Chats, explained: tasks, threads, videos & more
The Chats feature lets you securely message your accountant, share files, track tasks, and even embed videos—all in one place. Below’s how to make the most of it:
Covered here:
Chats, explained
Chats let you securely communicate with your accountant without using third-party applications.
Here's what's available:
- Both you and your preparer can use Chats to ask questions, get info and upload and download documents.
- Your preparer might add tasks for you inside a chat thread.
- Your preparer might add client requests inside a chat thread.
- Once you’ve completed a task, either you or your accountant can check it off.
- Once everything in a chat thread is completed, your preparer may archive it.
View all message threads
To view all your chats, go to Chats & Tasks in the main menu. If you have unread chats, you will find the Unread section on the top and the Read chats below, sorted chronologically by the most recent response.
On the left, a list displays information about the last response time, author, subject and status of your tasks for each thread. The unread threads are marked with a green paper plane icon and a dot, and the read threads are marked with a purple paper plane icon. Archived threads are marked with a grey plane.
Complete your tasks
Your accountant can assign tasks inside a chat.
If there are any tasks attached to the chat thread, a section called Your Tasks appears inside the thread. You will also see the number of tasks assigned/completed in the chat thread name.
Tasks look like the items of a to-do checklist. Once a task is completed, either you or your accountant can check it off.
You can also check your tasks right from the notification on your dashboard.
If you want to track your tasks from all your chats on a single page, go to the Chats & Tasks tab, click on the Filter button far to the right, and select:
- Incomplete: To view all the chat threads with your tasks to complete.
- Completed: To view all the chat threads with checked-off to-do items.
- All: To view all the chat threads with your tasks.
Then click Apply.
There are two other ways to filter chats. You can filter by:
- Time interval: see chat threads with responses or your tasks created from a selected range.
- Status: see only chat threads with Active or Archive status.
Including videos in chats
Sometimes words are not enough—and visuals are a big help. Embed videos from Loom, Vimeo, YouTube or Google Drive if you want to show your preparer something you feel is too difficult to explain. Click the embed-video icon (the push-play arrow) in the text-formatting toolbar, then paste the link to your video.
Your preparer will be able to watch the video right inside the chat thread.
