Tax Client Portals: A Guide to Selecting Software for Your Tax Practice

Selecting a tax client portal is a decision that will have a large impact on the overall practice management of your tax firm and on the client experience your practice provides. A client portal serves as a one-stop shop for client collaboration and managing client tasks. Follow this guide to help your firm find a client portal that meets your and your client’s needs.

Table of Contents:

• What is a Tax Client Portal?
• 3 Pain Points an Effective Tax Client Portal Solves
• How to Select Tax Client Portal Software
• Comparing Client Portal Tax Practice Management Software
• How Harness’s Tax Client Portal Modernizes Your Practice

What is a Tax Client Portal?

A tax client portal is an online platform or mobile app used by tax professionals and their clients to securely exchange sensitive information, transfer documents, manage tasks, send communications, and more. Tax client portals are often offered by tax practice management software providers as part of a suite of technology solutions. 

A tax client portal: 

• Provides a confidential platform to communicate and transfer information by employing access controls to clients and tax practice staff. 
• Streamlines communication, document submission, and real-time updates, creating efficiency and accuracy in the tax preparation and tax filing processes. 
• Provides a centralized and secure space for all interactions, helping to mitigate the risks associated with data breaches and unauthorized access.

3 Pain Points an Effective Tax Client Portal Solves

All tax client portal software providers aim to make serving clients easier and faster. But as you review potential vendors, consider how each solves the following common pain points at tax firms.

1. Tax Client Data Security

We’ve likely all seen it before… a tax client sends an email with a PDF attached that includes their SSN, address, financial data, or other sensitive information. Rather than risking the security of client data being sent in a regular email, tax client portals are built in a way that data is securely transferred. Enabling secure access to data reduces the risk of a data breach at your tax firm and identity theft for your clients.

2. Unorganized Client Communication and Documents

If your firm is relying on email threads and phone calls managed without a centralized communication strategy, a tax client portal can help streamline your client communications and document collection. Effective client portals help your clients stay organized by centralizing communication, and providing them with clear and consistent communications. For your tax firm, an effective client portal streamlines your communications from the beginning of a client engagement to the day you file their tax return and beyond. Using workflows in a client portal helps ensure clients submit documents in an organized manner. 

3. Tax Practice Workflow Management

The best tax client portals equip your tax practice with business process tools to manage bulk actions for multiple clients at once. This includes tax intake questionnaire requests, document sharing, e-filing, and more. By creating process efficiencies, your firm spends less time managing tasks and more time serving clients, especially during the busy tax season.

How to Select Tax Client Portal Software

When researching potential tax client portal software providers, consider examining the following questions before making your choice.

1. How user-friendly is the client portal?

Your tax client portal should make it easy for clients to interact with your tax practice. Whether it’s via a mobile or desktop app, the platform should be intuitive for your client and your firm, integrating with the workflows of your tax practice. Ask to demo the client portal from both the perspective of your client and your firm.

2. What task management features does the client portal offer?

An effective tax client portal allows you to send automated reminders, request files, sign documents, provide tax information, e-file returns, and work on ad-hoc tax planning with your firm. Carefully consider how a specific software vendor’s client portal will fit into your tax firm’s business processes.

3. Does the client portal support seamless tax client onboarding?

For new clients, the client portal should simplify the completion of tax questionnaires, uploading of client tax documents, and all initial communications with your firm. Various software vendors support client onboarding in different ways. Ask vendors what engagement templates or other onboarding features are part of their client portal software. Be sure to understand the differences between vendors that specialize in tax firms compared to more generic client portal platforms.

4. Does the client portal support integrated tax planning services?

Certain tax client portals allow your firm to integrate and manage services such as quarterly tax estimates, equity tax planning, and other ad hoc tax planning services. Ask the software vendors you are considering what tax services their client portal is able to provide. You want to avoid client portals that only support some of the services you offer.

Comparing Client Portal Tax Practice Management Software

Below are four of the leading providers of modern tax client portals. All of them offer client portals as part of more comprehensive tax practice management software platforms. As you compare vendors, start by broadly looking at the capabilities of the different client portals and then focus your analysis on the key features more important to your tax practice.

How Harness’s Tax Client Portal Modernizes Your Practice

At Harness, we provide advisors with an integrated client portal that reduces time spent on practice management tasks. Our client portal is part of a robust tax platform for the modern tax firm, helping transform the tax experience for you and your clients with:

• Lead and engagement management: From your first communications with leads to signing an engagement letter and annual renewals, the Harness client portal centralizes client interactions.
• Automated task updates: Automate client reminders and notifications to save time.
• Document and file uploads: One centralized location for you and your clients to manage documents.
• Client intake questionnaires: Easily and securely collect information from your clients to speed up the tax filing process.
• Client Payments: If applicable, collect retainer payments via the portal.
• Third-party integrations: Integrate e-signature and tax filing software.
• Quarterly estimates & ad-hoc planning: Help clients with quarterly estimated tax payments and other planning tasks.
• Equity tax planning: Work with clients to manage their equity holdings to optimize their taxes.

“I wish I had come together with Harness before I expended so much energy finding the best tech when starting my firm. All of that was immediately at my fingertips with Harness.”

— Cari Manteiga, CPA

Cari Manteiga is a tax adviser on Harness’s platform and was not compensated for this testimonial. However, due to the relationship with Harness, a testimonial from a platform adviser may present a conflict of interest as Harness could indirectly benefit. Cari Manteiga’s comments may not be representative of any other person’s experience with the firm. 

Onboard Clients Consistently and Quickly

Make your clients’ lives easier with a client portal that makes it fast and simple to get started with your tax firm on day one. From receiving a welcome letter to completing tasks and finalizing their tax returns, your clients will know what to expect at every step.

(Bonus: See our guide to tax client onboarding.)

Manage Engagements in a Single Dashboard

Juggling engagement due dates for hundreds of clients is a big task. The Harness dashboard gives you a single view of your tax practice’s client management. Toggle your dashboard view with simple-to-use filters to track client engagement milestones.

Leverage Bulk Tasks to Save Time

When you’re running low on time but high on work, our bulk task feature empowers your firm’s staff to complete tasks for hundreds of clients at a time. Leverage secure messaging to send bulk requests to clients and receive the data and documents you need to hit deadlines.

Securely Collect Documents

The Harness client portal offers simple and secure uploading of client tax documents. With the click of a button, clients can upload W-2s, 1099s, and more. It’s easy for clients to submit docs as they receive them, and easy for you to track their tax documents in one location.

The Support You Need to Leverage Your Client Portal

When you start using the Harness client portal, our team is here to make sure you know how to create value for your firm. We provide your tax practice’s staff live training to learn how to use the Harness client portal, walking you through your engagement dashboard and showing you how to manage your client work across your team. Plus, we ensure your client contacts and taxpayers are set up to receive communications so nothing slips through the cracks as you migrate your practice to Harness.

Ready to Grow Your Tax Firm?

Schedule an intro with Harness today to see how our client portal can support your firm’s growth as part of our modern tax practice management software. The Harness platform for tax practices provides your firm with an in-house concierge team, curated client introductions, and a professional community of tax, legal, and wealth advisors. Schedule an intro today.