Archiving tax returns in PDF format

Archiving allows you to preserve an electronic copy of your clients' tax returns, thereby reducing the paper clutter in your office. DT Max archiving uses the PDF technology developed by Adobe.

The archive file is an image of the tax return that is created at the time of printing or efiling the return. This is more reliable for referring to the return at a later time (after a notice of reassessment has been received by the taxpayer, for instance), than accessing the original file itself in DT Max because changes may have been made to the client's data in the meantime, or a program update recently installed may not contain a problem that was present in the version used to produce the return originally.

DT Max can be configured to archive automatically, or as a manual batch process. With either method, you can decide whether to archive all the pages of the tax return or only the pages included in a particular print destination, including custom destinations.

• Automatic archiving

  To enable automatic archiving, select Archiving in the Preferences menu.

  If archiving is enabled, the print data for a client can be transferred to an archive in any of the following cases:

  • ... when all government destinations are printed or efiled
  • ... when each government destination is printed or efiled
  • ... when all destinations are printed or efiled

  Incidentally, you may also select Do not archive automatically.

  You can enable and specify both the location and the naming convention used for the files. It is important to ensure that a different location has been specified for each different database and that all users of the database have the same archiving configuration.

• Manual control of archiving

  You can manually archive any tax return that has been calculated and remains on the print queue. Mark the desired clients in the client list, and from the Tools menu, select Archiving - save as PDF files then Batch save of selected tax return(s).

  Manual archiving gives you the option of naming the archive files according to the naming convention specified in the archiving setup (as used by the automatic archiving), or using a file name that you enter as each file is created.

Saving the name of the archive file

When a client's tax return is archived, DT Max enters the information about the archiving of that return in the client's file using the Progress keyword, as in the example below:

PROGRESS    21/04/2003  Archived
NOTE        C:\DATA\T1DATA\ARCHIVE\T1\2003\77788877.PDF [ABC]

DT Max records when the file was archived, which user archived it (per the user ID), the location of the archive file and its name.

Although optimized for the archival storage of tax returns, the PDF files created by the DT Max archive system can be used in other ways. The PDF format can be read on any computer with Adobe Acrobat Reader installed so emailing a PDF file is often a better method than using regular mail or fax to send a client his/her tax return for review or approval. If you wish to email a tax return directly or save selected pages into a PDF file, select Tools then Archiving - save as PDF files and Batch save of selected pages. (This feature is also accessible by right-clicking the displayed tax return.)

If the security of your client data is important, please be aware that the archive files are completely unencrypted, and can easily be read by anyone with access to the drive on which they are saved. If this is a concern, you should delete them or move them offline as soon as possible.

The archive files save a facsimile of the complete tax return including any notes and diagnostics as at the moment of creating the file. They do a good job of replacing printed archival tax returns, provided that normal procedures for the security of electronic data are maintained. The files should be checked to ensure that they were properly created, and that archive files exist for all clients files. Copies should be stored in a safe location in a format that will be easily used during the potential lifespan of the archive. Writing to a CD is an efficient method of permanently saving these files; in normal cases about 4000 tax returns can be saved on one CD.