Canopy Coworker is an AI assistant built into Canopy. Describe what you need in plain language and Coworker looks up your clients, engagements, tasks and billing, then does the work. By default it asks before it changes anything.
Required: Available on the Standard, Plus and Premium plans. Coworker can only see and change what your own Canopy permissions allow.
👉 Beta: Coworker is in beta. To turn it on, click your Profile icon or initials at the bottom left, select Settings > Experimental Features, and turn on Canopy Coworker.
Why it matters: Coworker handles the follow-up work that piles up in busy season: finding clients who still owe documents, spotting engagements that stalled, drafting renewals. You review what it found and approve what it does, and your team spends that time on client work.
Table of Contents
Set Up Coworker With Coworker Onboarding
Get started here! Select Start on the Personal Onboarding card on the Coworker page. The onboarding walkthrough covers short topics about your role and how your firm works — so Coworker’s answers, drafts, and suggestions fit the way you work. Onboarding doesn’t use credits.
Start a Session
A session is one conversation with Coworker. Ask a question, give it a task, then follow up in the same session to refine the results.
To start a session:
Click Coworker on the global navigation bar.
In the box that says Describe a task, type what you need, such as Find clients missing W-2s.
👉 Need prompts? See: Prompt Bank: What can I ask Canopy Coworker?
Click the arrow button to start the prompt:
While Coworker works, you'll see Thinking and a time. Coworker then lists each step in plain English, named for what it did, such as Listed billing rates or Drafted client message. Click a step to see the details.
You don't have to wait on the page. Go to another page and come back, and the reply will be there. Requests that search all of your firm's data can take a few minutes.
Type a follow-up prompt in the same session to change or refine the request.
Or click one of the Quick actions under Coworker's reply, such as Check lapsed quarterly clients, to take a suggested next step in one click.
To see everything Coworker did in the session, click the session details icon at the top right.
Artifacts holds what Coworker produced, usually tables you can open and download.
Progress shows Coworker's plan and how far it has gotten, when it made one.
Action History lists each lookup and change with its time.
Credit Usage shows how many credits your firm has used during the beta.
✅ Good to know: Always check Coworkers results before you act on them. Your first few prompts might need some refinement before you execute on a full plan.
Answer Coworker's Questions
Partway through a task, Coworker may stop to ask for details, such as which clients to include or what increase to apply to renewals. It suggests an answer for each question.
Review each suggested answer and change any that don't fit.
Click Submit. Coworker continues with your answers.
Click Allow once if a security review is required to complete the task.
Continue to answer questions and add more information to the prompt as needed to complete the task.
Run a Suggested Task
Suggested tasks are ready-made requests for common firm work. They're a good first step if you're not sure what to ask.
Click Coworker on the global navigation bar.
Under Suggested Tasks and Automations, find the task you want.
Click Run. Coworker starts the task right away.
Review what Coworker found. Tables also appear under Artifacts in the session details.
Type a follow-up in the task box to narrow the results or act on them, such as Show only the engagements that are overdue.
Suggested task | What it does |
Pre-Call Prep | Builds a short client brief before a call: engagements, open tasks, recent activity and billing. |
Tax Request List | Drafts a personalized tax document request list from prior-year files and the current questionnaire. |
Client Value | Finds clients who could use more services and flags clients at risk of leaving. |
Scope Creep Analysis | Compares engagements with time entries, tasks and communication to find work you're doing beyond scope. |
Draft Renewals | Applies your pricing rules to recurring engagements and drafts renewed engagements and a letter for each, for your review. It never sends them. |
Create Task Template | Turns a description of your process into a reusable task template, asking about steps, assignees and status automations before it saves. It can add questionnaire and document checklist steps, copied from an existing template or written for each client, and send them automatically. |
Data Quality | Finds missing, outdated or inconsistent client records: contact info, addresses, names, tax IDs and engagements. |
Firm Operations | Reviews team workload, upcoming deadline risks and workflow bottlenecks across the firm. |
Group Engagement | Drafts one engagement letter for a client group, with every entity, service and fee. Once it's signed, it sets up each entity's tasks with the fee as the budget. It never sends or signs. |
Create Monitor | Sets up a recurring check on a client, engagement, questionnaire, email thread, task or other record. |
Work Advancement | Finds stalled engagements, overdue tasks, unanswered client requests and onboarding gaps. |
Workflow Status | Shows where each engagement stands and flags stalled work and overdue next steps. |
👉 For more requests to try, see the Coworker Prompt Bank. ⚠️ Link once published.
Choose Auto Execute or Plan Mode
The mode decides whether Coworker shows you a plan before it makes changes.
Below the task box, click the mode button. It shows the current mode, Auto execute by default.
Select a mode:
Auto execute works through the task without stopping for plan approval.
Plan mode shows you a plan first, and makes changes only after you approve it.
In Plan mode, Coworker looks up what it needs, then stops and shows its plan in the Review Plan panel above the task box. Nothing changes until you approve it.
Read each step under Plan steps. To change the plan, edit the steps in the box.
Click Approve plan and start actions.
To change direction instead, click Tell coworker what to do instead and type what you want. Coworker skips the steps you didn't approve.
✅ Best practice: Use Plan mode for anything that touches many clients at once, such as renewals or bulk task updates, so you see the full list before anything changes.
Either way, Coworker still asks before any action your firm's trust settings mark Review required.
Approve or Deny an Action
When Coworker needs your OK before it acts, an Approval required card appears in the session and describes the change.
If Coworker has seen sensitive information in the session, the card says Security review required instead. It explains in plain English what Coworker wants to do and lists the Clients seen in this session.
For a Security Card:
Read the change and the Clients seen in this session on the card.
Click Allow once to let Coworker continue, or Deny to stop it.
You can't type in the task box until you choose.
A session waiting on you shows a yellow dot in the session list. If Coworker keeps asking about an action you're comfortable with, an admin can set that action to Always allow.
Use Coworker From Any Page
Open Coworker without leaving the page you're on, such as a client record or the Billing page.
Click the Coworker button in the lower right corner of the page.
Type a prompt in the task box and click the arrow button.
To make the panel larger, click the Switch view icon at the top of the panel and select Overlay. Select Floating to return to the smaller panel, or Open in new tab to work in a full tab.
To open an earlier session, click the Expand sessions icon at the top left of the panel.
Click the X to close the panel.
Find, Rename, or Archive a Session
Click Coworker on the global navigation bar. Your sessions are listed on the left, grouped under Automated Jobs, Recent, Today and Earlier.
Click a session to reopen it.
To search, click the magnifying glass above the list and type part of the session name.
To see archived sessions, click the filter icon and select Archived.
To rename or archive a session, hover over it, click the three dots, then select Rename or Archive.
Create and Manage Automated Jobs
An automated job is work Coworker repeats for you, either on a schedule, such as drafting renewals every July, or when something changes in Canopy, such as a task's status.
In a session, ask Coworker to make the task recurring, such as Set up draft renewals as an automated job to run every year in July.
Review the job Coworker drafts, then click Schedule.
If your role doesn't include the Approve Automated Jobs permission, the job waits for someone who has it. It shows Pending approval in the sidebar until then.
Click Coworker on the global navigation bar, then select Automated Jobs to see the new job. Jobs also appear under Automated Jobs in your session list, with a count of new runs, such as 4 new.
Click a job's name to open it.
Overview shows the schedule and the next run. Plan lists the steps each run takes and the most changes one run can make. Details shows the request the job was created from.
The runs table lists every run and its status. Click a run to see what happened.
To follow up on a run, reply to it or accept Coworker's suggested fix. The run becomes a session you can keep working in.
To stop a job for now, click the pause icon at the top right. To remove it, click the archive icon.
👉 Canopy Tip: Coworker Onboarding also suggests automated jobs based on how your firm works.
Approve What Coworker Needs From You
Anything waiting on your approval, from a session or an automated job, shows in the Coworker sidebar and on the Coworker button on other pages.
Click Coworker on the global navigation bar.
In the sidebar, look for sessions with a yellow dot, or automated jobs marked Pending approval.
Job runs that need a retry or a fix are under Automated Jobs, on the Approvals tab. Click Review to open one and see what happened, then reply to Coworker in the task box to retry or fix it.
Click an item to open it, review it, then click Approve or Reject.
Approving automated jobs needs the Approve Automated Jobs permission.
Turn On Recommendations
Recommendations are suggestions Coworker makes on its own from your firm's activity, such as work to follow up on or records to fix. Each analysis uses credits, so recommendations are off until you turn them on.
To turn on Recommendations:
Click Coworker on the global navigation bar, then select Recommendations.
Click Manage enrollment.
Turn on Just me for recommendations based on your own assigned work, or Whole firm for recommendations across the firm.
Only admins can turn on Whole firm.
Click Done.
The first recommendations appear within about 30 to 60 minutes. Use the tabs, such as Quick Approval and Draft, to sort them by type, or search them.
To work on a recommendation, click View Results to start a session with Coworker. Click Dismiss to remove one you don't need, and use the thumbs up or down to rate it.
Send Feedback About Coworker
Coworker is in open beta, and your feedback helps us improve it.
Below the Coworker text box, click Feedback.
In the Submit feedback window, type what you think.
Click Submit.
To rate a single reply, click the thumbs up or thumbs down icon under it.
Troubleshooting
I don't see Coworker on the navigation bar:
Coworker has to be turned on in Settings > Experimental Features, and your firm needs a Standard, Plus or Premium plan.
I can't type in the task box:
Coworker is waiting for your approval. Scroll to the Security review required card and click Allow once or Deny.
Coworker's answer looks wrong:
Click the session details icon and check Action History to see what it looked up. Ask a more specific follow-up, or click Feedback below the task box to report it.
Coworker paused and says I've reached my limit:
Each user gets a monthly credit allocation. A banner warns you as you get close, and Coworker pauses when you reach it until the allocation resets. During the tax-season promotion, you can claim a one-time 5,000-credit gift from the banner.
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Summary
Open Coworker from the navigation bar or the button on any page, describe the task, and approve or deny each change it asks about. Automated jobs and recommendations handle recurring work, and anything waiting on your approval shows in the Coworker sidebar.
Need help?
Contact Support or ask Penny, our AI Support Bot, for assistance.