It's very important to make sure you have a clean client list in your tax software before you integrate it with Karbon. This includes moving some contacts to be inactive while merging others. These instructions will help you clean up your client list in various Intuit connected applications so that your integration is successful.

If you have duplicate clients in your Intuit ProConnect Tax, those clients will be duplicated when you integrate with Karbon. We recommend using the merge duplicate client utility to remove any unwanted duplicates.

If you have clients on your client list that you no longer prepare tax returns for it is recommended to mark these clients inactive in Intuit ProConnect Tax. This will hide them from your client list and streamline your integration.

When connecting to Karbon, there is a tax mapping for the Status of the return. If the Status in Intuit ProConnect isn't properly updated, this will cause tax Work items to be created with the wrong Status.

While you might have cleaned up your client list in Intuit ProConnect Tax, you might also need to do the same clean-up work with Intuit Link. To do that, follow these instructions:

If QuickBooks Online Accountant is integrated with Intuit ProConnect Tax, you will also need to remove duplicate contacts and merge others.

Link the integration and Karbon together by logging into your Intuit ProConnect account. Next, in Karbon, navigate to your Settings > Connected Apps and select "Connect" next to Intuit ProConnect.

Next, from the Intuit ProConnect authorization screen, click "Connect" to sync the two products together. If you haven't logged in to Intuit ProConnect at this point, you will be presented with a request to enter username and password.

After the connection is established, you will be able to import your client list from Intuit ProConnect. Be sure to read the section above about how to clean up your client list in Intuit ProConnect Tax prior to continuing past this step as all clients in Intuit ProConnect Tax will be imported and/or matched to your Karbon contact list. Click "Import Client List" to continue the sync process.

Once the import is complete, Karbon will provide you the Intuit ProConnect Connected App settings screen for you to complete your review & update of the import, adjust the sync settings going forward, and to create and import tax work.

Once your client import is complete, you can adjust the settings for the integration from the Settings page. You are able to do five things from the Settings:

Within Karbon, there are many ways to get directly into your integrated Intuit ProConnect account including in the Connected Apps settings, work item Tax Return tab, or even in selected work item tasks. Whenever you click on "Open ProConnect" link in Karbon, it will take you into the sign in screen, and upon successfully signing in, to the main navigation, specific client or specific tax return depending on where in Karbon you are trying to navigate from.

From the ProConnect Client List section, you can do three things:

Complete this action to initiate a manual contact sync between Karbon and Intuit ProConnect. This may be needed if contacts are slow to load between the systems or if new contacts are added to QuickBooks Online Accountant and haven't propagated from Intuit ProConnect to Karbon.

Click this to review the clients currently synced between the two systems. If needed, you can "Remove Match" from the ellipses (...) menu.

When an import is completed, if there are duplicates, it will list the number of clients imported as well as the number of clients that have duplicate information.

Select "Resolve Duplicates" button to bring up the list.

The contacts may share the same email address or the same name. If they are the same contact and a new one does not need to be created, select the contact from the list on the right and click the "Match" button. If the contact is not a match, click the "Create a New Contact" link.

Continue through the process to resolve all the conflicts.

Within Karbon, a contact may or may not sync to the program that it is connected to. The syncing will depend on where it is first created and the contact sync settings that are chosen.

When a contact is created in Karbon, it will sync to the connected program if the Contact Type chosen is checked to sync. To see if a created contact will sync to the connected program:

The top section in the Contact Sync Settings will let you specify the Contact Type assigned to any new contact from the integrated app to Karbon. The default is "Client" but you may decide to create a new Contact Type and have your synced contacts obtain that Contact Type to easily identify and filter those throughout Karbon (e.g. "Client - ProConnect").

The second section allows you to specify which contacts based on their assigned Contact Type in Karbon will be pushed to the integrated app. Only contacts with this Contact Type will be synced. Once the first sync is completed, any new contact with a selected Contact Type will be created in the integrated app and will be updated going forward if a change to the contact is made (e.g. name, email, phone and/or address change).

Wondering why your Karbon contacts didn't flow to Intuit ProConnect on initial sync? Check out this FAQ to learn why and how to resolve.

Because the integration with Intuit ProConnect will create work items from your integrated work templates, it is important to review (denoted with a ProConnect tag) and personalize the pre-built work templates (e.g. 1040, 1120, 1065) in Settings > Work Templates prior to completing the Intuit ProConnect Setup Assistant.

For each of the tax types, select an individual to be assigned to work items that will be generated.

Before importing the returns, match your existing tax statuses from your tax program on the left to one of the 5 statuses available in the drop down menu on the right. This is found after clicking "Import Tax Returns".

The matching of the Intuit ProConnect tax return status with the Karbon work status ensures that every tax work item generated in Karbon has its work status updated to reflect where the tax return in Intuit ProConnect is currently at. However, after the initial updating of the Karbon work status, the Intuit ProConnect tax return status and Karbon work status will run independently of one another as you complete the tax return, but both will be visible, tracked, and filterable within Karbon.

Note:

In the second section, choose whether you want to create new tax work for the "Current Tax Year" or the "Previous Tax Year". To make it easier, the tax year is provided in parentheses to be clear. Once selected, click "Import Tax Returns". For all tax returns in Intuit ProConnect Tax, Karbon will either create a new work item or match and link to an existing work item. Those work items will use the work templates that were specified earlier in the process. Karbon will also put the work on the appropriate recurring schedule.

When completed, Karbon will display the number of returns imported. Select the "Finish" button to return to the Intuit ProConnect connected app settings.

Tip (Proforma): Most tax professionals will use the Proforma rollover function within Intuit ProConnect Tax prior to importing the tax returns. This allows for all the necessary tax work in Intuit ProConnect to be generated first (with the data from the prior year's return pre-populated), and then the associated work items in Karbon to be created second. After the Proforma is completed, additional tax returns may be created in Intuit ProConnect. You can easily import those additional tax returns here in Karbon by clicking "Import Tax Returns" at any time.

Once you have imported your Intuit ProConnect tax returns, Karbon will display the results and allow you to see the details in the Tax Year section. You can review the number of tax returns imported and the number of tax returns created.

In addition, you can review the results of the created work items and linked tax returns by downloading the "Download Report (CSV)" link.
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It provides you a summary of the imported returns including the:

There is much beyond the contact integration between Karbon and Intuit ProConnect. It all relates to making it simpler to create, file, track, and complete the tax work for your clients.

Once Karbon is integrated with Intuit ProConnect, your contacts are in sync and so are your tax returns (ProConnect) and tax work items (Karbon). Whether you click on a specific client's integrated task or their Tax Return tab, you will be taken directly to their tax return in Intuit ProConnect.

Then, when working within a specific client's tax return, the following will be automatically reflected in Karbon as you work with them in Intuit ProConnect:

For tax return statuses, there is a list of six default tax return statuses in Intuit ProConnect and the option of creating additional customized statues. As you complete the tax work and toggle these statuses, Karbon will reflect that and display that value wherever the Tax Return Status is available like under Work Filters and the Tax Return tab on a specific work item.

Likewise, as work progresses through eSignature and eFiling in Intuit ProConnect, the Karbon work item will automatically reflect the values and current state in the associated integrated Karbon tasks and the Tax Return tab in the linked work item.

When initially creating the tax work items in Karbon from the existing tax returns from Intuit ProConnect, seven integrated work templates will be leveraged to build the associated work items. Those work templates are named as:

As their name implies, based on the Intuit ProConnect Tax return type (e.g. Form 1040), Karbon will automatically select and build the new tax work items leveraging the right work template. Those work templates are responsible for generating the following areas and data of the created work item:

While the work template is able to generate the items above, only some of those details are adjustable. Those include the Tasks, Budget, and Details tabs.

Note, the work assignee field is populated based on the defaults in the Connected Apps Settings (under Tax Workflows) and the initial work status is set based upon the mapping specified during the "Import Tax Return" process highlighted earlier. The remaining details are populated by set, uneditable defaults within Karbon (including the work item's name).

For each work template, Karbon allows you to customize the Tasks, Budget and Details tabs. To edit an integrated work template, go to Settings > Work Templates, and select a work template with a "ProConnect" label next to the name.

Once in the work item, adjust the details in the Tasks, Budget and Details tabs as you wish. Because the work template is integrated with Intuit ProConnect, you will not be able to rename or delete the work template nor delete the two integrated tasks (see below) within the Tasks tab. Everything in the Budget and Details tabs can be adjusted to whatever values you would like.

Once you are done customizing your integrated work templates, remember to "Publish" the work template to make them available for future "Import Tax Return" actions.

When Karbon integrates with Intuit ProConnect Tax, it generates a set of pre-defined and interlinked workflows and tasks. These workflows are denoted with a branded tag.

In order to keep the tax returns and Karbon work items in sync, these work templates have been setup such that they can't be renamed nor deleted. While you can update the name of the work items after they are created (either through a bulk update or one-by-one), note that the future work items in the scheduled series will retain the set naming convention from the integrated work template. This is to ensure that upon creation, the work items and tax returns are integrated and in sync.

Not only have work templates been integrated with Intuit ProConnect, but also several select tasks in the Tasks tab are also integrated. They include the following steps:

When customizing work templates in Karbon, you can remove or edit any task to customize them to fit your workflow. This is the case for all of the predefined templates except for the Intuit ProConnect Tax branded templates.

You can delete all tasks in the tax branded template, except for the two ProConnect Tax branded tasks. These tasks help with the integration of the tax product with Karbon. You can, for these two integrated tasks, edit the task names, but not the descriptions.

We recommend making a copy of the original template before making any edits. To make a copy, create work from the template, and adjust.

After saving the copy (so that you can refer back to it if needed), you can edit, delete, or reorder the sections within the original, integrated tax templates. However, be careful not to delete a section that contains an Intuit ProConnect Tax branded task. The tasks around them can be deleted or edited, but if the section is deleted, the tax template will have issues syncing and will require assistance by the Karbon Support Team.

Is the structure of the tax work template not how you prefer? Note that you can easily move the integrated tasks to be in other sections and other places. Just drag and drop to a new section. Again, feel free to adjust the integrated work templates to however you wish in regards to sections, tasks, automation, budget, details and otherwise. You just can't delete the two integrated tasks without disrupting the integration aspects for these set templates.

If you find that you made a mistake or deleted something by accident, you can either review the copied template to copy and paste the missing details or discard the draft work template changes to restore to the original version and start editing again.

The "Create tax returns (for Federal and State)" enables you to either:

If a tax return is not associated to work item, you will see the screen above provide you the option to either "Create Return" or "Link to Existing" return. In most cases, you will be creating a new return. Once you click "Create Return", you will be asked to specify the Tax Year for the new return and, if you have prior year's tax return completed for this given client in Intuit ProConnect, whether you want to "Transfer data from prior return". Check this option this if you want to do a Proforma roll-over for this given client.

Once you click "Create", Karbon will do the following: 1) Create the tax return for this given tax year for the specified client; and 2) Roll-over the data from the prior year's return if it exists and option is selected.

The second integrated task between Karbon and Intuit ProConnect will transfer the status and details of your e-File status with the IRS. When you e-File the return, as the details are transmitted to Intuit ProConnect from the IRS, those details will also transfer and be available for review within this task and also on the Tax Return tab.

Unlike other work items, the integrated tax work items have an additional tab in the header named "Tax Return". This tab provides you the full details of the integrated work item including:

Note, everything displayed in the Tax Return tab are the details provided by Intuit ProConnect so that you can review how that matches with the details in Karbon while providing easy access back to the tax return in Intuit ProConnect.

As mentioned above, Intuit ProConnect has its own tax return statuses (versus Karbon's work statuses) that can be selected directly in an Intuit ProConnect tax return.

When specified or changed in Intuit ProConnect, Karbon will automatically update the Tax Return Status field in Karbon. You will find the Tax Return Status field displayed in the Tax Return tab on a work item, and available in filters for Work.

There are six pre-defined tax return statuses to choose from and you can easily create and customize additional tax return statuses directly in Intuit ProConnect. The six default tax return statuses are:

With the Tax Return Status field available, you can easily create customized saved views in Work that show the progress based on where the work is at in Intuit ProConnect.

You can also choose to hide or show the Tax Return Status on the summary cards when viewing your work in Kanban view.

As noted above, Karbon will not create new clients in the integrated app on the initial sync. However, it will create a new contact from this point forward if the following criteria is met:

So, if you want to push / match a select set of contacts from Karbon to the integrated app, we recommend that you create a new Contact Type (e.g. "Client - ProConnect") and then update the contacts you want to sync to the integrated app to have the new Contact Type specified. This will be identified as a change to the contact and, since the contact matches the Contact Type in the Intuit ProConnect Contact Sync Settings, it will sync those contacts between Karbon and the integrated app.

Looking to update Contact Types in bulk for contacts? Use the export/import bulk contact update file from the Contact Export/Import icon.

Review the explanations below for the expected behavior depending on whether a new contact is created in Karbon, Intuit ProConnect Tax, or QuickBooks Online Accountant.

If the contact that was created in Karbon as:

If a contact is created in Intuit ProConnect Tax it will sync to Karbon as:

Note: Syncing is not instantaneous and does take some time to complete.

The following fields will sync between the two applications:

Return, E-file and eSignature statuses will appear on the tax work item's Tax Return tab. Social Security/Federal Identification numbers are necessary for a client to sync with Karbon; however, these aren't imported.

The following fields will sync between the two applications (via Intuit ProConnect Tax):

The Display name as field from QuickBooks Online Accountant doesn't sync to Karbon. If the Contact name in Karbon is updated this will replace the Display name as a field in QuickBooks Online Accountant.

The primary contact card in Karbon indicates the main contact information for a contact. When the primary contact card is updated or another card is made primary, the Taxpayer's address, email address, and phone number changes in the subsequent tax program.

To change the taxpayer's information back:

If you are having issues with the Intuit ProConnect Tax setup or operation, please contact Karbon using the Chat or emailing at support@karbonhq.com.

If you are having issues with Intuit ProConnect Tax product itself or with how the integration is performing or operating, please contact the Intuit team.