry that um that prospect uh form again. Um in the dropown menu for stages on the dealboard, you cannot select AML or professional clearance. Let's have a quick look. Go in here. Ah, it's almost like it has a little bit of a a little bit of a moment, doesn't it? Um, is that because I haven't got those stages created? Um, maybe that's why. Let me have a good look. I've not used the deals board in any. Okay, I've got a feeling. So, these are I think this is it, Ree. Um, so I think it's because they're not listed here. So, AML is not listed here. So, I think it's only going to allow me to select these options.

So, the ones that are listed out here, they are clickable from uh from within the deal stage. But let me just quickly try that again. Yes. So, I click those. I might take that one away, Reese, because I am a little bit confused by the the mechanics on that one. Um, but yeah, it kind of makes sense that I can click these because they're on my list behind the scenes as is closed one, close loss. These are not on that list. So, it's weird that we would display like extra stages that aren't on your list. So, I kind of get it. It's thrown me. Um, I'll have a look at that. Uh, Lena, I'm trying to create an ad hoc document template. How do I add icons to the footer? Oh. Um, it's really for memory. It's it's tricky and it's a bit clunky. Um, let's It's going to be copying and pasting. It's it's not a proper document editor.

Um, so if I came into this client, if I went into because you have to go into files. Um, and again, I I find guys, I find this journey particularly strange. I want to build a bespoke PDF for this client. So, let's run that again. For those of you that haven't seen it, we do have a P like an adoc PDF. I can go telecoms. Where's the PDF? Well, it's not there. It's not there. Files. It's not there. Oh, wait. There it is. Um, so I've always found um the positioning of it a little bit strange. Um, so what I would say, Lena, is the designer tool. It's it's quite basic in in what it does. If you want to start adding logos and bits and pieces, I'd use the source button. Uh, not the source button. Uh, there is an insert image button and then you can resize it.

So, if you've got like a logo for the Quickbooks or or whatever, can I just type in Let's have a go. Should we have a go live? See if I make a bit of a proud of myself. Let's just grab an image. Let's grab that. We all know it's there. We all know it's public domain. Let's nick it. Let's get that there. And I'm just building away. Happy as Larry. Choose me file images. Here we go. That's gonna be quite big. I think matusive. It's mahusive. Um, so we want to resize that. So, let's do that. Advanced. Uh, oh, I know. 10. Um, so it's going to be a bit of trial and error. Okay. Right. So, it's definitely a bit of trial and error, but yeah. So upload um save your images, upload your files, and then it's just a case of like messing around a bit and resizing it. There's no I've never found that's a bit better, isn't it?

But I've never found it to be a particularly user friendly kind of thing. Um I've I've seen people have success Lena where certainly with the LOEs and stuff like that and then I could just add more logos at the bottom. It's it's not ideal. Um, what you could do is, um, and I've done this before for somebody last year, I think when we did the proposals when they came out, um, we are back and forth and the colors weren't right. Um, and obviously our system because, you know, it's it's weird. You have to pay for colors and fonts, uh, which I didn't know about. Um, so what a lot of people do is they build like their what they want the images and the colors to be. They build it in Canva. Uh, C A N Va. So, you could build it in Canva and then file, save as that image with the sizes, right? Paste it in here.

And I've seen better success than sort of messing around adding images, resizing as you go, and then just to build the u the PDF. So, I'd maybe if if you run out of patience with it, Lena, maybe dive in there, have a play with Canva um and then just copy the image total into the PDF. that might be a better option uh than spending ages having a go um and messing around with which is what I was doing. Um Lauren uh I spoke with support last week as the prospect form wasn't being returned to engager if the prospect's email wasn't already in engager. Let me let me reread that. Lauren, um, I spoke with support last week as the prospect form wasn't being returned to engager if the prospect's email wasn't already in engager. How was the, Lauren? How was the form sent to uh to the prospect?

Was it um, did you copy and paste it to an email outside of Engager? Um, I might Yeah, I'm going to make a note of that one though because I'm, like I said, I've been off for a couple of weeks. Um so and I'm I'm no longer uh really involved with support. Um support um has sort of been we got people from tax cap that are now doing engager support. Um as we've sort of grown um I've been moved more into a success role um for helping people get up and running and using engageria quickly uh and efficiently. More more of a sort of training kind of coaching role I guess. Um so less involved with with support. So, I'm not always looking at it. I'm I'm afraid, Lauren. Um, but I'm going to have a look at that because it does sound a little bit a little bit funky, doesn't it? Um, I will take that one away, Lauren.

Uh, Benu, I have a client as a limited company as active, but the indiv individual still prospect. Oo, that doesn't sound quite right, does it? Ah. Well, actually, no, it does. Uh, so Rene, you should really have um an agreement in place for both. Um, so you'd have your uh have the LOE signed for the limited company. Um, the director does that on behalf of um but if you've also issued that director, so let's run that example. EWS Sussex uh limited company. This guy here, Dan Benny, uh he is the director of the LOE goes to EWS Sussex. It gets signed. It's an active limited company. But if you're providing Dan here with self assessment, you need a second agreement in place. Always double check with your governing body there whether or not you need individual agreements.

So if Dan here wants a self assessment, he should have uh an LOE agreement in place for the self assessment for him. It's an individual. you may have done that for him. Um, so you may find that the LOE was sent for the limited company and you've also sent an LOE to the individual LOE signed on behalf of the company, not the individual. So I've got a feeling there's there's a bit of break uh there's a bit of a break in in the process there. Um, how do I delete or archive a prospect? Uh, Reu. So let's go and have a look. So, if I'm in prospects, I can just click on this guy here and then general info. Uh, I can just archive it straight away. So, general info, you can archive. Um, second option down. So, general info, prospect, prospect active, archive, and then save. Uh, to delete, you should I've never mastered understanding how to delete.

Um, it's a strange one, but yeah, I would just archive it. And then just once you hit archive, just archive. Uh, and then that's that's off your list. Uh, GA, I have a client who can't remember how to log in and upload documents. Um, do you have instructions? Yeah. So, um, there's a vid. Uh, Gina, so we got a really useful vid in the help center somewhere. Um, so if I type in portal, uh, this might be it might be this one. How to use the client portal in engager. So, this one's really, really, really good. Um, so it's a step-by-step walk through of how what the client can do in the portal. So, genuine, what I would do is I would find this in the help center. You can probably just copy and paste the video out. Um, and then include it in your message back to the client, your client.

Um, remember, so when when you're on the limited company, go to the individual, you'll see their access here. So, this one hasn't been invited. So, you can invite that will go out the door, great. Happy days. Uh, and then once they if they've already signed up, if they've signed up and they can't log back in because they're being, you know, they've got the wrong password or whatever, um, there should be a button and let me see if I can find you one as an example. The greatest player of all time. Um, here we go. Yeah, it says disable. So, you can disable it or you can delete it. By deleting it, you're not getting rid of all the files, folders, forms, or anything like that. You're absolutely safe to just hit delete and then reinvite and then just hold their hand whilst they're doing it.

Sometimes we've seen so as you can see here, you know, that's my old email address for engager and engager.app. Sometimes your client may be using a different email. That tends to be the one that they they make mistakes on. Um or there could be a space at the end or there could be something rogue. We can't ever see it. You know, we we never get a report back of what they're struggling with, but I guarantee you 99% of the time the client's doing something a bit silly. So, I would delete their access from the individual record, not the limited. Reinvite them. when you reinvite them, include that video link to how to use the portal, how to use the software, and then that way you're getting two birds with one stone, you're reinviting them, they can log back in, and you know, they get um they get the vid. Um should be okay.

Give them a call like an hour later or something. Um see if they've managed to do it. Um but that should be that should work, I reckon. Ree, I have been using tax AML center for several years and set up engage at the end of 2025. Aha, love this. Do you know if there will be more integration between the AML center and engager? Um Ree, yeah, watch this space, man. Like um three, four weeks we think. So um tax has been massively um bolstered and redone and jazzed up. Um, so I think that's taken a bit of time and obviously we're going to connect to it. It's absolutely happening. I've been told it's definitely this year. I'm hearing rumblings of three, four weeks, but it will be this year, Ree. Um, so that's going to be absolutely killer, right? I've been on mute. What? [laughter] Um, no. Have What is going on? How did that happen?

You can hear me now, right? Bring back Yan. Yeah, I agree. But can you hear me now? Yeah. Oh, since I started about talking about the attack AML Ree, I'm so sorry, guys. I'm so sorry. And now everyone's Oh, agent, you little Yeah. Um, and now, um, now everyone's raising their hands at me. I don't know if they're like giving me a certain rude gesture or not. Um, bum. Okay. AML, brilliant. Yeah, Ree. Cool. So tax cut, they've been rebolstering it like massively behind the scenes. We are three to four weeks away. Uh it's my understanding, Ree. Manage your own expectations. Just assume it'll be here before Christmas. Um but yes, AML Center, it's being re revamped, redone. Um it's going to be absolutely killer. I've seen a few mock-ups. Uh and then now um it's going to be in Engager.

So, what I was saying um is the onboarding of your new clients going to be absolutely killer because add the basic info, get your services in, get your services and pricing, get it all switched on, get to step eight, link to tax cut, brilliant creating tax cup, run AML in Tax Cup. Done. And it's it's all part of your on boarding step by steps now before you even hit save. Um so yeah, it's good. It re it will be there. Um, can't believe you didn't hear that first time. What a nightmare. Um, um, agent, I I my my I I may be wrong, uh, buddy, but my assumption is because it's Tax Calc and Engager, you're already paying us, you're already paying them. Whatever you're paying tax, that stays the same. You just do it via Engager.

Um, I'm 99% certain that that it will still just be part of your your regular uh tax calc fee rather than moving it to to engager. Um, we will just integrate to what they've already got. Um, so I can't see um the subscription changing from from an engager side. Um, we'll just patch into what they've already got. Uh, Neil, you've got your hand up. Um, do you want to ask um do you want to pop Oh, there's the Q&A. Bring back Johan. [laughter] Thank you Sophie for letting me know Chris. Yeah, brilliant. And you're on mute. Yeah, nice one guys. Cool. If anyone's got any questions, can you pop it in the Q&A? Um Oh no, no worries. Sorry, Neil. Um so Jennifer, like um really good question. Will that negate the need for Zarma? It's up to you. Um so Johan's always been really really keen on giving people access to best-in-class stuff.

Um, Zarma, you know, when we got into um when we got involved with them, they they were the best around. Absolutely. Uh, and they're they still got a killer product. Um, but obviously, you know, with Tactical, you know, buying Engager, it just made sense for us to pat into some of the the tech that they've got. So, the great thing is it'll be, you know, you you'll have more choice in in the marketplace. So, I'm pretty sure you still be doing risk assessments and AML and KC is all about in either Zarma or Tax Cup. You just have the choice. Um, so for for many people, and I I don't know how the the costs stack uh against Zarma, but I would imagine that, you know, they're very similar. If you're already with Tax Calc, it feels more more like a no-brainer to then just use their, you know, their AML center via engage.

It just be a bit smoother, you know, less subscriptions and stuff like that. So, but again, I've I've not seen everything that um the AML center would do within Tax C. Oh, um well, yeah. Um so, yeah, Tax C bought us. Um I mean it's it's a full-blown we are the same company now. Um Nissa, so we are tax engager. Um it's we're not like a bolt on to them and vice versa. It's basically one and the same. So yeah, we we've been working behind the scenes for like a year to make it more solid. Um, you know, engager can still be used as a standalone product. We'll never change that. It won't be an exclusive, you know, practice management solution for tax calcers. It's still engager. Um, but yeah, it's, you know, it's we it's a partnership. It's an integration. You know, you kind of read between the lines as to, you know, what um you what happened.

Um but yeah it's tax calcia. Um so we are focusing heavily on building out more and more services with them but also as you probably probably seen on our road map um we are just doing a million and one um micro improvements um that have nothing to do with tax cap because we got to get the balance right. Um, so we got, you know, a good chunk of people that are with Tax C. Great. Um, but we got a bigger group, I think, uh, of clients that aren't using Tax C. Um, so we we need to keep the balance right, development with the partnership in mind, but also, you know, um, you know, keep, um, developing new bits and pieces for people that don't don't use tax account. So, getting the balance right is what we've done more and more of recently. Um, so hopefully that makes a bit more sense. Um, let's have a quick look. to do Q& A.

Chris, um I will get one of my preferred people to give you a buzz, mate. Um so, let me do that. Actually, no, it's you. [laughter] No, of course. Um I I will get um one of my faves uh to to give you a little tinkle so you can have a look at that. Um it may be a case of just actually waiting um until we get the final product done. Um, but I I will um um but I I will um I'll confirm that for you, bud. Don't worry. Um cool. Um I've been talking non-stop for 47 minutes. I didn't think I could do that. Um let's have a look at Q&A. Here we go. Can you just run through under services and pricing what fields need to be completed under dates for a service? Yeah, absolutely. So, um our system um so we've got our lovely, lovely job cards. Let's get that going. So, we got that there. So, these job cards, they're everything, right?

You know, this is your uh I need to see what's going on. I need to see my steps, my phases. Um this is telling me what to do. If you don't have a date in your uh in your service, the system doesn't know. You know, you're you're completely blind. So, if I just quickly add uh I'll just go into this particular one here. So, step five, switch it on. Step six. So what what are the dates? What do I need to do? Um so in answer to your question next you is your statutory deadline. So statutory deadline obviously for annual accounts VAT CT600 SA 100 that kind of thing. But next to is also your I would say your hard deadline that you've agreed with your client. So um I I'll use payroll no bookkeeping as the example. Right. So, um we've just finished um November um September.

I want to get September's um bookkeeping done and my agreement with the client is two weeks. So, I need to get September's bookkeeping done by the 14th of October. the internal deadline and this is what I really like uh about it is helps me manage my workload makes me aim to get it done a week ahead gives me more flexibility with the client um also helps me impress on the client so by having you know the hard deadline I've got to get it done by then and we'll aim to get it done here so let me just quickly show you now on the job card how that looks let's get that there so we have monthly bookkeeping Yeah. Um, as you can see, it's due today. So, the eye makes you focus on this, you know, straight away. If I'm looking at this one person's jobs, I need to get that done today internal. Um, but yeah, the hard deadline.

So, if you fall short, you know, if you fall short of this, this is overdue. You know, your client's not going to be completely happy with you there. Um, so internals helps you balance out your workload. So, I'll give you another example. Um, what I do is kind of this. So, if I'm looking Oh, boom. Wrong one. Um, let's have a look at all self assessments. So, look, I've got 109 self assessments in my fake dummy account. Well, that's great. You know, they're all due on the same day, right? They're all due on the 31st. Wrong. What I've done is I've used internal deadlines to balance them out.

So rather than you know having this awful you know uh experience that we have we all been there every year you know 31st nightmare what I decided to do was I split them out into tranches like I wanted to get you know 25 in middle of October the next 25 by the end of October and then the next 25 by the end of uh November that way I haven't got 100 all all due at the same time you know I'm aiming to get them done I'm I'm basically um managing my workflow uh sorry managing my workload better um by structuring it by getting certain ones done in and early. The deadline is still the same, but you know, I have an internal aspiration to get this stuff done uh ahead of time. And again, you know, we're about to go through Christmas, you know, March ends, Christmas, Den, Jan, so we know, we know what it's like.

So, if you got the capacity, you know, when you start looking at all the jobs across the board here, you know, criy, you know, well, I've got a lovely week. Um, you know, look at this lovely little section here. One item, one item. Wow. Okay. I could start moving this stuff over. I can start to balance it around. You know, I don't want to be pulling my hair out um you know um come crumbbo and the the new year. So, I would use internal for you know an aspirational deadline. You can use internal deadlines for complaints as well. Um so, say um so I got confirmation statement. Say they've kicked off said I want it today or by the end of the week. Bring it forward. Yeah. Pop it into Oh, hello. That's gone funny. um pop it there. You know, use it to bring it forward. They've complained, it's escalated.

Or you'd obviously use high priority for complaints and stuff like that because that way if I look at all my jobs across the board, well, who's complained? Anything that I really need to take action on? Here's my complaints. But the internals are aspirational and I think they're a really good sort of way of balancing out um you balancing out your your workload certainly in busier periods. If that made any sense. Uh yes, Mega. Can uh could you please advise how to set bulk deadlines for monthly services in Engage? Absolutely. So, what you can do here is here's here's a good one. Um let's just say I'll just do this. Say I've got a service that I've just created. It could be like tax advisory or or whatever it needs to be. I'm going to go I've selected all my clients here. Um, I'm going to go to bulk actions, edit client or service data.

First off, I'm going to switch this service on. So, I'm going to find a random service in here, whatever we're going to call it. We'll call it um Oh, yeah. We just call it on boarding. First off, I'm going to switch it on. So, when you do stuff in bulk, you got to think about this um logically. You can't do multiple steps in one go with bulk. So just quickly if I switch these on. So um I'm going to say turn this service on for all these limited companies. Cool. So it's now fired those up. Brilliant. The system has no idea of when this is due. So on your dashboard, and this is one of the most important ones that you can pay attention to, this guy here, services without essential info. So just quickly uh I'm going to set an internal deadline now as well. So it's not just the the due date. So again we're talking about a service.

We're talking about the on boarding and then if I do internal exact date let's get them all done by um there. Cool. Now, if I go back to my job card, you will see an unholy amount of bits and pieces due by the end of the month. Let's just quickly pop that back on. And then we go back to job type. And then we've probably got all of these on boardings over here now. So, 317. So, you can do lots of stuff in bulk. It's a really cool tool uh to have.

Um and to your point Omega like you know where where I was giving you that example of you know the self assessment bulk set the internal deadline end of October bulk set another 50 mid November bulk set the next lot you know end of November you know think about your work think about how many hundreds you got sitting there that need to come in and get done by if you can you know apply and work to the internal deadlines I think it could be a bit of a godsend Um, so how does it so how they become automatic recurring dates? Um, I think what you mean by that is frequency. Um, so with stuff like this, so with that bookkeeping one that we mentioned, so you got jobs and services. Uh, let's just find bookkeeping, monthly bookkeeping. Um, you have this section here, uh, for default frequency.

So it's not a one-off, you know, I've called it monthly bookkeeping. So it repeats every month. So, it's in your jobs, your services, and you scroll down to default frequency. And then when you close this job, when your market is done, it goes for the next month, and so on and so forth. Um, super useful, super cool. Um, what I also recommend in general for bookkeeping is I have a separate service for weekly and I have one for monthly. I might have one for quarterly and yearly. I have different phases, different due dates, different period ends for the same job but different frequency. So if you and I I think it's easy to stay on top of when you have a service per frequency if that makes any sense. Um cool. [laughter] Thanks Chris. Top lad. Top lad. Um brilliant guys. I just realized it's um I thought this was going to be 20 minutes.

Um, but you've got me talking which is good. Uh, and um, yeah, I've had a lot of coffee. Um, so hopefully I know I'm not Johan, but hopefully um, you know, there was some value in there for you guys. U, what I was going to do is well, oh no, I wrote down the help center article uh, for a few bits and pieces. Uh, got to go as Ian Holay. Um, yeah, that's good. Let's get that in. So, so pop that there everyone. That's the link uh to the new help center article on the modules. Um and then there's a video in there for you as well. Um so hopefully have a look at that. Um yeah, hopefully you found the session useful. Um it's probably not as structured as Johann's, but you know that that's me. Um hey, cheers Nessa. Thank you Nissa. Um but yeah, take care. Have a lovely day. Good luck for the rest of the day as well.

Like you know um I don't miss being in practice. So good luck guys. Um, yeah. Godspeed. Godspeed. Um, right. Cheers, guys. Speak to you soon. Um, and hopefully see some of you on another webinar uh along along the along the way. Nice one. Cheers.