Accounting document management is harder than a general firm's because every file has three tags or it is lost: the client it belongs to, the period it relates to, and the date it may be destroyed. Most of the files arrive from the client rather than from the firm, by email unless there is a portal, and the year-end review is where a missing tag becomes a missing document. The discipline is filing on arrival: the client's upload lands numbered and tagged, the firm's own working papers and the filed return join the same record, and the retention date is set from the firm's policy the day the file is captured. The free document capture worksheet on this site sizes the yearly intake and what the retention period keeps.
The client: file it against the client on arrival
Bank statements, invoices and payroll reports arrive from the client, and the software should receive them through a portal under the firm's name, log who sent what and when, and file each against the client at once. Email receipt is an inbox, not a document system; Batesio Pro receives and files.
The period: the tag the year-end review lives on
A file that is tagged to the client but not the period is found by opening everything. The period tag set on capture is what makes the year-end pack a filter rather than a search, and it is the tag most firms skip because the person capturing does not know it. Set the rule that the capture screen asks for it, and the review week gets its hours back.
The retention date: set on capture, applied at year end
The firm's policy says how long each class of document is kept; the software should set the date on capture and report what may be destroyed each year. The worksheet on this site prints the pages and boxes a retention period keeps at your daily intake, so the policy is written knowing what it costs. What the regulator requires is the adviser's to confirm; the record is the firm's.
Questions people ask about accounting document management
What is different about accounting document management?
The three tags: client, period and retention date, set on arrival, with most files arriving from the client through a portal rather than from the firm.
Does the practice management suite do this?
It holds the ledger, the workflow and the billing. Some hold documents; check that the portal, the numbering, the period tag and the retention date are actually set on capture, not left to a folder name.
q
a