Managing Contact Records

In this article:

• Using the Client Record Page;
  • Home, Communications, and Notes Tabs
• Edit a Contact
• Add Connections to a Contact

 

Using the Client Record Page

The Client Record is where you’ll access and maintain your clients’ personal information. 

You can enter a contact’s record page by:

1. Clicking on Contacts.
2. Selecting Contact List.
3. Click on a Contact’s Name.

You’ll land on that Contact's Record page. At a quick glance, you can see everything you need to know about a client account on a single organized page. 

You’ll know whose record page you are in because you’ll see the client name on the top of the page.

A client’s personal details—such as email address, phone number, street address—are stored within their contact record, on the left-hand side.

Edit a Contact

Plus, you can easily edit your client’s personal info here. Click on the pencil icon to make edits - you’ll find this menu looks just like what you did before if you added the contact manually.

You can also access the edit menu by clicking on the down arrow button next to the client name and selecting Edit.

Adding Connections to a Contact

Spouse, dependent, and important contact information can also be added to a contact record. For contact individuals, you can add spouses, dependents and important contacts. 

To add a Spouse:

1. Click the + Button under Spouse.
2. Enter a Name.
   1. If the spouse has not already been created as a contact in Canopy, click Create New Contact after inputting their name.
3. Then click Save.

To add a Dependent:

1. Click the + Button.
2. Enter a Name.
   1. If the dependent has not already been created as a contact in Canopy, click Create New Contact after inputting their name.
3. Enter a relationship.
4. Then click Save.

In addition to spouses and dependents, you can add additional important contacts under a contact. This is typically done when handling business accounts. 

 

Important Contacts can be used if you are working with a business contact, but also providing accounting or tax services for individuals in that business. They may also be in your contact list!

Connections can be marked as Inactive Contacts in order to hide them from the Contact List, and prevent them from counting towards your contact billing.

To mark a contact inactive, click Edit on the pencil. Then turn the active button off.

Using the Home Tab

Your work with your contact is broken by the tabs along the top of the page. Let’s go through the first couple.

You’ll start on the Home Tab, which is simply an overview of everything you need to know about your client. This includes:

• Active Tasks
• Recent files
• Notes 
• Engagements
• and upcoming calendar events

Each of these panes pull information from the other tabs and updates as you add or change statuses.

Using the Communication Tab

Let’s click on the Communication tab next. This displays the historical back and forth communication between you and your client. 

If you don’t have any previous emails, you can start by selecting New Email. You’ll be able to send an email like you would from your email account, if you have previously synced it to Canopy.

Like any email service, you can also attach any document, like a PDF of a newsletter or other letters, to your email.

In the client page, you can see a record of ANY email sent from a Canopy user in your firm to that specific client. In essence, all communication from your firm to your client is associated with that client’s file.

 

You can send an email to a client that auto-populates from your contact list or just start from fresh.

Using the Notes Tab

Alrighty - let’s go check out Notes.

In Notes, you can add specific notes about your client to keep yourself organized and up to date.

To begin writing a note, click in the area here. In the Note window, you can create a title and your note. When finished, click Add Note.

You’ll notice that the note is documented in the Notes section for you. If we go back to the Home tab, you’ll see that this new note is displayed for you here and you can also add notes from this area as well.