How to move TaxDome jobs automatically when clients act

A pipeline board is only useful if the cards are in the right column. In a lot of firms they aren’t, because moving a job depends on someone noticing the client uploaded their statements on Saturday. TaxDome can move jobs on its own: a stage sends the client something, and when the client submits, signs or pays, the job jumps to the next stage and the next automation fires. This guide builds that for a monthly bookkeeping pipeline. At the end, the board updates itself and your team works from it instead of their inbox.

What you need

A TaxDome plan. TaxDome’s pricing page lists Essentials at $800/year per seat (solo users only), Pro at $1,000/year per seat and Business at $1,200/year per seat, all with a 1-year commitment and lower rates for 2 or 3 years. All plans list ready-made workflow automations. If you have staff, Essentials is out, since it’s single-user.
The right access. The firm owner and admins can add and manage automations by default. Anyone else needs the Manage pipelines access right. TaxDome notes that granting it gives edit rights to every pipeline that person can see, so scope it with the Available to dropdown.
Clients with email (and ideally portal access). Client requests can also go to people who don’t log in, covered in step 6.

Step by step

1. Sketch the pipeline before you build it

TaxDome’s own advice is to map the stages, find the points that need a follow-up action, and turn each one into an automation. On paper first. Here’s a monthly bookkeeping pipeline I’d start from:

Docs requested. Automation: send client request. Automove on.
Bookkeeping. Automation: create task for the bookkeeper. Automove on.
Review. Automation: create task for the reviewer. Automove on.
Deliver. Automation: send message to the client with the reports. Last stage.

Each stage has exactly one thing that has to happen before the job can move. That’s the rule that makes automove predictable.

2. Understand how automove decides

Two moving parts, per TaxDome’s help center:

Automations fire when a job enters a stage. Each one creates an action item on the job: a request waiting for the client, a task waiting for a team member, an invoice waiting for payment.
Automove moves the job to the next stage once every action item in the stage is resolved. If several automations are in one stage, the job waits for all of them. Manually linked items count too.

You can’t turn on automove for the last stage of a pipeline. Not every automation triggers automove, so check TaxDome’s automove article for the full list before you rely on one.

3. Create the client request template

Build a template for the monthly request. Client requests in TaxDome are short forms that can include text answers, dates and file uploads. For example:

“Upload statements for any account not connected to the bank feed.” (file upload)
“Did you buy or sell any equipment or vehicles this month?” (yes/no plus note)
“Any new loans, owner contributions or owner draws we should know about?” (text)

If you don’t have a template yet, you can create one with New template while adding the automation.

4. Add the automation and reminders to stage 1

In the Docs requested stage, add the Send client requests automation and pick your template. When a job enters the stage, TaxDome creates the request from the template, sends it, and links it to the job. Turn on Automove jobs for the stage.

Under the template field, turn on Reminders. You get two fields:

Days until next reminder. Default is 3.
Number of reminders. Default is 1.

That default of one reminder is low for month-end documents. I’d set 3 days and 4 reminders, which keeps nudging for about two weeks. Per TaxDome’s reminders reference, reminders for a client request stop when the client submits, when you mark the request Completed, when the count runs out, or when the linked job is archived.

One catch: if you later change reminder settings on the automation, it only affects jobs that enter the stage after the change. Requests already sent keep their original settings.

5. Add the internal stages

For Bookkeeping and Review, add a create-task automation assigned to the right person, and turn on automove. When the bookkeeper completes the task, the job moves to Review and the reviewer’s task is created. For Deliver, add a send-message automation with a short note:

“Your September books are closed. Your P&L and balance sheet are in your documents folder. Reply here if anything looks off.”

6. Handle clients who won’t log in

Some clients, or their office managers, won’t use the portal. When sending a client request, you can turn off Require login. The client gets an emailed link, fills in the answers and uploads files without signing in. TaxDome also notes clients can fill a request on the go and finish later; answers and uploads save automatically.

7. Use account tags for clients who need extra steps

Not every client needs every request. TaxDome supports conditional automations based on account tags, with conditions like Any of, All of, None of and Exclude all. For example, tag clients who run payroll elsewhere with “Outside payroll” and add a second client request in stage 1 that only fires for that tag: “Upload last month’s payroll register.”

8. Make the jobs create themselves

Go to Workflow > Job recurrences and select New job recurrence. Pick the accounts, the pipeline, the recurrence settings (Repeats every month, on the 1st) and the job template and assignees. Each time the start date arrives, the job appears in the pipeline and stage 1’s request goes out.

Two details from TaxDome’s help center: the start date can’t be today or earlier, and scheduled jobs start at 12 a.m. in your firm’s time zone setting. If you pick the 31st, jobs only start in months that have one.

9. Test with a fake client

Create a test account using your own second email. Add it to the recurrence, then move a job through every stage: submit the request, complete the tasks, check the final message. Fix anything odd before you add real clients.

Common mistakes

Leaving reminders at the default of 1. One nudge isn’t a follow-up system.
Stuffing several client actions into one stage. The job waits for all of them. If the client signs but doesn’t upload, the card sits still and nobody knows why.
Moving a job by hand while a request is open. TaxDome will ask what to do with the pending request. Decide on a firm rule so people handle it the same way.
Changing automation settings and expecting old jobs to follow. Only new jobs entering the stage pick up the change.
Giving Manage pipelines to everyone. It grants edit rights on every pipeline they can access.

When it’s worth getting help

A four-stage pipeline like this is a solid afternoon of setup and testing. It gets harder when you add tagged branches, proposals and invoices that gate stages, and different pipelines for tax and bookkeeping that share clients. If you want help designing that, see my TaxDome page, or start with the accounting cost calculator.