“Filed” or “not filed” is too coarse. Real tax work has prerequisites, review and approval gates, document hand-offs, client waiting, and hard season deadlines. The Filing Workflow Engine turns each return into a live set of steps that know their order, their owner, and their deadline, and update themselves as the work moves.
Fully opt-in · Off by default · Simple filings stay simple
Inside a Filing
Year end Dec 31 · Due Jun 30, 2026
Gather financial records
Completed Apr 12 · Sarah M.
Prepare T2 return
Completed May 2 · Sarah M.
Partner review
In progress · Due Jun 25 · James K.
Client sign-off & e-signature
Not started · Due Jun 28 · Unassigned
File return with CRA
Locked until mandatory steps are done · Due Jun 30
Anyone opening this filing knows exactly what's done, what's next, and who owns it.
How It Works
Create a reusable, ordered checklist, each step with a deadline, an owner, and a requirement level.
Assign templates per filing type and frequency, GST/HST Monthly can differ from Quarterly.
Every new filing of that type is born with its steps, owners, dependencies, and deadlines already in place, and they update themselves as work moves.
What You Can Do
Define the checklist once and reuse it across hundreds of filings. Every step carries its own settings, so the template encodes how your firm does the work, not just what.
Corp T2, Standard
4 steps → filing day · used by 86 filings
Template assignment
A monthly remittance doesn't need the same rigor as an annual return. Map a template per filing type and frequency, or leave a type unmapped and it keeps the simple status it always had.
Real sign-off is two different things. Review is a second person checking the work. Approval is an authority such as a manager or partner signing off. A step can require either, both, or neither, and a filing still cannot be marked Filed until every mandatory step is done or skipped with a reason.
Can't mark as Filed yet
1 mandatory step still open: “Partner review” awaits sign-off from James K.
Review requested
Partner review · sent by Sarah M.
The Engine
A real return is not a flat checklist. Some steps wait on others, some cannot start before a date, and the due date can shift. The engine handles all of it and keeps every deadline current on its own.
Phase · Prepare
Phase · File
Blocked · not before Jun 1 (e-file window)
Set the rules once. The engine works out what is ready, what is blocked, and when each step is due, and recomputes the moment anything changes.
Automation
The parts of the job that quietly eat time, handled by the workflow instead of by memory.
Group steps into phases that gate the next stage. Break a step into subtasks that roll up, so the parent finishes when its children do.
A step can require a document on the filing before it can be completed, so signed forms and source records stay attached to the work.
Park a step as waiting on the client and its SLA clock pauses, so it never shows as overdue while the ball is in their court.
Chase missing records on a cadence, for example every 2 business days, until they arrive or a cap is reached. No sticky notes.
Add a step only when it applies, such as a given province or state, country, or client type. One template covers many situations.
When a step runs overdue past a set number of days, the firm's admins are notified, so nothing rots quietly in someone's queue.
Set Up Once, Govern Over Time
Your process evolves. The engine lets you improve a template while filings already in flight keep the version they started on.
Corp T2, Standard
Version 4 · live on 86 filings
Apply update to open filings
Adds the 2 new steps, leaves work in progress alone.
Firm-Wide Visibility
Progress rolls up from every filing into the board and dashboard, so partners can spot bottlenecks before they become missed deadlines.
Each Kanban card shows a steps-complete badge. Click it to open the steps panel without leaving the board.
River Valley Dental
A dashboard widget shows the firm's heartbeat, and your own open steps.
A bottleneck view: which step each return is parked on, by filing type and by person.
See where every return stands and who's holding it, without asking. Bottlenecks surface before deadlines do.
Always a clear next action with a due date. No guessing what “in progress” actually means.
Review requests come to you, gated and tracked. Nothing gets filed past you by accident.
FAQ
It turns each tax filing into a live workflow instead of a single status. You build a reusable template of steps once and map it to a filing type, and every new filing of that type is born with those steps. Steps can sit in phases, depend on each other, carry smart deadlines, require a document, wait on the client, recur as follow-ups, and pass through review and approval gates.
No, it is fully opt-in and off by default. A filing with no template keeps the simple status it always had. Turn it on only where a workflow adds value, and enabling it never changes existing filings retroactively.
Yes. A step can have one or many prerequisites, combined with AND or ANY logic. By default a dependency is a hard block, so a step cannot start or finish until its prerequisites are satisfied, and the board shows it as blocked. You can also make a dependency soft, which warns but still lets work proceed. Circular dependencies are detected and rejected.
Each step picks how its deadline is anchored: days before the due date, days after a prerequisite completes, a fixed date, or a not-before date such as the e-file open. You can bound it, for example X days after the prerequisite but never later than the due date minus Y. Date math is business-day and holiday aware, and deadlines recompute live when a predecessor completes or the due date moves.
Yes. A step can recur as a follow-up on an interval, for example every 2 business days, until a chosen step is done or a cap is reached. A step can also be parked as Waiting on client, which pauses its SLA clock so it does not count as overdue while you wait on them.
Yes. Review and approval are two separate gates. Review is a second person checking the work. Approval is an authority such as a manager or partner signing off. A step can require either, both, or neither, and the reviewer or approver can be a named user or a role.
Yes. Mark a step as document gated and it cannot be completed until a document is attached to the filing, whether an uploaded file or a linked cloud document. This keeps signed authorizations and source records tied to the work before it moves on.
Yes to both. A step can be conditional, so it is only added when a rule about the client holds, such as a province or state, country, or client type. And templates map per filing type and per frequency, so a Monthly GST/HST return can use a lean workflow while the Annual version uses a fuller one.
Each step can carry an estimate and log actual time, and supports a comment thread. Editing a template creates a new version. Filings already in flight stay pinned to the version they were seeded from, so live work is never disturbed, and you can choose to push new steps onto open filings. You can also add, edit, or remove a step on a single filing without touching the template.
See Filing Step Templates running on a real workflow board in a quick walkthrough.