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Our Client Portal

Taylah Wallace – Monday, November 14, 2016

We’re now upgrading and reintroducing a client portal for delivering documents and communicating with our clients. Some clients will have used a previous version of our portal while others are now on the new version.

We are using the portal for a number of reasons as follows:

1. The ATO are going paperless and will not be providing printed assessments and other notices. This was due to occur from 1 July 2016 but has been deferred and could happen at any time. For our business this impacts on thousands of documents each year previously sent to us by mail and for which we have software to scan and sort, which will become redundant. The ATO are transferring their printing and mail costs to us if hard copies are to be sent. We expect that in the near future we may have to send all ATO correspondence to you electronically.

2. The rise in the cost of sending mail and postage time frames which means a huge cost to print and mail the documents. This will have to be passed on unless we can find a way to mitigate it.

3. Security; the portal is much more secure than emails; the portal has the same security as your internet banking log in. It is also illegal for us to email any document to you with your TFN listed as it can be hacked, so we have implemented the client portal as our solution to the security issues.

4. You can also upload documents to us instead of emailing them thus improving security. Anytime you upload a document to us we are notified straight away.

5. We can use the portal to send out your tax information checklists. By using this checklist you can answer yes/no and upload any documents we need. Once you have completed the checklist we automatically receive notification and your tax job is then scheduled by us to be completed.

6. We are working to have an app for your smartphone to give you even easier access to your documents.

Whilst this change is being forced upon us it also presents an opportunity for us to communicate in a secure, more convenient and quicker manner. After a period of adjustment we believe it will make it easier for you to receive, send and store various business documents. In some ways, the technology is not exactly where we would like it to be but the new version is much improved from the old one. In addition, you do have to adjust some of your habits (i.e. securely file login details etc). We have also put some notices on the portal relating to using it to help you while you adjust. This issue is an evolving one that reflects the digital revolution we are living through. In some cases it may be that we need the technology to "catch up" for some of the more complex client groups and if that is the case we will let you know that we need to wait.

If you haven’t already signed up to our client portal and would like to do so please give us a call 5134 4955. Our admin team is committed to do all that they can to make it as easy as possible for you.