# File electronically and watch the IRS record for every client

Returns are sealed, authorized, filed and acknowledged in one workflow, and the firm's own IRS account pulls each client's IRS record under the client's authorization. Nobody asks a client to find last year's return.

## From a finished return to a sealed package
When a return is finished it is finalized and sealed into the exact package that will be filed, with a digest that identifies it. Individual returns, extensions, fiduciary returns and business returns for corporations, S corporations and partnerships are routed to the right channel. Amended returns and extensions follow the same path. A return waits until the government's current form rules are live for its year, rather than being sent into a known rejection.

## The e-file authorization, signed electronically
Before anything is sent, the client signs the e-file authorization form electronically from the portal, with identity verification enforced on the signing envelope. The filing moves to awaiting signature and then to ready, and signing never files a return on its own. A release is a typed authorization bound to the sealed package's digest; if the package changed after the signature, the release fails closed and the preparer starts again. Extensions that need no signature go out on their own path.

## Postmarks, acknowledgments and rejections
Each filing receives an electronic postmark the moment it is accepted into the queue, and it is transmitted within the required days. Acknowledgments are retrieved on the government's schedule and land on the filing record with the government's submission ID. A rejected return shows each reason with its rule number, category and severity, returns to the queue within the correction window, and the corrected filing supersedes the first. See the [tax practice](/tax) for the return families and years.

## A record that stands up
The filed package, its postmark, every acknowledgment and the signed authorization are kept under retention through the year the rules require. A custody receipt from the compliance archive names the exact document that was filed. The firm's electronic filing registration, its credentials and their expiry dates are tracked in one place, and an evidence bundle is ready when the firm must show its filing program is in order.

## The season queue
The season queue lists household and business returns together, with each return's status, what it is waiting on and who owns the next step. Organizers go out, uploads come back scanned, and the client signs from the portal. Review queues put each return in front of a reviewer before it is released, and delivery to the client is tracked. The filing timeline shows every step from preparation to acknowledgment.

## Tax monitoring through the firm's IRS account
A client authorizes the firm from the portal: identity is verified with a photo ID, a selfie and a liveness check, the authorization form is signed electronically and submitted, and the platform watches for the IRS to activate it. From then on the firm pulls the client's return, account, wage and income, record-of-account and non-filing transcripts through its own IRS account. Clients are never asked for a copy of a return or for their IRS login.

## What the IRS record is used for
Prior years are pulled again every day for every active authorization, so the IRS record stays current. Taxpayer identification numbers are matched before a return goes out. A filed return can be replayed through the same calculation the firm uses and reconciled line by line against what the IRS recorded. A business filing is checked against its account transcript, so the firm knows when the IRS has posted it. Read how [connected data](/connected-data) arrives, or [talk with us](/contact).