Missed Canopy’s First Look? Grab the Highlights Here

Canopy hosts a First Look webinar quarterly, where our product specialists go over all the new features released to Canopy and those that are just on the horizon. If you weren’t able to attend, you can watch the recording of the First Look here. Or, if you’re looking for the highlights from the webinar, keep reading. 

Here’s what’s new (and what’s coming soon) to Canopy.

Client Management Module

Global Inbox enhancements 

Inbox sharing and permissions: The Canopy Global Inbox currently allows you to share access with others in your firm and we’ve now expanded our inbox permissions to allow you to control your team members’ access level. You can now choose whether team members have full access to an email, or permission to send and reply using the selected email.

Folders and labels: Canopy’s Global Inbox already brought all of your email account into Canopy, meaning you didn’t have to jump between Canopy and your inbox to check your email. Now, we’ve made our inbox even more robust. You can create custom folders, or labels for gmail users, for any inbox inside of Canopy’s Global Inbox. 

These updates to the Global Inbox are available now and you can read more about them on Canopy’s Product Blog here.

Contact display name: You now have the option to add a display name to contacts in Canopy. This allows you to have more freedom in naming contacts, rather than being restricted to using only their legal name. You can use this new field to enter a display name for contacts, but keep in mind that duplicate display names are not supported in Canopy. Display names are shown and can be filtered throughout Canopy, and they are also visible on the Client Portal. This feature is available now on desktop and mobile. 

Bulk send the Canopy organizer: Canopy's new 2021 organizer accounts for 2021-specific details like the advanced child tax credit, examples for energy-efficient improvements that make it easier to understand, and more. In addition, organizers can now be sent in bulk, saving you time by eliminating the tedium of individually sending each client an organizer. Organizers are sent directly to your client’s portal for them to complete and send back to you. This feature is available now.

Fillable PDFs: You can now upload a fillable PDF file to Canopy and complete the fillable fields in Canopy or on the Client Portal. Fillable PDFs can be attached to client requests or client request templates and be used to send common forms to your clients. Once sent, there's no need for clients to download, complete, save, and re-upload forms—all of which causes friction, increases errors, and results in lower completion rates. Any changes they make to the form in the Client Portal will be saved automatically and synced with the file stored in the client’s Canopy files. No downloading, saving, or re-uploading to Canopy needed. This feature is now available on desktop and mobile.

Read more about fillable PDFs and the bulk-send organizer on Canopy’s Product Blog here. 

Hide the billing tab in the Client Portal: We understand that not every Canopy user is using the billing feature, which can lead to questions from clients as to why there is a billing option in their Client Portal. To address this need, we’ve implemented a new toggle found on the custom branding page in your settings, that allows you to hide the billing tab. When activated, your clients will no longer see the billing tab on their Client Portal.

Coming soon: Soon, you’ll have the ability to create client requests in bulk from the contact list. You’ll also be able to automate client requests to send upon completion, and bulk select and send drafted client requests.

Document Management Module 

Desktop assistant: Canopy has had a popular desktop assistant for Windows users for some time. Now we’ve added Mac support as well! With the desktop assistant, both Mac and Windows users can now:

• • Migrate files toCanopy in bulk and instantly match folders to existing contacts
  • Print and scan files directly to Canopy and quickly save into them to a client’s files
  • Edit files in Canopy using whichever native editing applications you have on your computer

Coming soon: Soon, the Desktop Assistant will be able to function on a single computer where multiple users log into that computer at the same time using a Citrix or Terminal server.  

Grouping users into Teams: Now, you can group users into different Teams within Canopy. This new feature can be found under the “Team Members and Teams'' tab in settings, which was previously named the “Team Members” tab. 

Folder permissions: Custom folder permissions is the first feature to use Teams in Canopy. You can now easily restrict or grant folder access to different teams. This will allow your firm to manage which teams have access to certain folders.

Workflow Module 

Customizing task list and filter views: Filter views are now shown as tabs at the top of the task list allowing you to navigate between views with a single click.. We’ve also improved the experience for customizing columns and reordering filter views. Plus, you can edit multiple filter views at the same time. These improvements to the task list and filter views are available now. 

Coming soon: Soon you will be able to create tasks in bulk from templates that include client requests. 

Tax Resolution Module 

Easily compare transcript versions: Canopy’s award-winning transcript tool has helped make life easier for accountants by saving all transcripts into one place, and helping circumvent the need to use the finicky IRS website—which can be a tedious process. With Canopy, you get a history of every transcript you’ve pulled all in one place. Now, if transcripts have been pulled multiple times for a client, you will see the option to compare transcript versions. When compared, indications will be added to the pulled documents to highlight what differences exist between selected versions. Canopy makes it easy to quickly scan for changes across transcript versions.

Read more about this new feature on Canopy’s Product Blog here. 

Research and feedback

Collecting customer feedback is at the heart of everything we develop here at Canopy. With that in mind, we wanted to provide the opportunity for our users to sign up for beta testing of new products, including: 

• • Workflow automation 
  • The next version of our QBO integrations 
  • Pre-authenticated links for e-sign without the Client Portal 

If you are interested in participating in beta testing for these features, email product@getcanopy.com and be sure to include the topic in the subject line. 

You can always keep up to date on our current releases by following the product updates section of Canopy's Knowledge Base here.

Missed Canopy’s First Look? Watch the recording of our webinar, which includes product demos from our specialists and a live Q&A, here.