Weekly Live Session - September 9, 2026
This week's Weekly Live was an open Q&A session covering the new prospect and deal capture forms with per-channel source tracking, best practice for importing clients from TaxCalc, document storage and portal permissions, and where AI tools like Claude do (and don't) belong around client data.
Andy took questions live throughout the session from firms already using Engager day to day.
Key takeaways
- [0:56] The weekly session is Q&A-driven: submit questions through Zoom's Q&A panel rather than the chat, so none get missed and each one can be marked as answered.
- [3:19] The new prospect and deal capture forms are now live: different forms can route enquiries by service or client turnover, each with its own reporting.
- [8:01] Each form's public URL can be tagged per channel (email campaign, QR code, social post) so you can see exactly which source every enquiry came from.
- [17:16] When first importing clients from TaxCalc, import everyone in one go rather than in phases, to avoid duplicate or conflicting records.
- [19:41] Recommended document storage: keep signed accounts and returns in TaxCalc and Engager only. Both already back themselves up, so no extra local or cloud copies are needed.
- [25:34] To preview a letter of engagement or proposal template, create a test client record and generate the document there rather than on a live client.
- [27:16] Document templates aren't just for engagement letters and proposals. Use them for any client correspondence you generate repeatedly, such as bank confirmation letters or director's resignations.
- [36:27] On a job: notes clear each time that job closes, general remarks show every time that job type recurs, and comments keep a running, taggable history against the client.
- [43:37] Two automation types are available: fixed auto-reminders a set number of days before or after a deadline, and phase-based status-update emails that fire automatically as a job moves through its stages.
- [50:18] Only use Claude (or any AI tool) with client data on Engager's Team or Enterprise plan. Other plans don't carry the necessary data-protection agreements. Exporting CSVs (time logs, jobs, client data) into Claude for reporting is recommended over the browser plugin.
- [53:59] To get a TaxCalc return e-signed via Engager: send it from TaxCalc's document manager into Engager, then request e-signature on the file itself.
- [54:52] The jobs due date range on the dashboard can be set to a rolling number of days or a fixed date, under Settings > Jobs > General settings.
- [55:42] Clients can't opt out of the secure portal for receiving documents. Accounts and returns should only go through the portal, never by email, for GDPR and security reasons.
- [58:16] Before asking a client to upload a document, check they have modify (not just read) permission on that portal folder.
- [1:00:11] Portal folder permissions can be set globally by client type, or overridden for an individual client under their Files settings.
Session recording
Full transcript
PLACEHOLDER_TRANSCRIPT[0:02] Good afternoon everybody and welcome to your weekly engager live.
[0:08] We're just letting everyone pile in and we will be with you momentarily.
[0:14] If you can see and hear me, please say hello in the comments and confirm that it's all loud and clear and all of that good stuff. Uh Sarah Golds, good
[0:23] afternoon. Good afternoon. Everybody piling in now. Great. Chris White says, "Afternoon everyone. Can hear and see you." Thank you, Chris. Jennifer's here.
[0:33] Uh, Robert's here. D, Amanda, James, Sarah, Helen, Luke. Excellent. Lots and lots of people are here.
[0:44] That is what we like to see. I hope you are all well. Okay. Sorry, an email's just coming in.
[0:54] That's quite important, but I'll deal with that later.
[0:56] Okay, as always guys, welcome to the weekly live. Uh, this session is about you. This session is about you asking me
[1:03] questions of how to do things, top tips, hints, and stuff. Um, in in order for you to ask me the questions and make
[1:11] sure I don't miss anything because the chat can get rather busy uh at times. If you can make sure you ask your questions
[1:19] in the Q&A area. If you've not used Zoom before, you don't know where that is, the Q&A option is at the bottom of your
[1:27] window. It's either a speech bubble with a question mark and Q&A written underneath it. If you can't see that,
[1:33] it's not because you're going blind. It might be under the more options. So, big round circle with three dots in it saying more. Click on that and then you'll see the Q&A option. Open that up.
[1:45] You can submit your questions on there.
[1:47] That way, they don't disappear in amongst the chat for me. I can work through them in order and I can answer them one at a time. Mark them as answered so I know I've covered everybody's questions.
[1:59] Fantastic. Um that's the only housekeeping I've got to do today. Um hopefully I will see some of you at
[2:06] Fusion Edinburgh tomorrow. We've got over 100 people registered for that event tomorrow. So looking forward to a really good day at Edinburgh's Fusion
[2:15] event in the Dynamic Earth venue, which is a fantastic place to hold an event like this.
[2:23] Um, so let's uh share my screen, which will move this box away from me, and we
[2:31] will dive into engager. Um, and I want to share.
[2:39] Is that the one I want to share?
[2:49] I've got too many different windows open.
[2:56] I think that's the one I want to share.
[2:58] Boom. Yes, it is. There we go. Okay, let me move this bar out of my way as well.
[3:05] If you can just confirm that you can see the screen, that would be fantastic.
[3:12] Yep. Wonderful. Okay. So, before we jump in, for those that you aren't aware,
[3:19] last week I showed the new deals form and how we populate all of that. So, if you've not seen that, head over to the help center and have a look at last week's um weekly live.
[3:31] If you want to just be have have a guided step talk to guide for it when you next log into engager a guide will
[3:38] pop up asking you uh showing to show you how to use it uh as well with our new user guiding that went live this week as
[3:46] well. Um but what I just wanted to show you was kind of the the outcome of this.
[3:52] So I've had this feature live on my website for a week now. I've had two
[4:00] inquiries off the back of it. I know Chris, you went live yesterday with it when we went public and you've had an inquiry off the back of it already.
[4:07] Someone else in the Facebook group said they've had a new inquiry within hours of it going live as well. So, we know it's working and it's capturing information, which is amazing. Um, but
[4:16] basically if we go to my website, what we've decided to do is we've still got a book a call option just in case people want to just book straight into a
[4:24] diary. But on our contact, we've actually got a a workflow because we want to make sure we're filling out
[4:31] the right form. So I've said I'm going to say no, I'm not a client. Then I've got two options here because we do a lot of buying and selling, mergers and
[4:39] acquisitions guidance and stuff. So if I click on that it takes me to one form.
[4:46] If I click on here it says when my website works properly.
[4:55] If I then click on here we've actually been clever here. So, if I say I'm doing under a million pound
[5:02] turnover, that actually takes me to my other accounting firms uh in inquiry form because I want to make sure that
[5:11] those clients go to the right team at the right firm because my onpoint accounting doesn't deal with under a million pound turnover anymore.
[5:19] Or he says, if I can get it to work, my website's a bit buggy. It's not designed forward. It's backwards and forwards.
[5:28] If I go to turn over a million pounds, then that's a different form. You can see this has got a white background versus the black one. Um, and literally
[5:36] people are coming in, they're filling this out. Now, the beauty of the deals bit really is, yeah, it's great. We're
[5:43] capturing all that information, but this prospect form stuff, this is where the reporting is really where the power is. So, if I go to general inquiry, this is one of our forms.
[5:54] So, I can see the it's been viewed twice.
[5:58] some one person started filling it in and one person submitted uh for completely submitted it. I can see who's submitted it. I can see where it was
[6:06] accessed from and we can get all of this information which is so so powerful like
[6:13] anyone can put a form on a website. It's actually this insight that helps us. So, you know, we
[6:22] can see where it was abandoned, if it was half if it was uh filled out halfway through. We can tell you in this report
[6:30] where the where they stopped filling it out. We can't tell you what they filled in. Like, we can't tell you, oh, that was John Smith that started this form.
[6:37] But what we can do is we can say someone started filling out the top bit, but they didn't go past the services bit or something. So, you can try and work out
[6:44] if there's a a block to why they're not filling out something. are they are you asking for something that they don't
[6:52] want to share with you so early on that type of thing. So it's actually this reporting bit which is in reports that's the real power behind prospecting forms.
[7:02] Um right so remember guys any questions you've got please put them into the system.
[7:08] Uh Chris says uh love that idea. I have buttons on all my pages that links to the contact page and five different forms. Yeah, a bit of filtering, Chris,
[7:17] will do you the world of good. Uh Kirsty says, "That's really clever." Uh Chris, when entering a new deal, the
[7:26] manual fee period is only currently monthly or annually. Will will an option for oneoff be added eventually? Uh I
[7:33] believe it's on our list, Chris, but just put it on sleep plan just to make sure. Submit it there and then I can uh we can make sure we track it for you.
[7:43] Um Sarah, so if you have one form, you go if you copy the link for your website
[7:53] and then you copy the link for Facebook, will it tell you which sources it's coming from even though it's the same form? Yes. So the beauty of this form is
[8:01] Sarah, if I go to settings, I go to my deals prospect form. If I go
[8:08] to this general inquiry form, see here it says public URL. If you
[8:15] click on this, it asks you where you're going to put it. And when you click on one of these, so let's say email
[8:22] campaign, we've added some content to this link so that we know it's going to
[8:29] you're putting in an email campaign and this is the link that's been clicked. So we will because we've given you this option here, we will give you this insight.
[8:39] Trust me, no one else does this.
[8:43] Like we announced we were going to do forms back in May. Others have then gone and oh that's a good idea and they've done forms. No one's given you this
[8:50] insight. And this is why we took our time because we wanted to make sure these forms were truly powerful
[8:57] and gave you true insights to your sources. So, I've got numerous forms, right? I have got a form which just is a
[9:07] linked to a QR code that is on some banners. Uh, give me a second.
[9:17] So, Route to Grove, one of my firms, sponsor some local events at the local beach every now and then. So, we've got
[9:24] beach flags. Don't know if you can see that.
[9:28] So, we've got beach flags with a QR code on. So, I know exactly how many inquiries we're going to get off we get
[9:35] off the back of the QR codes on the beach flags that we're sending out to for events that we're sponsoring. We've got pull-up banners with a separate QR
[9:44] code uh with a separate form. We've got our website. We've got social media links. We've got, you know, we've got
[9:51] multiple forms on our websites. We've got special offer forms that are going out as part of on leaflets and stuff like
[10:00] you can really master your marketing here and you can really work out what is and isn't working by having thinking
[10:07] outside of the box going right I can have the same form but on different places. So let's say I'm doing a tax return Christmas special. I'm going to
[10:15] have a tax return and Christmas special form that I can then go right so many people complete uh used the QR bit. So
[10:24] many people took it off social media. So many people took it off the website or I could have different forms
[10:31] entirely. I could have literally uh this this uh tax Christmas special came from
[10:38] the QR code I use on my leaflets and that's one form. There might be identical forms but basically you can make it more and more granular. Um and
[10:47] that is the power of these forms is that you can really understand where your clients are coming from cuz that way
[10:55] next year you can go you know what the leaflets didn't work. Either they didn't get the reach, the wording wasn't right.
[11:02] Either way I'm not spending the money on the leaflets this year because what I do know worked was the social media campaign. So, I'm actually going to put some money behind the social media campaign and try and get a better reach.
[11:15] You can't do that by just having a generic form. You can do that by using our forms for this feature.
[11:25] Uh, right now I've been on my soap box about forms and the power of marketing. Uh, anyone
[11:31] else got any questions? Uh, Sarah says, "Very clever. Love it." Anna says, "Love this." Great. And this is kind of what
[11:40] Engager does. Engager comes up with an not just an idea, but we take it to a whole new level to make sure it's done to the best standard.
[11:50] Jennifer says, "Love the tracking. I'm preparing for one for my first exhibi exhibiting and now wondering whether to make a QR code from on my banner
[11:59] straight to the form rather than to my website." Absolutely. Um, if you're just if someone scans a QR code on a banner,
[12:08] it just takes them to the website, then they've got to go to the contact, you're you're putting resistance in the way.
[12:14] Whereas, if they've already if they're already interested, why why are you putting another barrier in the way? Why are you making them take another step?
[12:22] Let them scan that QR code and fill the form out there and then.
[12:28] Um, AFAB, my website is managed by 2020 innovations. Can they put this form on my website? Absolutely. So, basically,
[12:37] you will tell them, you'll give them this link basically or the link to whatever form you're making
[12:44] and then you will tell them to embed that into your website. Now, that could be in the shape of a button that they
[12:51] press contact us and this form pops up in a new window. it it could be embedded into the HTML code which makes it fit in
[12:59] within the page. Uh we chose not to do that in my firm because I'm doing so many changes to our websites at the moment. But yeah, any IT providing
[13:08] website designing company should make very light work of this. They shouldn't be struggling whatsoever with it.
[13:16] Uh Paul afternoon this missed missed the mark by a week for me. got some flyers printed last week and arriving Friday.
[13:26] Sorry, M. Sorry, Paul. We can't can't please everybody all the time. Um, Cla Davis, you mentioned before about
[13:34] using formation data for leads. Do you import the details into engager and send out from there or do you email from
[13:42] engager? Uh, no. So, though that formation data has not got emails on, I don't think. I think it we just we take the list and we mail merge it onto a
[13:51] letter and we print and post the letters. We go old school. We go snail mail. Um so yeah, we just use letters in my phone for that.
[14:02] Uh done that, done that one. John, love the new forms and help button feature for the new setup checklist. Is there a
[14:09] way to complete the steps quickly as I'm not as I'm already set up? Yeah, John.
[14:14] When that pop-up comes up at the bottom, right at the bottom of that pop-up is a get rid of this. If you click on that, it says, "Are you sure?" Click yes, and it's gone.
[14:30] Uh Diane says, "Paul, why don't you print a QR code onto labels and put that on the flyers?" There you go, Paul.
[14:37] There's a nice job for you to do in the evening whilst uh watching telly.
[14:52] Um, Paul says, "All looks good, but I noticed the custom message defaults to first in the in the question list and
[15:00] ignores the layout choice." Uh, not sure what you're s what you're saying there. Sorry.
[15:10] I can click. So, I've said that's Yeah, just clarify for me, Paul, what
[15:20] you what you're referring to there for me.
[15:26] Kirsty says, "Uh, I was also thinking stickers for leaflets. Get a child to do it." Yeah, I wouldn't want to endorse child
[15:34] child child labor and slave labor here, guys, especially with the new uh rules on AML and the fact that we've got to be looking for things like that and looking
[15:42] for risks of that. So, I wouldn't endorse it. Uh Paul custom questions when you change the qu form from question to comment.
[15:53] So, if I go to custom questions, so So, if I want put that there.
[16:05] If I drag and drop that, that's moved it to the top.
[16:09] And if I want information Oh, I see what you mean, Paul. Right. I will report that back to the team. Uh, hold on. Another button.
[16:24] Cool. I've screenshotted that. I will report it back. Thank you very much, Paul.
[16:31] Um, Cheryl, I tried to customize a proposal LOE to add a second payment plan for
[16:38] catchup fees. Although it looked aligned on the screen, when viewed slashd download, it was not lined up. Any tips?
[16:45] Uh, that will be down to the PDF generator or the viewer. It will be like the preview tool. It's and how it's
[16:52] interpreted the data. Um, I'm not sure how we're going to be able to help with that one. Um,
[16:59] it's yeah, there's only so much we can do. Um, send me some screenshots to support contact at engengager.app and
[17:08] we'll have a look at it for you. Cheryl, uh,
[17:16] Helen, we are right at the start of our engage journey and about to import clients from tax calc. Would you recommend importing
[17:23] all at once or doing in phases? If in phases, what client type would you recommend we start with? Personally, I always encourage you to do it all at
[17:30] once, Helen. Purely because there's no risk of duplications and conflicting data and all of that stuff. So, do it
[17:39] all at once and then you've got a better chance of of the success rate is far far better than when you start doing in
[17:45] batches and causes all sorts of issues at times. Um, but welcome on board. Hopefully these
[17:53] weekly lives will help you. Helen uh Jamie, can you make any field multiple choice? I used the client type and
[18:02] changed this to say how would you prefer to be contacted with options of telephone, email or WhatsApp. Uh you can't at the moment Jamie, but stick it
[18:10] onto sleep plan for us and to request an idea. So click on your name at the top, request a feature and then that will get back to the development team and we'll
[18:19] have a look at it for you. Uh but at the moment it's uh type in and
[18:26] um just basic questions and answers and information. Okay.
[18:35] Uh brilliant.
[18:37] Any other questions that I can help with today, guys? What are we stuck on? And remember guys, if you're new, there is
[18:45] no silly questions. So quite often on here the uh the old guard as I refer to them who have been coming to these
[18:53] weekly lives for as long as we've been running them. So over three years now um
[19:01] have are often reminded of features and abilities that engage got by a new person asking a question. So there's no such thing as silly questions here.
[19:18] Reese, you've written me an essay. Give me a moment. So, this is more practice management question rather than software specific. Absolutely fine. I've got two
[19:26] accounting firms. Ree, more than happy to share my uh ideas and how I do things. Please don't take them as gospel
[19:34] and that that's right. It's just how I do things. We can all do things differently and achieve the same results for our clients.
[19:41] Uh, how do you handle client document storage without creating duplicate copies? When preparing accounts and tax returns in tax calc, sending them via
[19:50] the client portal for signature and submitting them to HMRC company's house, where do you store the final files
[19:57] longterm? Uh, so we always leave them in the client portal because that's we want the clients to be able to go back in and get them. So if a client says to us,
[20:05] "Oh, I need my accounts for a mortgage application." It's like, "Cool, they're in the portal. Go get them.
[20:10] Um we don't download and then send them on emails or anything for the clients you know we tell them where it is it's secure they can download them at their
[20:17] own will will um so yes tax c will have a version of it um which is submitted to HMRC and
[20:27] engager has a version of it which is identical to what's been filed to HMRC it's just there for clients to access
[20:36] but obviously clients can't access tax calc. So you you're going to have it stored in multiple places.
[20:46] Um do you keep everything solely in tax calc in the client portal or do you also download and save signed submitted copies to a local cloud drive? Nope. I
[20:54] keep everything in engager and tax calc both have got backups so you know both of them back themselves up so I don't
[21:01] need to worry about it. Um so yeah we we don't do backups or anything like that.
[21:07] Um, do you keep anything everything? So, just done that one. Sorry. Currently, we end up with the same documents scattered across three or four locations.
[21:17] So, tax cortal eign local cloud. I want to clean that up. So what I suggest, Ree, is you, unless you particularly
[21:26] want a signature exactly where it belongs on a set of accounts or a tax return, which HMRC and Company's House
[21:32] don't ask for, their layouts haven't changed, but their uh guidance has. So
[21:40] as long as it's e-signed and you get the front cover, which engager provides capturing the the meta data, as it's called for e-signing, then it's fine.
[21:48] It's done. it's that meets HMRC and company's house requirements. So you don't actually have to put a graphic in the location of the signature anymore.
[21:57] So in that case, so in my firm, we've got tax calc that stores the date.
[22:01] That's where we do the work. We then transmit that to engager and then we send it from engager for e-signing and we don't do any backups. So I've only got two locations. I've not got four.
[22:13] Hopefully that helps.
[22:18] Um uh AFTAB
[22:28] uses SharePoint. Can you please make it hyperlink? We use it all the time.
[22:33] Hold that thought. I believe I am testing the ability to save to create hyperlinks and save hyperlinks on
[22:42] notes etc. in engager either this week or next week. I believe I'm sure someone's told me that's what I'm I've got to test in the next 7 to 10 days.
[22:53] So, watch this space.
[22:57] Um, Mega, hi. If the year- end date has been extended, will that reflect the change
[23:05] date in engage automatically? In theory, yes. But h company's house can be a bit funny with the transmitting of the new
[23:14] year end date through their API. So I always recommend you check it manually.
[23:19] Um just because the API HMRC's not HMRC sorry company's houses API doesn't always transmit extended dates because
[23:28] it's still covering the same accounting period and it's the accounting period company's house tends to send us.
[23:37] Um, Mark Francis, hello Mark, hope you are well. I've been using engager since April, so still getting to grips with
[23:44] all the features after moving from accountancy manager in the dashboard under portal invites. Is there a way to remove the uninvited clients as these
[23:53] are contacts only and do not need the portal login? There isn't at the moment, Mark, but it's on our list and it's something we have got lined up to be
[24:00] looked at is to add more filtering to those widgets. Um, so watch this space.
[24:08] Um, Darren, will you release an app for practice users? I know we have a client app, but that it would be great to have a mobile app for practice users so we
[24:17] can check notifications on the go, access files, etc. Uh, it's on our ideas list, Darren. Um, up until the last few
[24:26] months, the technology just wasn't really there for such a powerful tool to be in an app. if we were going to do it,
[24:34] we would have lost loads and loads of features um to the point that it wasn't really a viable option. So, we are it is on our ideas list. We are looking at it.
[24:45] We're still testing some new technologies. The engager client portal app got relaunched a couple of months
[24:52] back on some new technology and part of that purpose was to test whether we can
[24:58] scale the full-blown practice side of things into an app. Um, but we know there's demand unlike some of our
[25:06] competitors who have denied that there's demand for apps for a very long time. We know there's demand. We hear the demand.
[25:14] What we're trying to do is just make sure what we deliver will be functional and still have enough functionality and stuff to be a viable use case basically.
[25:26] Um, Emma, hi, I've recently started engaged
[25:34] a new document in document templates and edited it, but just wondering how I preview the letter, please. So, you've
[25:41] got a couple of options there. Um, so if we go to settings.
[25:46] Nope, don't want to change that. So you've got your document templates.
[25:49] Okay. Now there's a I'm going to teach you another trick here as well. So you're wanting to look at how do I preview my letter of engagement. So all
[25:57] you can do is I would create yourself as a client. So let's create a new client.
[26:04] I'll make it a soul trader and I'm going to call it Emma T.
[26:15] I'm going to go through I'm going to add some services on put some fees into some of these services.
[26:31] So what I recommend to everybody is that you have a either yourself in here or a test add yourself as like a test place
[26:40] where you don't keep your your actual documents or anything but it's a way to test it. So you that way you can always
[26:46] go in and you can uh have a look at your letters of engagement. So I can go in here I could generate one
[26:55] and that way I can preview it so it's no problems at all.
[27:02] Just takes a couple of seconds for it to come up to preview.
[27:08] And that way I can preview my letter of enga, my proposal, and I can preview my letter of engagement. Okay. Now, there's
[27:16] a trick here that not many people use, but I use all the time in my firm.
[27:21] Sometimes we're asked to do letters, aren't we, to the bank, for example. We used I've not had one in a while actually, but we used to get a letter uh
[27:29] the bank wants a letter to confirm that the new client who's just formed a new limited company is a trading limited
[27:36] company and it's a true limited company type thing. So what I have in my firm is we had a document template which would be the letter with some placeholders in.
[27:47] So what are you we would do is we would come into the client, we go to files and we choose which file we want to save
[27:54] this letter in. So, I'm going to say correspondence. Then I click on this button, new PDF.
[28:01] And then I'm going to choose my template. Now, we've got lots of templates like board minutes, written resolutions, covering letters, etc. Here
[28:10] I've got all my all my engagement letters, all my proposals, all my schedule of services. So, you can have as many
[28:18] different document templates as you want.
[28:22] Um, so for example, I might choose uh have I got a letter to really choose?
[28:31] No. But let's go for a director's resignation. Insert.
[28:36] So this is a d letter of director's resignation. If I now generate this. Oh, I'll give it a name.
[28:46] If I now generate this. Can't find a director's name. Where am I?
[28:58] And it can't find an address because I've not given it an address uh or attendees. Even
[29:08] if I then generate this, I've now got headed and footed minutes of for director's meeting. Okay.
[29:17] So, I've got letters to banks. I've got letters to mortgage providers. I've got anything where I I'm asked to generate a letter on behalf of a client.
[29:27] I have it as a template. So, I can just go in, click generate, and I'm done quickly and easily. If you're charging for letters, then that makes it even more profitable, doesn't it?
[29:40] Uh Louise, I've been using Engage for a while and suddenly I have loads of active clients listed in proposal and LOE on the main dashboard.
[29:49] It's as if they still need to sign, but most are showing as active. Some are sent, although they these are also
[29:57] signed. It would be easier to just see those awaiting signature. So, if I go to my dashboard,
[30:07] the proposal thing should only show show the unsigned ones.
[30:12] So, if you click on here, yes, we show everything.
[30:15] But then if you but so there's h there's loads here but on the widget it's only just saying 15 unsigned.
[30:23] If I click on here though if I just want to see the unsigned. So I can see the viewed ones for example because we tell
[30:32] you when the letters when your letter engagements actually been viewed um sent. So you can filter this bit
[30:41] here, but we do only surface the 15 that aren't signed here normally. If that's not the case, send some screenshots into
[30:49] contact engager.app and we'll have a look for you.
[30:55] Uh Emma says, "Thank you. You're very welcome." Uh Paul, any ETA on the update to the
[31:03] email to include previous message when replying? Uh, no changes, no updates at the moment. Paul,
[31:11] uh, Louisa says, "Thanks." You're very welcome.
[31:17] Chris, is it possible to add my signature to PDF letters as part of the template when generating? Uh, yeah. So, basically, draw your signature. Uh, I
[31:26] would use like an iPad and Apple Pencil or some or stylus or something. draw your signature, screenshot it as a
[31:34] image, so it saves it as a a JPEG and then you can put that JPEG into template documents. I that's what we've done in
[31:41] my firm. We've got it everywhere. Like when we send our letters of engagement, it has like my signature on it to make
[31:48] it say, look, I've we've already signed this ready to work with you. We've agreed to this letter of engagement to work with you. So now you just need to sign it.
[31:59] Uh Paul, I submitted two self- assessment tax returns last Friday on tax count. Says
[32:07] it's submitted but not nothing's updated on my client's HMRC account yet. Is it that I need to
[32:15] contact Tax Cout to be or be patient? It will be updated in the next few days. So
[32:21] it normally takes 48 to 72 working hours or working days. So, three two to three
[32:28] working days for it to reflect on HMRC's portal, but they have slow times. They have faster times. Um, I would give it
[32:36] until the end of this week and then contact Tax Calc. But I'm guessing when you look at Tax Calc, you've got like a receipt confirmation number type thing.
[32:45] Um, which tells if you've got that, then it's probably there will be a HMRC not publishing the data quick enough thing.
[32:56] Um Sarah on the deals page. I'm having trouble making the stage uh as letter of
[33:03] engagement sent when I've linked it to a client and sent the letter of engagement. It grayed out and will not let me select it. Uh that might be a
[33:13] just a bug or something. Sarah says send it into us. Um, so if I go to here, if I edit this one
[33:22] and if I then link it to Yeah, I think it this cuz this is the same kind of scenario where you've got a current client, you've got a history of letters of engagement.
[33:32] Um, so it's probably a bug or something, Sarah. So if you can send us a screenshot uh to contact engager.app, we will have a look for you.
[33:45] Uh Kirsty, sorry if I missed this in the beginning. I've made a form tick. Uh thank you for all the defaults
[33:55] and add it to the website and filled one in. Where will it go? So what happens is you will get a notification. Okay. So
[34:03] first of all go to settings notifications and go to prospect form submissions and make sure you're selected.
[34:14] and prospect forms return for existing clients and make sure you're selected.
[34:19] So that way you're going to get a notification. Your notification is going to look like this. Deal general inquiry
[34:27] Johan Gory for client Gory Johan was assigned to you. Prospect form returned
[34:34] a new contact Johan Gory. So, these are the notifications you're going to get.
[34:38] And what happens is those forms go into, let me find Johan Gori.
[34:49] Uh, see if this was the one I want.
[34:53] First of all, if it's a brand new prospect, we keep we create the record for you. A new prospect is created for you based on that form.
[35:03] The prospect form will be saved here. This is the wrong year obviously.
[35:20] I don't know where that form's gone for me. Oh, there we go. So, the prospect form's here and you can see so I've
[35:27] archived this because I it was me testing and playing around.
[35:32] So you can see all the information that was filled out on the form, what services were ticked, what all my answers and stuff. So that creates that,
[35:40] but it also creates a deal. So if I go back to this client info and make them a I'll just move it to active for now.
[35:55] Ignore all of this. Do not show that again because I've just refreshed. Oh, it's because I'm a contact. I want to be an individual. Excuse me. So, if I then
[36:04] go to my deals board, you'll see it also created the deal here. Okay. So, you've got the prospect form.
[36:12] So, you get a prospect record, you get the prospect form, and you also get the deal. All created for you. Nice and easy.
[36:27] Amy, what's the difference between notes and comments on the job task? Do Eva again stay against the recurring job for
[36:34] the next time i.e. weekly I eg weekly payroll.
[36:39] So yes and no. So if we go to my jobs okay so
[36:47] notes this is really just for this occasion. This is like an update for this ver this occasion of this job.
[36:55] These notes are cleared down when you close this job down. and they go on the audit record, but they're cleared down and it will be blank next time this VAT job comes up.
[37:05] If you log something on a comment, so we can have test test notes.
[37:13] We can also tag people into it. So someone will get a notification to say that they've been tagged into this. Now
[37:20] if I press save, uh, so this is Smith's tiles. Remember that. Let's just close all this job down.
[37:33] So if I now go to Smith's tiles next VAT return, you'll see these are the comments from the previous job and the
[37:41] next ones are here. Now, if it's a job, if it's a comment or something that you want to be aware of every time you do a
[37:49] job, like this client prefers you to print and post all the information rather than email it or use the client
[37:58] portal, then I'd suggest you use what we call general remarks, which are these remarks here. And to add to them, you go
[38:05] to their client's record service detail and you put them in general remarks. So
[38:11] if I put into the VAT one, this client is a pain in the backside.
[38:19] Save that.
[38:22] If I then go into jobs, the VAT, that will be here every time we have this job.
[38:30] Okay. So you've got three areas.
[38:33] Permanent guidance and how you do something. I put that into general remarks.
[38:40] notes on this occasion of this job. I put that into notes.
[38:46] Notes that you just want to h add in for context like uh we were waiting on a curry's invoice but we did the VAT
[38:56] return anyway. Make sure you chase it up next time type thing. You can put that into comments. You can also have an
[39:02] internal conversation here of discussing it all etc between colleagues as well.
[39:10] Um, so yeah, that is all there. Hopefully that helps, Amy.
[39:18] Um, Sarah says, "No, ignore me. It was me. I didn't realize I had to link it to the letter of engagement." It had I had it
[39:27] linked to services. There we go. Problem solved.
[39:37] Um, Mark, where would you put permanent details like VAT notes where there's a lot of information? Would it still be
[39:45] remarks or memos? Again, it's up to you really. I would suggest general remarks because it's there. Or if it's loads and
[39:54] loads of information, I'd put it into memos and I'd put on the general remark part, ensure you read the VAT memo.
[40:02] Okay, it basically what you can do it whichever way you want. We all we all know there's multiple ways to get to the
[40:09] same result in the end. Um but it's a case of working out how you
[40:16] want to do it as a firm and being consistent with it and sticking with it so that everybody knows what they're doing in the firm. So, if you've got
[40:25] like pages of notes for each client, I would definitely put that into memos.
[40:30] And then I would just put in general remarks. Don't forget to check the VAT memo and go from there.
[40:40] Uh Jennifer says, "Don't worry, Sarah.
[40:42] I've done that before. Wondered why it hadn't updated and realized it's because I hadn't updated the deal to link to the letter of engagement after I generated it." No problem, Sarah. Sorry, Jennifer.
[40:53] Glad you found a solution.
[40:56] Um, just going through to see if there's anything in the chats that I've missed.
[41:05] Um, Paul says, "We use memos, especially now we can link them to files." Yeah.
[41:10] Um, so yeah, like we don't build anything in engager to only be used one way. We
[41:19] build it for you to be able to use it how you want in your firm. my firm, we very rarely use memos. The only time we really use memos is if someone's passed
[41:28] away or if there's a seriously important bit of information that we need to get across. So, for example, we would go to
[41:34] memos and go um urgent
[41:45] client's favorite cat is ill.
[41:50] I'd flag that because that means whenever I get whenever one of my team comes in here into the client info, there's a big red box to remind me that
[41:59] the client's favorite cat is ill. That might be something I need to be aware of when I'm chasing them for something pedantic or maybe I need to just express
[42:08] my sympathies when I next speak to them on the phone and stuff like that.
[42:15] Um, yeah. Cool.
[42:19] remaining 15 20 minutes guys. So any other questions that you would like?
[42:27] Uh Nissa says, "I I just noticed the flag in memos." Uh yeah, that's been there a couple of months now. Um again,
[42:35] that was a a user feedback. We want to be able to flag notes on a client's record, so we did that in memos for you.
[42:44] The most frequent one I do is um or I see others doing even is credit control
[42:51] like client hasn't paid their bills and uh that goes across there so people know.
[43:01] Um Paul says we flag for when clients need accounts urgently for things like their kids student loans and stuff. Yep.
[43:08] Personally, I would do a task for that because then it's more prominent in my workflow. But as I say, there's no right or wrong way of doing this. The tools are there. Use them as you see fit.
[43:20] Does the memo flag show against the jobs? It doesn't at the moment, Amy, but that is feedback we've had. So, it's on the list of things for us to look at
[43:28] along with over 600 other item ideas that have been put in for by our users to look at.
[43:37] Um Mark, I haven't set up any automations such as record chasing yet. Is that straightforward to set up and is there
[43:45] best practice for it? Again, you can use um there's two types of automation in engager.
[43:53] One is the uh if you go to settings services
[44:03] uh you can then use the auto reminders here. You can set them globally or you can go into a client and set them one by one. And that's very much as you'd
[44:11] expect like x amount of days before or after a certain trigger like a deadline or uh a period end or something send
[44:19] this email and this is the template and stuff like that. The other automation that not many people use again but I absolutely love and my clients love is
[44:27] what we call status updates. So when you go into a service
[44:34] under each phase you have the option to say that template email for an template for an
[44:42] email to send on completing a phase and you can choose one of your templates.
[44:46] So that can an email could be sent each time you complete a phase. So to give you an example, let's think annual accounts, right?
[44:56] When my team have finished doing the accounts preparation and the next phase is review by head of accounts,
[45:05] they complete that phase and it goes to the the next phase which is review.
[45:10] They are prompted to press send on the email that pops up in front of them, which basically says, "Hi, client name.
[45:18] Just to let you know, we finished preparing your accounts. They're now being reviewed by our head of accounts and we will be in touch with you in the
[45:25] next 7 to 10 days." So, I've stopped the client chasing me because he he or she knows exactly where we're up to. They've gone, "Oh, the head of accounts is reviewing the accounts.
[45:36] Lid." Um, but we have that built in at several stages of all different jobs so that we
[45:43] stop the clients hassling us and calling and emailing saying where are we up to on this? Because we've kept them up to date and it's all built off the back of
[45:52] the concept of Amazon. So Amazon tell you they've got the order. They tell you when it's then going to they then tell you right we're picking your order. It's
[45:59] going to be delivered on this day. Your delivery your orders in transit. Your delivery is going to be today. Your
[46:07] delivery is going to be this in between this 3hour block. Your delivery is eight stops away. Six stops 5 4 3. You're next. Your order has been delivered.
[46:19] So we wanted to take that kind of control and insight and deliver it into
[46:27] engager. So accountants and bookkeepers can get rid of this whole my accountant doesn't respond to me. my accountant doesn't keep me up to date with where I
[46:35] am where I'm up to. So, you can control that. And if you don't want to send the email that pops up, you can just press cancel. So, really nice and simple. Um,
[46:44] but yeah, otherwise Mark, relatively simple to work it to send automations.
[46:49] You just need to work out kind of which email templates you want to send when, which ones you want to repeat and stuff like that.
[46:57] Um, right.
[47:03] Louisa, is there a checklist you to work through when you are just setting up engager? I feel as if I'm under if I as if I underused the features. I have all
[47:11] clients set up, but I'm a bit lost as what to do next. So, first of all, Louisa, you're in the you're in the right place. I'm here 1:00 every week uh
[47:20] to take you through any questions you've got like we're experiencing today. Secondly, you've got a help option here.
[47:28] Okay. When you log into engager, you notice I dismissed like a popup from here. That was a checklist of things you could do.
[47:36] Thirdly, if you go to engages website
[47:45] and you go to support free training sessions
[47:54] every single day there is a webinar live so you can ask questions just like you guys are asking today. So there's a live
[48:01] webinar every single day about a different area. So every Friday we do getting started. This is a bit of a walk through through the whole tool, all the key features.
[48:11] Then every other day we do deep dive. So client records and data control. Uh
[48:18] September the 14th is going to be pricing with confidence, pro proposals and on boarding,
[48:26] workflow and visibility, the client experience, time and profitability, communication and automation. There you go, Mark. That's the one for you, mate.
[48:34] Integrations and automation. And these topics just keep working around in a twoeek flow. So they're always there.
[48:42] Every week someone every day of the week, someone is live talking about one of these topics. So, I'd strongly encourage you to go along with the go on
[48:50] to these. Jennifer's just said, "Those training sessions are great and when you contact support, it's always super quick response as well." Thank you, Jennifer.
[49:00] Um Diane, I am if I'm sending out documents to be signed at the moment, I send one email per document. The one
[49:08] that is generated when you click send documents, do I need to do this or will one email go to all doc for all to all
[49:15] the documents? So the way we've built it is one email is linked to one document.
[49:21] So you can either send one email per document and the reason that's important is because we're stupid proofing the
[49:28] client process. When a client clicks on that one link on that one email, it takes them into the client portal.
[49:35] Obviously they've got to log in. It takes them to the very document you want them to sign. There's no hunting around for them to get confused. If you send
[49:43] one email, but you've got lots of documents in there, it will send them to that one document. And then you need to trust the client is going to look and
[49:51] see that there's more documents to be signed. I mean, there's a big red dot with a number in, but clients are clients. We have to assume clients are
[49:59] not the savviest people in the world at times. So personally I send one email per document because that way I can
[50:06] ensure that they go through one at a time and we are surfacing the right document for them each time and they can't come up with any excuses.
[50:18] Um right Amy I saw in Facebook group you're going
[50:25] to show how to use Claude alongside engager. Is there a plan for this coming happening or did I miss it already? I've not done it yet and I've only got a few
[50:34] minutes left, Amy. Um, I think I'm going to have to try and do some videos on it.
[50:39] Um, but basically, if you're using Engager in Chrome, what you can do is
[50:46] you can plug in the Clawed um plugin. It links to your Clawude
[50:54] account. Now, let me be explicitly clear.
[50:59] Do not use claude for any of your client data or any of your client databases or anything unless you are on the team's
[51:07] package or enterprise package. None of the other packages have the ISO securities, the data protection
[51:15] securities and the legal agreements in place with claude to stop them using your data for other things. Teams or
[51:22] enterprise is a must. But basically from here you can tell it to go and do things and stuff like that. Personally I don't really use this very often.
[51:33] Personally I find it easier to take the data out of engager and put it into claude. So for example I would go into
[51:41] time logs. I would find all my time logs in this case for April and I'd press export to CSV and then I'd
[51:50] import that into Claude into their app on my desktop and I'd tell it what I wanted to look at and find for me. So I
[51:57] want it to report on utilization of staff. I want it to report on which jobs are taking the longest and which phases
[52:05] of those jobs are taking the longest because I want to try and work out how I can reduce that time consumption.
[52:12] So that's you know we can do that on time logs.
[52:15] I can go to all work and I can export all the date all the jobs that are coming up in whatever date period of time it is that I've put there. I can go
[52:24] to my clients and go to data and export all my client data. And when I'm here I can export as much or as little data as I want.
[52:34] So I find it easier to export data and report on it in Claude than I do telling
[52:43] Claude to try and understand the system and find its way around because it's like watching a small child or no not even that's not fair to small children.
[52:51] It's like watching your nan try to use a website for the first time. You're shouting at it to go no click there, click there, no click there. No, it's
[53:00] the big red button. So, I tend to not find the Claude browser plug-in brilliant.
[53:09] Um, but I do find exporting data from Engager and putting into Claude, remembering I
[53:17] use the Teams package for security and I'm done. Okay, hopefully that helps a bit, Amy.
[53:25] Okay, I'm conscious of time, so I'm going to try and get through all these questions as quickly as I can. Um,
[53:39] Cheryl, is it possible to send documents to view and sign requests on the same email? It, as I said, Cheryl, it's one
[53:46] email per document and the client can you can tell it the system whether it's a view or an e-ign.
[53:59] uh a tab how to get tax calc return signed via engager. So in tax calc you go to document manager next to the tax
[54:07] return send it to engager then you go into engager click on the file and
[54:13] request an e sign. So if I go to I need to find an example
[54:25] where I need part. So basically you go into files, you go to the document and you would request that to be
[54:32] e-signed. But I can't do that because that is an image. If I got a PDF, there we go. Then you'd request e request
[54:40] signing from there and then that will send it. So you can generate your tax returning get in tax calc push it straight into tax into here. Come into
[54:47] here and request that he's uh signing from there.
[54:52] Um how did you get do that all jobs in the next 90 days? So in engager you get two
[55:01] options in jobs. If you go to settings jobs general settings and you can either have filter it by the
[55:09] number of days into the future which means it's constantly moving down or you can set a fixed date. So you set your
[55:17] default and the you can change this around whenever you want. And then you just press save. And that's how you'll change that box on the jobs card.
[55:26] So on the filter, because I've said I want it to look x amount of days forward, I can then tell it to look 900 days forwards. Um or I can tell it to
[55:35] look 9 days forward or that will turn into a date if that's what I've set in the settings.
[55:42] Um, Daisy, when on boarding clients, we send a letter of engagement, proposal, letter
[55:50] engagement, invitation to sign up to the portal. When clients don't want to sign up to the portal, how can we they bypass this step?
[55:59] Um, they can't you, if you've got client, basically I, in my firm, it's our policy that
[56:08] we're not going to send you your accounts or tax return any other way. It is sent through the portal for GDPR and
[56:15] security purposes. We never email documents to our clients. Full stop. So Asda doesn't you don't tell Asda how you
[56:24] will and won't work with them as customers. Asda tells you like just because you want the frozen food at the start of the shop, Asda doesn't listen
[56:33] to that. They put the frozen food where they want the frozen food. Asda tell you how you're going to pay.
[56:42] uh you don't turn around and said, "Oh, can you put it on my credit account? I'm going to want an invoice for this." It doesn't happen. Asda set out the rules
[56:49] of how you work with them as their customer. You set out the rules of how your customers work with you. And if you're going to have to send them any
[56:57] documents, I strongly recommend you only ever do it through a secure portal.
[57:03] Um, if you want to give clients the option, then I would remove the the need to sign up to the portal when they do
[57:10] the letter of engagement, which is in the settings, and then send them a separate email inviting them to the portal for the others. But I would say
[57:18] the majority won't have an issue signing up to the portal. It's the minority. At which point, you need to explain to them this is why you work this way.
[57:26] I've never had a client once I've explained to them about GDPR and security, no client has ever refused to sign up to my portal. And we look after
[57:35] about a thousand clients across our portfolio of firms.
[57:42] Um, all my team are seeing the setup. I completed it all the so hopefully it won't appear anymore. I was concerned in that the demo shows how to delete a
[57:51] client, but it switched to an actual client, not Andy Hall's demo client. Uh, not sure.
[57:59] So, every team member will be showed the how-to bit, pool, they just need to dismiss it the first time and then it should be done. The how-to bit knows
[58:08] it's been dismissed unless you clear your cookies and caches, at which point it thinks it's a new login and you need it needs to show up again.
[58:16] Um, James Fry, I had a client say the other day they couldn't work out how to upload
[58:23] a document to the portal. There's only instructions to share with them. Um, I think there's some help guides in the
[58:31] help center that you can share with them, but make sure that you've given them permission to upload the document.
[58:37] Um, so some you control whether a client can upload or just read only. So, make sure they've got permission to upload to a folder before you tell them to do it.
[58:49] Um, 2 minutes left.
[58:53] Uh, John, back to the email to client and signing request question. Can only the client
[59:01] signing request email be sent to the client that takes them to the correct document instead of two emails? Could a
[59:10] signing request be added to notify the client to the notify client email? Uh,
[59:17] no. Because the way the the links work, the signing requests get tracked to the right document. It's part of the metadata tracking. Um, so it it works the way it works, I'm afraid.
[59:30] Um, aab, how to view number of clients on engager i.e soul traders, limited companies, etc. So, all of your clients
[59:38] are here in the clients list. And if you want to filter it out and just see I only want to see
[59:46] limited companies, then you can click on filters like you would in Excel and go right, I only want to see limited companies. I'm now being shown 26 out of 95 records.
[59:59] Uh James, thanks for question. Right, James, I've got a minute. Uh where do you I see the permission settings to allow them to upload. So go to settings.
[1:00:11] Uh so this is global. I'll take you into the personal ones in a moment. So you go into here client data uh sorry note portal folder templates.
[1:00:23] Choose a client type if. So basically you need to click on these blue squares with arrows right. Do
[1:00:32] they get permission to read, modify, and manipulate? If they don't have any ticks here, the client can't even see the folder. That's just you seeing the
[1:00:40] folder and being able to use the folder yourself. If you only want them to read, then you click read. If you want to be able to upload, then you click modify as well.
[1:00:50] If you go into a client though, if I go into this client here, go into files because we get you might want to change permissions for individuals.
[1:01:02] Click on here, restrict access to top level folders. So Johan Gori is the contact here and I can choose which folders Yangori
[1:01:11] can actually see. So Johan Gori can only now see client uploads. Maybe I need him to see the VAT folder as well. So it
[1:01:18] doesn't matter what the global settings are. You can tailor it per individual here as well. Brilliant.
[1:01:27] Right, that is 1 minute past 2, guys.
[1:01:31] That's 37 different questions answered, not including the ones that are in the webinar chat. I hope today has been useful for you. We are here every week
[1:01:40] at 1:00. Uh, I'm not here next week because I will be at Accountex instead, but Andy Tier will be covering it next
[1:01:48] week for you all. Hopefully, I'll see some of you at the Edinburgh Fusion event tomorrow. Failing that, I will see you hopefully see some of you at
[1:01:57] Manchester next week uh for Accountex Manchester. Actually, Accountex Manchester is on Tuesday, isn't it? So,
[1:02:04] I will be here on Wednesday for the weekly live. uh unless I'm stuck podcasting somewhere at which point Andy T will cover. So we hope you have a
[1:02:13] fantastic week and a fantastic weekend when it comes guys. Watch out in the Facebook group for more announcements of more things going into testing cuz we
[1:02:20] the development team are somewhat busy at the moment. And I will see you all in
[1:02:26] the coming days or next week. See you all later. Bye-bye.