Stage checklists & auto-advance
A return doesn't move through Journey in one leap: it passes through stages, from waiting on the client through preparation, review, and filing. Stage checklists put your firm's internal steps onto each of those stages, and auto-advance uses them to carry the return forward on its own once the work for a stage is genuinely done. The result is that the pipeline reflects reality without anyone remembering to nudge a status field.
This is separate from the client-facing document checklist. Stage checklists are internal (the to-dos your team works through), and clients never see them.
What it does
There are two pieces working together.
Stage checklists are the lists of steps your team completes at each pipeline stage: Waiting on Client, In Preparation, In Review, Ready for Filing, and Completed. When a return reaches a stage, the steps you've defined for that stage are copied onto it, so a preparer opening the return sees exactly what needs doing at this point in its life.
On the return, your steps sit in the stage's one list on the Stages tab, tagged Firm step, right after Journey's own checks for that stage. Steps added on a single return are tagged This return and come last. See returns.
Which stages take firm steps
Five of the eight stages take firm steps. The other three don't, on purpose, and Settings lists them grayed out with the reason:
- Received: intake is covered by Journey's own checks (client linked, engagement letter signed, questionnaire complete) and by the return's document checklist.
- Awaiting Signature: the Form 8879 checks (sent, signed, still matches the return) are fixed and the same for every firm.
- Filed: the return has been filed. Any follow-up belongs to the return itself, as a task.
Those three stages still show their list on every return, with Journey's checks.
Auto-advance is what happens when that work is finished. Once every required task in the current stage is checked off, Journey moves the return to the next stage automatically. Your team's act of completing their work is what advances the return: they don't also have to remember to change its status.
What triggers it
Stage tasks are copied onto a return when it enters a stage. Auto-advance fires the moment a staff member checks off the last outstanding required task for the return's current stage.
Where auto-advance applies, and where it deliberately stops
Auto-advance is intentionally limited to the middle of the pipeline: the stretch where "the work is done, move it along" is unambiguous. It runs from Waiting on Client into In Preparation, from In Preparation into In Review, and from In Review onward.
It stops before filing. Moving a return to Ready for Filing and then actually filing it are always deliberate, human decisions. Journey will never auto-file a return. There's also a safeguard for edge cases: if a return's stage has changed since a task was created, auto-advance holds off rather than risk jumping the return the wrong way.
How to set it up
Stage checklists are configured in Settings under Stage Checklists. Add steps under each stage, and for each one decide whether it applies to a specific return type or to all of them, and whether it's recommended before moving on or optional. The required-versus-optional choice is what controls auto-advance: only required tasks gate the move to the next stage, while optional ones are there as reminders that don't hold anything up.
How to turn it off
Leave a stage's checklist empty, or give it only optional tasks, and nothing gates advancement there. Your team simply moves the return forward by hand. That makes this as much or as little of an automation as you want it to be: a firm that likes tight, self-advancing stages can lean on it heavily, while one that prefers manual control can use the checklists purely as reminders.
Good to know
- Editing a stage template affects future returns; returns already in flight keep the tasks they were given, so you're never rewriting live work.
- A manager or above can add a one-off step to a return at its current stage (Add a step, at the bottom of the stage's list), or remove a step from a return, the same way the document checklist can be adjusted per return. Removing a step from one return doesn't change your firm's template.
- The person who ticked a step, or a manager or above, can clear the tick. Ticking a step and clearing one are both recorded in the return's Activity, with who did it and when.