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Assign member engagement permissions to user groups

Difference between Assigned Members and Followers

Your firm may require varying levels of security when dealing with a client's sensitive information. 
  • Followers
     - Makes bookmark shortcut for you. Following a client provides some ease of access - like bookmarking a shortcut to a client's profile. You can quickly access the client on the
    Overview
     screen. There is no impact on security or who can access it. It's only for you to quickly find the clients you are interested in tracking.
  • Assign Members
     - Creates security restriction. Assigning members to a client's engagement team prevents just any user in your firm from gaining access to a specific client (as in makes the access to a client's profile "VIP exclusive to limited firm users only"). By using the
    Assigned Team Member
     restriction, you can hand-select who has access to a client's profile.

Following vs Being an Assigned Member

Following a client in TaxCaddy allows a user from your firm to access and interact with a client's records, be it personal information that they’ve provided previously, uploaded documents, tax returns, etc. 
.
Unlike following a client, being a part of a client's member engagement team means that you've been selected by the owner or another assigned member, a pre-existing assigned member, or by a Firm System Administrator to have exclusive access to a client's information while also being a follower. With this method, you are essentially given exclusive access to a client's profile and associated binder (if one exists) in FileRoom. 

Benefits of each

Following Clients
Following a client relieves a 3rd party of the responsibility of approving your access to a client profile. It is a quicker way for a user to access a client profile, rather than requiring a system administrator to assign access to another member. When opting to follow a client, you get easy access to this client's profile via the
Clients I'm Following
 tab on the
Overview
 screen. You also receive emails regarding any activity taking place in their account.
Add Assigned Members
The added process of requiring assigning users access to a client's profile allows owners, engagement team members (for example, Assigned Members), and Firm System Administrators the ability to screen users seeking access and approve them on a case by case basis. This grants higher levels of security to the clients whose information may be more sensitive than others.

Limitations

Unlike assigning members to a client's profile, following a client doesn’t require a 3rd party to authorize this action. Assuming there is not an existing Assigned Member Team preventing a user from following a client, they are free to follow any unrestricted client.
Due to the added security measures that come with assigning a team member access, assigning members limits the access that would ordinarily be open to all users at your firm. When this happens, the client's profile and associated binder (if one exists) will be restricted to being accessed only by Owners, Assigned Members, and Firm System Administrators.
When a user without the proper clearance tries to access a restricted account, they'll get the following alert:
You don't have permission to visit this client's profile. Please click here to learn more.

This article applies to:

  • PRODUCT: SurePrep
  • Sub Product: TaxCaddy
  • Subject: Clients

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