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Reminders

Firmdesk can email a client before its instalments and balances are due, and keep reminding it about your requests until they're done. Reminders are off for every client until you turn them on.

Turn reminders on for a client

  1. Open the client, go to its Documents and requests tab and click Open the portal page.
  2. Under Reminders, click Set up reminders.
  3. Under What to remind them about, turn on what you want:
    • Instalments: income tax and sales tax instalments.
    • Balances due: T1 and T2 balances, and returns filed and paid together (T1, T3, GST/HST, QST).
    • Other payments and deadlines they handle: payroll remittances, for example, or filings the client does itself.
    • Requests: what you asked them for in the portal, until it's done.
  4. Under When, choose how early a deadline's reminder goes (Deadlines), how long before a request's Please by date (Requests), and how often after that (Then, until it's done).
  5. Under Who gets them, tick the contacts. The ones who can sign in to the portal and the primary contact start ticked.
  6. Click Turn on reminders.

To change your choices later, click Change what, when and to whom. Turn off stops the reminders and removes what was scheduled, with any changes you made.

Check a reminder before it goes

A deadline's reminder is scheduled about six weeks before it goes out. Reminders in the sidebar lists every client's: what's Going out this week, what's Missing an amount, and everything Scheduled. The Status filter also shows what was Sent and Not sent.

  1. Click Add the amount (or Edit) on a reminder.
  2. Change Send it on, Amount ($), Subject or Message. What they'll read shows the email as it will arrive.
  3. Click Save, or Save and send now.

Use the template's text undoes your wording changes, and Don't send it cancels the reminder. In the list, Send now sends one at once and Skip cancels it.

The day you choose must be between today and the due date. A request's reminder has no amount, and its day follows the request's schedule.

Change what reminders say

Owners and admins set the wording in Settings › Reminders, with one template for each kind: Instalment, Balance due, Other deadline and Request.

  1. Change a template's Subject or Message. Fields in braces, such as {first_name}, {due_date} and {amount}, are filled in for each email; each template lists its fields.
  2. Click Save templates.

Scheduled reminders take the new text, except those someone edited (the list marks them changed by hand). A line with an empty field, such as a missing amount, is left out of the email. Back to the original text undoes your changes to a template.

When they go out

Each reminder goes out on its day, in your firm's time zone. A deadline gets one reminder. A request is reminded before its Please by date, then from the day after it at the interval you chose, until it's done; one without a date is reminded at that interval from when it was sent. The count restarts from the last email about it or the last item the client completed, so nobody is chased while they're working on it.

A reminder that's no longer needed isn't sent: the deadline is done or its date has passed, or the request is complete.

Who receives them

  • Reminders about deadlines go to the ticked contacts who have an email address, whether or not they can sign in to the portal.
  • Reminders about requests go only to ticked contacts who can sign in to the portal.
  • A contact who turned off Email me about my portal in their portal account gets none. One who chose One email a day still gets reminders on their day.
  • Nothing goes out while Email clients is off in Settings › Portal.

Every reminder sent is listed in Emails sent.

Good to know

  • Anyone on the team can turn a client's reminders on or off and edit a reminder. Only owners and admins change the templates.
  • An instalment reminder starts with the amount of the client's last reminder for the same instalment (last quarter's, say).
  • Deadlines that are only a filing your firm does, such as a T2 return, never get a reminder.
  • To stop automatic reminders for one request, click Turn off for this request on its page. Email a reminder on a request sends one now.