Senta in the States - our guide to help our US firms get the most out of Senta.
We have clients all over the world, so our out-the-box workspace is quite generic. It’s a great foundation to get started, and you can tailor to it to suit your firm. To help you, here are a few suggestions on some straightforward steps to get your workspace ready that are specific to our customers in the USA.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Attend Configuration 101 & 102
The Senta support team run regular configuration training webinars where you will learn conceptually what Services, Jobs & Tasks are within Senta. To see when the next session is running, please visit our webinar channel where you will be able to register for all upcoming webinars.
Watch our process mapping webinar
Mapping out your processes and getting them documented will enable you and your team to review and improve on how you operate. We ran a webinar with one of our users to explore how they have mapped their processes into Senta.
General tab
Update "State" field label to "Status"
Address tab
Address line 1: update to Street address
District: update to State
Post code: update to Zip Code
Update the Client Type & Client State lookups
Lookups are the name given to all editable sets of dropdown menus available in your Senta workspace. There are many pre-loaded in Senta which can be edited. We recommend updating the Client Type to reflect the types of business entities that you deal with, and also to change the terminology on Client State to Client Status.
Set up your email integration
Most of our clients integrate their emails so all client correspondence can easily be seen. Once the integration is set up you can send and receive emails via your Senta workspace, using your own email address.
Create a US federal Tax prep workflow
Within Senta there are three main building blocks when it comes to Workflows - Services, Jobs, and Tasks. Services are the top level of those building blocks.
Services are really important in setting up recurring Jobs as you are able to set up the job frequency at this level, as well as specifying job dates. You are also able to apply filters on to Services so you can specify what clients a job should kick off for or how far in advance you would like Senta to create these jobs.
Senta comes pre-loaded with many template workflows but does not have one for US federal Tax prep so you may wish to create your own. Here are a couple of guides on how to create a new Service and a new Job template:
How do I create a new job?
Creating new Services
Turn on integrations for your current software
Senta connects to many of the apps you are already using - including accounting, bookkeeping & proposal software. A full list of our current integrations can be found on our integrations page, but a few which you may find useful are listed below:
Ask us to enable text messaging
Sending text messages to clients is an easy way to notify your clients about dates and deadlines. Any text messages sent from Senta will come from the standard phone number 18572548444.
We recommend that you contact your clients when the text messaging service is first set up, to let them know that this is the number you will be texting them from.
Activate your clients on the portal
The most efficient and secure way to interact with your clients in Senta is through the Client Portal. This is a dedicated area of your Senta workspace that your clients can access to view and upload documents and complete Tasks set by you. Every client can set up their own private log-in to the client portal, which ensures that only they are able to view any documents you upload for them.
Ensure you have your e-signing software setup
Currently our inbuilt e-signing feature is not compliant with any legislation outside of the UK and EU, so we recommend finding your own solution for this.