Requests
A request is a ticket that isn't a tax return: a client asking a question, sending in documents, needing a signature, or raising any other back-and-forth between them and your firm. The defining thing about a request is its direction: it starts with the client and is waiting on you. (Add a return type and the same ticket becomes a return instead; see the four kinds of work for how the pieces relate.)
Where requests come from
Requests reach your firm through three doors, and all of them land in the same place:
- From clients, through their portal: the "What do you need?" flow, where they pick a category, describe what they need, and can attach documents.
- From staff, through the New request dialog.
- From email, when a message arrives in your firm's connected inbox.
The first two become a ticket straight away. Email is different on purpose: it lands in your Intake queue, sorted so the things that look most like real client work rise to the top, and someone on your team turns it into a ticket or discards it. Nothing that arrives by email becomes work on its own, and nothing is discarded on its own either.
However it started, once it is a ticket your team can track, assign, comment on, and resolve it, so nothing a client sends you lives only in someone's inbox.
Categories
Every request has a category. The default set is General Question, Document Request, Signature Request, Advisory, Billing, and Other, and you can edit that list in Settings to match how your firm actually describes work. The category does double duty: it labels the request so it's easy to scan a list at a glance, and it drives routing, because a request's category is what decides which department it lands in.
What happens when a request comes in
A new request doesn't sit and wait to be noticed. It's routed to a department based on its category, assigned to a person within that department, and any documents the client attached are stored with it. From the client's side, they can then follow the request's status in their portal and exchange messages with your firm on it the whole way through.
The request detail screen
Opening a request gathers its category, status, the client, the assigned staff member, any attached documents, and the message thread into one view. From there staff move it through its statuses (open to in progress to resolved), attach documents, and reply to the client.
Requests versus returns at a glance
The two are easy to keep straight once you see them side by side:
| Request | Return | |
|---|---|---|
| Has a tax return type? | No | Yes (1040, 1120-S, …) |
| Routed by | Category | Return type |
| What the client sees | A status | The six-step return tracker |
| Document checklist | Optional, added by staff | Filled from a template automatically |
Document requests
A request (a Document Request category especially) can carry a document checklist of its own, so the client sees a clear list of what to upload, exactly the way they would on a return. That turns a vague "send me those documents" into a specific, trackable list.