Compliance templates

A compliance template is a filing obligation described once — a form, a frequency, a due date rule — which then generates deadlines for every client it applies to.

Without it, someone maintains a spreadsheet. With it, the board fills itself.

Where to find it

Define a template

Each template carries:

• Name — what your firm calls it
• Form code — the actual form, which is what makes cross-client filtering work
• Frequency — how often it recurs
• Due date — including a Day of month, and Quarterly due dates where the frequency needs them
• Applies to — which clients it generates deadlines for
• Active — whether it's generating

Applies to is the setting to think about

This decides which clients get the deadline. Getting it too broad produces a board full of N/A entries that everyone learns to ignore. Too narrow and a client silently owes something nobody is tracking.

Too broad is the safer error, but only just — a board with two hundred irrelevant rows stops being read, and a board that isn't read is the same as no board.

Set it as tightly as you can defend, then check the first generated cycle against reality.

Form codes matter

The form code is what lets you filter every client who owes a 941 across your whole book, and what lets the calendar layer filter by form.

Use the real code rather than a description. 941 is filterable and unambiguous. Quarterly payroll thing is neither.

Reviewing the first cycle

After a template goes active, look at what it generated before trusting it.

The specific check: are there clients on the board who shouldn't be, and clients missing who should be there? Both are Applies-to problems, and both are much cheaper to fix in the first cycle than after a year of accumulated N/A entries.

Turning one off

Set a template inactive rather than deleting it. Deadlines already generated stay, which preserves the filing history.

Notes and limits

• Templates generate deadlines going forward, not retroactively.
• Changing a due date rule affects future deadlines, not ones already generated.
• A deadline can also be added by hand for a one-off obligation.
• Deadlines can be linked to tasks, but templates don't create tasks by themselves.