Tax Season is now in full swing and most of you either have all your tax documents or soon will. If you prefer coming into our office for an appointment, please call (770-471-3003) to get on your preferred preparer’s schedule – slots are filling up fast!
For those of you sending documents to us, time for a repeat lesson on scanning documents. Yep, that’s right, repetition is the mother of retention!
First, real scanners are king. They produce the best PDF documents which can then be electronically transmitted to us from your computer, preferably via our Secure Portal. We don’t need high resolution photo quality documents; typically, 300dpi grey scale is adequate. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just select “scan as PDF” and you should be good.
A sometimes more convenient option is to use your smart phone’s camera as a scanner. This works in a pinch for a few pages, but the camera apps are setup for photos, not forms, and they produce a very poor quality on their own due to grey scaling, color blending, and other technical glitches. To combat this failing, there’s an app (isn’t there always?). Actually, there are many free apps and quite a few paid. I like Scanbot. Office Lens is also good, or Scanner, or Adobe Scan. Pretty much any of them do a decent job turning your phone’s camera into an impromptu scanner. If you have an iPhone, the built-in Notes App also allows you to take photos and embed them in a PDF document.
We’d still prefer you send your documents to us via our Secure Portal. The Portal’s web interface is actually pretty good on mobile devices, and it’s way more secure than unprotected emails. We’re also using our Secure Portal for e-signatures and e-payments. You can even send brief messages to me through the portal, though I prefer email for anything longer than a quick note.
New this year, there’s a “SecureFile Pro” app (both Apple and Android) that allows you to send us documents (in a pinch), message us, and e-sign/e-pay, all from your phone! The app is quite a bit nicer than using a web browser on your phone, but does all the same stuff.
As always, feel free to call or email our office if you have any questions or concerns or just need help getting organized.