What is an organizer?
The client organizer is questionnaire and information document that tax preparers use to gather tax data from their clients. The organizer is a time-saving tool, helping your client plan for their visit to your office and helping you more efficiently prepare their return.
The organizer asks for the same information that IRS forms and schedules ask for, so it helps your client assemble the information you will need to prepare their tax return. It can be printed to paper or PDF depending on how the client will receive it from you.
If you have prepared a client's return in the prior year, information can be pulled into the organizer from their prior year return. The organizer can be mailed to your clients before their visit to your office, or it can be used internally for year-end planning, input sheets, etc.
Four types of organizers are available
There are four types of organizers that can be printed (where 20xx is either the current year or the prior year, as selected):
- Complete Organizer With 20xx Tax Year Data - The full 17-page organizer queries information needed to complete Form 1040 and all supporting schedules, including sources of income, employee business expenses, education expenses and reimbursements, child and dependent care expenses, and sales and exchanges of assets.
- Organizer With Only 20xx Tax Year Forms - This organizer is reduced in size, containing only the pages deemed relevant for a particular client based on the contents of their prior year return.
- Basic Organizer With 20xx Tax Year Data - This 4-page organizer includes several pages of questions along with a page for basic information and W-2 information.
- Basic Information Page With 20xx Tax Year Data - This single-page organizer queries only basic information and W-2 information.
Note that when printing a blank organizer, i.e., an organizer not for a particular client, the complete organizer prints.
Are you printing to PDF or to paper?
When printing an organizer, it will either open as a PDF or print to paper depending on your printer preferences. To check this print setting, from the Quick Menu of TaxSlayer Pro select:
- Configuration
- Printer / Copies Setup
- Printer Setup
- Edit Printer Preferences
-
View All Print Jobs - Select YES or No as desired:
- NO - If set to No, the organizer will print on paper using the printer you specified in the previous menu.
- YES - If set to Yes, the organizer will open as a PDF. From your PDF viewer, you can then select to print it to paper if desired, including which pages to print if you don't want them all to print, or you can save the PDF so that you can e-mail it to a client.
Are you printing for the purpose of e-mailing to the taxpayer?
If you're printing the organizer for the purpose of e-mailing it to the taxpayer, you'll want to print it to PDF rather than to paper.
If you are a TaxSlayer Pro Premium subscriber, before the organizer prints you'll be asked an additional question "Print Return to PDF?" This question is really asking if you wish to save a PDF copy of the organizer in PaperCut for the taxpayer to be e-mailed to them. If you're going to e-mail them a copy from PaperCut, answer this question Yes.
Instructions to print the Organizer
To print an organizer for a client, from the Quick Menu of TaxSlayer Pro select:
- Print Organizer
First, assess the menu line Currently Using Data from Tax Year indicating whether the current year's client list or the prior year's client list will be used for printing purposes. By default the prior year is selected allowing you to select clients from the prior year's client list. To select clients from the current year's client list, select this line and select "Data from Tax Year [current tax year]" from the menu.
Next, assess the menu line Mask SSN(s) on the Organizer. By default this is set to Yes so that the first five digits of the SSN are masked. If you don't want the first five digits of the SSNs in the organizer to be masked, select this line to toggle Yes to No. (Note that only the SSN is masked. Names, address, birthday information, et.al. is not masked.)
Finally, indicate how you want to select organizer(s) to print.
- Print Blank Organizer - This option prints a full 17-page blank organizer designed to be given to clients for whom you have no prior year data. Note that if you specified the current tax year above, the organizer that prints will be for the following tax year.
- Print Organizer for Selected Clients - Allows you to select clients and specify which organizer to print for them. (If you're printing many organizers, to avoid swamping either the printer or your PDF viewer with too much data, print them in small batches, e.g., 10-20 at a time.)
- Print Organizer for Clients Marked to Print - In a client's tax return, you can indicate that you would like an organizer to print for them next year. This option prints organizers for all clients that have been so marked.
- Print Organizer for All Clients - This menu option prints an organizer for every client from the desired year, either the current year or the previous year. Do not use this option if you have many clients: if printing to paper, you may use more paper than you anticipated; if printing to PDF, the PDF program may run out of memory before the printing process is finished. How many "many" is depends on your PC, so if you're uncertain consider using the "Selected Clients" option and print in batches.
Marking a return to print an organizer
To indicate in a client's tax return that you would like an organizer to be printed for them next year, from the Main Menu of the tax return select:
- Personal Information
- Other Categories
- Print Organizer for client next year