Client fields

Client fields are what your firm keeps about each client beyond their name, email and cell phone: a date of birth, an employer, a business's entity type, a shirt size, anything your firm decides it needs. They're the details on a client's Profile tab, the ones a form question can fill in, and the ones a PDF template uses.

Your firm starts with none. You make them as you go, mostly from the questions on your forms. Each one is defined the way its question is, so a value kept on a client is held to exactly what the question held your client to.

Who a field is about#

Each field is about one of these:

• Each person, such as a date of birth. Everyone in a client group has their own.
• Households, such as a home address. Kept once for the whole household.
• Businesses, such as an entity type. Kept once for the business.
• Households and businesses, such as a mailing address. Kept once for any client group.

A household's page never shows a business's fields, and a business's page never shows a household's.

Keep a question's answer on the client#

On any question in the form builder, choose under Keep on client:

• One of your fields, to keep the answer there. A choice offers the field's own options, shown locked on the question. Change them on the settings page, and every form asking the field follows.
• New client field…, to make a field from this question. Give it a Field name, choose who it's About, and click Make field. It's asked as this question is, with its options.

If one of your fields has the same name as the question, the builder suggests keeping it there rather than linking it for you. Add field also lists Your client fields the form doesn't ask yet, ready-made.

Nothing reaches a client's record until somebody at your firm accepts it from their reply.

Lists: children, beneficiaries, dependents#

A section that repeats, once for each child or beneficiary, can be kept on the client as a list. On the section's heading, choose under Keep on client a list you already have, or New client field… to make one from the section: each of its questions becomes a column, held to that question's rules. Questions are matched to a list's columns by name.

A reply proposes the whole list as one change, with every entry, for you to accept. The next form asking the list arrives with an entry for each row, filled in. On the client's Profile tab, edit a list an entry at a time, and press Add an entry for another. A list's columns are set when it's made, as a field's type is.

Keep an answer from a reply#

An answer to a question the form doesn't keep stays with its reply. To keep one anyway, click Keep on client beside it on the request. Choose what to keep it as and whose it is. Update it from future replies to this form is on by default; turn it off for an answer about one point in time, such as this year's income, so next year's form doesn't arrive filled in with it.

A repeating section the form doesn't keep offers Keep section on client on its first answer instead, which keeps every entry as a list, with a column for each of its questions.

Making a new field this way needs permission to build forms. Anyone at your firm can keep an answer in a field you already have.

Manage your fields#

Go to Settings → Client fields.

• Add a field makes one by hand: its Name, who it's About, and what it Holds, which is any question type. A choice lists its Answers to choose from, one on each line, and only those can be kept. A number can be Whole numbers only.
• Show to clients fills the field in for clients on later forms and lets them correct it under Your details. Turn it off for anything only your firm should see.
• Counts toward a complete profile chases it. The profile shows how many each client has, and Request missing details asks for them.
• Used for says what your CRM and the documents clients send can fill it from, such as the birth date in your CRM or the employer on a W-2.
• The arrows move a field up or down. Client pages and Your details list them in this order.
• Change → Edit renames it or changes its options. Who it's about, and what it holds, can't change once it's added, because everything already kept for it was read that way.
• Change → Merge into another field folds two fields you meant as one together, such as "DOB" into "Date of birth". Everything kept under the first moves to the second, along with every question and PDF box that fills it.
• Change → Remove takes it off client pages, forms and PDF templates. What you already have for it stays in each client's history. It's listed under Removed, where Bring back restores it as it was.

Social Security and account numbers#

A field can hold a Social Security or account number. It's kept as a reply keeps one: encrypted, and shown everywhere by its last four. Owners and admins can press Reveal beside it on the client's Profile tab to see the whole number, after confirming their password, and each reveal is recorded in the audit log.

A later form asking the same field tells your client you have one on file ending in those four digits. Left as it is, it's kept on their reply as though they had typed it; typed again, the new number replaces it once you accept it. It's never shown under Your details, never sent to the AI, and never filled into a form in full.

Documents and acknowledgments#

A file a client uploads is kept on them in their client group's vault: press Add to vault on a document you've accepted, or turn on Add to vault when accepted for the question. See Client vaults. Every document of yours a client acknowledges is listed on their Documents tab, with the version and when, for as long as you keep their record.

When a value doesn't fit#

If you take an option off a choice, a client who already had it keeps it, marked Doesn't fit on their profile. It's never filled in on a form that would refuse it, and it changes when somebody next corrects it. A value from your CRM that a field won't take is shown with what's wrong, and can't be accepted.

What a client sees#

A form set to Let clients correct their details shows a client the fields you show to clients, under Your details, and lets them fix them. See Building a form.

Who can change the list#

Owners and admins can change your firm's client fields on the settings page. Anyone who builds forms can make one from a question. Anyone at your firm can fill them in on a client's Profile tab.