One repeatable tax intake for every client
Donner Legal Services, a law and tax practice, replaced email back-and-forth with an online tax organizer, a standard document checklist, and a branded SuiteDash portal where clients upload, download, and answer follow-up questions in one place.
Gathering documents and information runs the same way for every return, so nothing depends on the attorney or the assistant remembering what to ask for.
A small law and tax practice: an attorney and one assistant, with tax preparation and tax representation as the core of the work, alongside estate planning, trusts, business formation, and general legal matters.
- Tax documents and client information were requested and collected by email, one client and one message at a time.
- There was no standard checklist, so what each client was asked for depended on who sent the request and what they remembered.
- Missing items and follow-up questions meant more emails, and the forms clients needed to fill out were sent as attachments.
What we did
- 1Map the tax workflow
Three 60-minute working sessions. We reviewed the firm's existing forms, emails, and documents, mapped how a tax engagement moves from first contact to filing, and decided what the attorney and the assistant each handle.
- 2Build the organizer, checklist, and portal
An online tax organizer that collects each client's information in a structured form, a standard checklist of the documents and details every return needs, downloadable copies of the forms clients must complete, and a branded portal with a folder set created automatically for each client.
- 3Automate the follow-up and hand off
Requests for additional information go out from the portal, along with engagement agreements to sign, invoices to pay through Stripe, and meeting booking. Then video documentation of the system, 2 hours of training, and 5 business days of follow-up support.
More from this engagement
The tax organizer asks every client the same questions in the same order, so answers come in ready to work from instead of scattered across emails.
Every client works from one repeatable list of documents and information, so the firm stopped rebuilding requests from scratch each season.
When a return needs more, the firm sends a request for additional information through the portal, and the client's answer lands with the rest of their file.
Clients download the forms they need from the portal and upload them back when done, instead of digging through old emails for the right version.
Under the hood
Before the build, the firm gathered tax documents and client details by email. Each request was written by hand, follow-ups added more messages, and the files for a single return could end up spread across several threads.
On the client side, a new tax client receives a portal account with their own folders, the tax organizer to complete, and the document checklist for their return. The forms they need are available to download in the portal, and they upload everything back to the same place.
On the staff side, the attorney and the assistant see each client's organizer answers, checklist progress, and uploads in one record. When something is missing or unclear, they send a request for additional information from the portal rather than starting a new email. Engagement agreements, invoices, and scheduling run through the same system.
After hand-off, the firm ran its tax clients on the system using the video documentation as a reference, with the support week covering the first questions as real clients came through. The biggest shift was that gathering documents and information became a process the system runs, rather than a task the attorney and assistant carry for every client.
What changed
The tax work itself stayed the same. What went away was the chase around it: every client gets the same organizer and checklist, follow-up questions stay attached to the client's file, and the inbox stopped being where a return's documents lived.
Let's talk about what you're trying to change.
Tell us where your client work gets stuck. In a short call we'll map it to a SuiteDash build and tell you honestly whether it's a fit.
- Where clients and documents get stuck today
- What a first version of your portal would include
- A realistic timeline and price