Most of the work of tax season is not preparing returns. It is getting the documents. A client swears the 1099 went over, and what arrived is a photo of a different page; a spouse emails the brokerage statement to an address nobody checks; a 40 MB scan bounces off an inbox limit. By the time everything is in hand, the return itself is an afternoon.
Software for this splits into three shapes, and the expensive mistake is buying the wrong shape. This page is about telling them apart, and about the part everybody underestimates: what you are asking the client to do.
The three shapes
Practice management with a portal attached. TaxDome, Karbon, Canopy. The portal is one module beside workflow stages, e-signatures, engagement letters, invoicing and a client database. Priced per user per month, and the real cost is setup: templates, request types and stages have to be built before the first client sees anything. Right answer for a firm with staff and recurring work. Heavy for a solo practice whose actual complaint is "I need this year's documents."
Secure file sharing with client folders. SmartVault, ShareFile, SuiteFiles. A permanent folder structure per client, with permissions, versioning and retention. Right answer when documents must live somewhere auditable for years, and when the same folder is used in both directions all year.
An upload link. One page per collection, shared as a URL, no account for the person uploading. It does one job: get files from them to you. No history, no signatures, no billing.
The three are not competitors so much as three different purchases. The question is which problem is actually costing you hours.
The part that decides it: what the client has to do
The portal model is built around the client holding an account. They receive an invitation, set a password, and come back to that password next February having forgotten it. For a client who deals with you monthly, that is a one-time cost and it is worth it. For one you serve once a year, the login is the friction, and it lands squarely in the weeks when you have the least patience for it.
They do not all handle this the same way, and it is worth checking before you buy. ShareFile's file requests carry a "require recipients to sign in" switch that can be left off. SmartVault's Request Docs goes the other way: the client uploads through a guest account, which they have to create first.
Where the sign-in can be skipped, notice what it costs. You are then using the portal as an upload link, without the account that the history, the permissions and the year-on-year record all depend on - and paying portal prices for the cheaper shape.
That is the real fork, and it comes down to when the cost falls:
- With a portal, the client's second visit is cheap and their first is expensive. History, past returns and prior-year documents are all there because the account is there.
- With an upload link, every visit is equally cheap and nothing accumulates. There is no account to recover, and no prior year to point at.
Neither is better in the abstract. A firm doing monthly bookkeeping should pay the account cost once. A preparer with 60 individual returns, most of them seen annually, is imposing that cost 60 times over to hold documents they will archive anyway.
What to ask for, in one list
The reason document collection drags is rarely the software. It is that the request is vague. "Send me your tax documents" produces three emails and a phone call. A named list produces a folder.
A workable starting checklist for an individual US return, to be cut down per client. The form numbers are US federal ones; the shape of the list holds anywhere, the names do not:
- Photo ID and, for a new client, last year's filed return
- W-2 from every employer worked for during the year
- 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC for contract work, 1099-INT and 1099-DIV for interest and dividends, 1099-B for brokerage sales, 1099-R for retirement distributions, 1099-G for unemployment or state refunds, 1099-K if they took payments through a card processor or a payment app
- 1098 for mortgage interest, 1098-T for tuition, 1098-E for student loan interest
- K-1s, which arrive late and routinely keep a return open after everything else is in
- Business income and expense summary, plus a mileage log for a Schedule C
- Closing statement for any property bought or sold
- Records of estimated tax payments made during the year, with dates
- Bank account and routing number for a refund, confirmed rather than remembered
- Marriage, divorce, birth, death or address changes since last year
The list is the product. Whatever tool carries it matters less than whether the client can see what is still outstanding without asking you.
Where an upload link is the whole answer
If your bottleneck is intake and nothing else, the shape that fits is a page per client with the checklist on it. That is what 500files.com does:
- A checklist of required items, named the way you name them: W-2, 1099-B, Mortgage 1098. The page shows what has landed and what has not, to you and to the client, so the follow-up email writes itself or becomes unnecessary.
- No account for the client. They open a link and drop files. Nothing to set up, nothing to remember next year.
- A password on the page when the documents warrant one, and the page can be set to expire: 7 days at creation, extendable to 14 at most, then 3 days to download before the files are deleted.
- Files up to 200 MB each (the field starts at 100 and you raise it), resuming after a dropped connection, which is what phone scans and hotel WiFi need.
- Into your Google Drive or Dropbox, if that is where client folders already live: connect it once and each document is copied into a folder per page as it arrives, once it has cleared the virus scan (how that works). The page keeps its own copy for as long as it lives, so a failed copy costs you a retry rather than the document.
The deliberate trade is that pages are temporary. Collection ends; the documents go into whatever you already use as your record system. If you want the tool to also be the record system, you want the second shape above, not this one.
What this does not do
Said plainly, because the gap is the point:
- No e-signature, so engagement letters and Form 8879 need something else
- No invoicing or time tracking
- No client record that persists between years, and no prior-year documents to point at
- No automated reminder sequences; the page shows what is missing, but nobody is chased on a schedule
- Not a retention system: pages expire by design, which is a feature during collection and a disqualifier afterwards
If two or more of those are things you actually need, a portal is the right purchase and the money is well spent. We wrote up the options honestly, including where they beat us: TaxDome alternatives, Karbon alternatives, and nine client portals compared.
Picking, in one line each
- Solo preparer, annual individual returns, documents archived elsewhere. An upload link with a checklist per client. The login you are not asking for is the whole saving.
- Monthly bookkeeping for the same clients all year. A portal. The account cost is paid once and earns back every month.
- Documents must stay accessible and permissioned for years. Secure file sharing with client folders, not an intake page.
- A firm with staff, stages and handoffs. Practice management. The portal is the least of what you are buying.
Create a collection page at 500files.com, add the checklist, and send the link. It is free during early access, and one thing will not change when pricing does: nobody you send it to has to sign up.
Related
- Client document upload portal - the same idea without the tax specifics
- Free client portal - which free tiers are real and which are trials
- Best client portal software - nine tools, strengths and catches
- Secure file upload link - what "secure" does and does not mean here