Sharing client notes with the Practice CS Client Management module

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Product support for the Creative Solutions Accounting platform ended on September 30, 2020.

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If your firm is licensed for the Client Management module of Practice CS in addition to CSA, you can view CSA client notes in Practice CS. For client notes to be transferred, the data file location for Practice CS must be entered in the File Locations tab of the CSA Setup > User Preferences dialog and the note itself must be formatted a specific way.

Notes
  • For general instructions on using client notes in CSA, please refer to the Using client notes in CSA topic.
  • For a client note from CSA to display in Practice CS, the client ID and EIN must be identical in the two programs.

For setup steps specific to Practice CS, please view the help topic in Practice CS called Integrating client notes from CS Professional Suite Accounting Products.

Specifying the Practice CS data location from CSA

  1. From the CSA main window, choose Setup > User Preferences.
  2. In the File Locations tab of the User Preferences dialog, specify the location in which the Practice CS data resides, for example, C:\WINCSI\Practice CS Data.

  3. Click OK.

Formatting client notes for use with Practice CS

The formatting of client notes determines whether they are transmitted to Practice CS or retained only in CSA. By understanding a few formatting rules, you can control which text in the Client Notes dialog in CSA carries over to Practice CS.

The following guidelines will help you control client note integration.

  • Any time you begin a new line with a properly formatted date followed by a space or tab and then text, that text will appear in Practice CS as a CSA client note for the selected client.
    • The first line of the note must begin with a date in MM/DD/YYYY format. The month and day can be one digit or two. The year can be two digits or four. Examples of proper format include 9/1/07, 09/01/07, 9/1/2007, and 09/01/2007.

      Note: The date will not appear in the client note when viewed in Practice CS.

    • There must be either a space or a tab between the end of the date and the beginning of the note text.
  • All text following the date is included, unless you conclude the note using one of the methods listed below under the heading Concluding a client note for use with Practice CS.
  • Any text at the top of the Client Notes dialog that is not preceded by a properly formatted date is retained in CSA and is not transmitted to Practice CS. For example, you could decide to keep all CSA-only text at the top of the text field, and put client notes that you want to appear in Practice CS below that text.
  • Any text that is separated by two blank lines from the previous note text but does not begin with a properly formatted date is retained only in CSA and is not transmitted to Practice CS. In other words, integrated notes and non-integrated notes can follow each other in the Client Notes dialog as long as these formatting rules are observed.
  • If you add text to an existing integrated note, a new note will be sent to Practice CS, including all of the text for that integrated note. The previous integrated note is retained in Practice CS, so you may want to delete it manually from Practice CS if it is no longer applicable.

Concluding a client note for use with Practice CS

There are two ways to conclude a client note.

  • Add two blank lines after the note text.
  • Begin another client note by adding a new line with a date in the format described above.

Example

In this screenshot, note the following about the Client Notes dialog.

  1. Two blank lines conclude the note.
  2. No preceding date is used for notes that are for CSA use only.
  3. The correctly formatted date ends the previous note and begins a new integrated note.
  4. A single blank line between the text means that the next line of text is to be included in the same note.

Related topics

Using client notes in CSA

Client Note [Edit menu]

Using client notes in CSA

Client Note [Edit menu]

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