Adding questions, arranging them, previewing and publishing.
A form is what you ask a client: the questions to answer, the documents to send and, if you want one, a signature. You build it once on the form's Build tab and send it as often as you like.
Anyone in your workspace can create and edit forms.
At the top of the Build tab, under Form details. Once a form has questions and your firm has a logo, this card is folded shut, showing the form's name and layout; press Form details to open it.
Under How clients see it:
For Single select and Multi select, add choices with Add option. A choice needs at least one option, and can offer up to 50. Social Security number and Account number are kept encrypted and shown masked. On a Social Security number question, Whose number is this says whether it is the client's, their spouse or partner's, or someone else's, such as a beneficiary's. It is set from the question's wording, and it is what lets a PDF template fill in the client's or their partner's number. On a Number question, Whole numbers only suits an age or a count of people: the client's phone keypad has no decimal point, and an answer like 64.5 is turned back. For documents, see Requesting documents.
A form opens with each question folded to one line: its type, its wording, and whether it is required or asked only of some clients. Click the line to open a question and edit it, and again to fold it. A question you have just added is open already. Expand all opens every question at once, and Collapse all folds them again.
To reorder fields, drag the handle on the left of a field, or use its up and down arrows. To remove one, use the delete button on the field. All three work on a folded question.
Turn on Ask this question only for some answers, then choose a question above it and the answers that should show it. With several conditions, choose all of these hold or any one of them. A condition on a section heading shows or hides the whole section.
On a section heading, turn on Clients can fill this section in more than once for things like accounts, children or beneficiaries. Name the entry, such as account, and set how many are required and allowed. Your client sees an Add another button.
Some forms are answered by more than one person, such as a couple, or a client and their CPA. At the top of the form, Who answers what shows who answers each section: choose Add someone, then Choose sections beside them, or set Answered by on each section heading, or Each person, which the client and their own people each answer for themselves and a professional such as a CPA never does. Preview as above the preview shows the page each person gets. Sent to the client alone, the form is answered entirely by the client. See Several people on one request.
Every question offers Keep on client: choose one of your client fields, or New client field… to make one from the question. A choice kept on the client offers that field's options, so they can't be edited here. Once you accept the answer from a reply, the next request to that client arrives with it filled in for them to confirm, unless the field is kept for your firm only. The profile also fills your PDF templates. Questions that plainly ask for a name, email address or phone number, such as "Your first name" or "Spouse's full name", are filled in from the client's record the same way, with nothing to set. To let clients correct details the form does not ask about, see Let clients correct their details above.
The preview beside the builder shows what your client sees, and updates as you edit. Click a question in the builder, or tab into it, and the preview scrolls to that question and outlines it for as long as you're working in it. On a form set to Step by step, it goes to the screen the question is on. Its Your details card is filled in for a made-up client, so you can open it and see how it reads; each client you send the form to sees what you have on file for them. The builder saves as you go; the indicator beside the form name says if a field needs fixing first.
A new form is a draft. Select Share, then Open and share, to open it and start sending it. Opening a form is held to owners, admins and roles with Build and change forms. See Sending to a client.
Once a form has been opened to clients, your edits are saved as Unpublished changes, and clients keep seeing the published version until you select Publish. Anyone partway through whose answered question changed is asked to check their answers when they send. Discard throws the changes away, though they stay in the form's history. See Form history and restoring. A form that clients can open has to keep at least one question, document request or acknowledgment: publishing with none is refused, so close the form to clients first if you mean to empty it.
From Actions at the top of the form:
Closing, archiving and deleting are held to the same people who can open a form.
The Forms list leaves archived forms out. The tabs above it narrow the list to Open to clients, Draft, Closed, Unpublished changes or Archived, each with how many forms it holds. A tab appears only when it has forms behind it. Select Archived to find a retired form and bring it back.
Still stuck? Write to hello@cartenda.com and a person will answer.