Track document intake and internal deadlines for jobs

Stay organized and meet deadlines by tracking when documents arrive and setting internal completion targets. This article covers the new Intake Date and Internal Deadline fields in job cards and how to use them effectively in your workflow.

What are Intake Date and Internal Deadline?

The new date fields help you track two important milestones for your jobs:

• Intake Date: The date when you actually receive what you need from the client and the job is truly ready to start. This is different from when the job was created or when you first contacted the client.
• Internal Deadline: Your private buffer before the official due date, giving you time to review and avoid last-minute crunch.

These dates work independently from Start Date and Due Date fields in jobs, giving you more detailed tracking of your workflow timing. Both fields are optional and can be used separately or together based on your needs. You can update them either manually or automatically.

Why they’re important for tax season

Tax season involves processing hundreds or thousands of returns with varying complexity. These fields help you track the actual start of productive work (when documents arrive) versus administrative setup, giving you clearer visibility into your pipeline.

• Better workflow management: Knowing when documents actually arrived helps you calculate true processing times and better estimate how long similar returns will take in the future. You can easily identify which clients haven’t provided documents yet (empty Intake Date) and prioritize follow-up accordingly.

• Internal accountability: Setting internal deadlines earlier than client deadlines creates buffer time for quality review, client questions, and unexpected complications that commonly arise during tax preparation. This reduces the risk of last-minute rushes that can lead to errors or missed deadlines.

• Consistent organization: Using these dates with automations helps you organize work by FIFO (first in, first out) since every job has a clear intake timestamp. This approach ensures fairness and systematic processing across your team.

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These dates aren’t just for tracking—they’re the foundation for the Work Forecaster. The system will use them to show which jobs are ready to begin, how long each stage is expected to take, and which jobs are on track versus at risk. This transforms deadlines into a predictive workload view, so you can plan capacity, stay ahead of bottlenecks, and meet client deadlines without surprises.

Add Intake Date and Internal Deadline to jobs

You can set these dates when creating new jobs or editing existing ones:

1. Create a new job or open the existing one

2. In the Intake Date field, select when you received the client’s documents

3. In the Internal Deadline field, set your internal completion target

4. Save your changes

Both dates use the same date picker format as Start Date and Due Date fields. You can set dates in the past or future without restrictions, and there’s no requirement for the dates to follow any specific order.

Update Intake Date and Internal Deadline in bulk

Save time by setting dates for multiple jobs simultaneously using bulk edit:

1. Go to Workflow > Jobs

2. Select the checkboxes next to the jobs you want to update

3. Click Edit in the action menu above the table

4. In the bulk edit sidebar, set your Intake Date and/or Internal Deadline

5. Click Save to apply changes to all selected jobs

The bulk operation runs in the background, so dates may take a moment to appear in your job table after saving.

View and filter jobs by Intake Date and Internal Deadline

The Intake Date and Internal Deadline fields appear as columns in your job list with full sorting and filtering capabilities:

• Use the settings icon in the table header to hide/show these columns or move them
• Click any date column header to sort jobs by that date. Toggle between ascending (oldest first) and descending (newest first) order. Jobs with empty date fields always appear at the end of the sorted list.

To filter your job list by Intake Date and/or Internal Deadline:

1. Click Filter above the job list

2. Select Intake Date or Internal Deadline

3. Choose from preset date ranges, select Custom date for specific dates, or use Not set to find jobs missing dates

4. Apply multiple date filters simultaneously for precise job lists.

Find out more on filtering jobs .

Use Intake Date and Internal Deadline in job templates

You can set default dates in job templates . When you create a job template, you can pre-set rules for Due Date, Internal Deadline, and the other fields. This ensures that every time you launch a job (like “2025 Tax Return”), the system fills in the right timeframes automatically.

How templates work with these date fields:

• You can modify the dates before saving if needed for specific jobs
• Set a template as the default for a pipeline, and all new jobs will include the preset dates
• Use date templates in recurring job schedules to ensure consistent date setting
• You’ll still update the Intake Date once the client actually provides documents

This approach keeps things consistent—every time you create a job, the right deadlines are already in place. Then you add the Intake Date when the client’s documents arrive.

To add Intake Date and Internal Deadline to your job template:

1. Go to Templates > Firm templates > Jobs tab

2. Click Create template or edit an existing one

3. Set your default Intake Date and Internal Deadline values

4. Save the template

Automate Intake Date and Internal Deadline updates

You can use automations to update these dates without manual entry. For example, when a client finishes their organizer, you can automatically set the Intake Date to today. You can also chain date updates: when the Intake Date is set to today, automatically set the Internal Deadline to 14 days later. This consistency helps you organize work by FIFO (first in, first out) since every job has a clear intake timestamp.

Next, learn how to update job dates automatically .

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