Frequently asked questions

Pingtail collects documents from clients for bookkeeping, accounting and tax firms of about 1 to 20 people. You send a checklist for one client and one period. Your client opens a link, with no account, and uploads. Each file is checked on arrival, reminders chase what is missing, and your team sees every request on one dashboard.

Neither. A portal gives each client a login; here your client has no account, and each request has its own private link that opens that one request only. A suite does billing, e-signature and payments; Pingtail does none of that. It does connect to QuickBooks Online: each accepted file is attached to the client's customer there. If you want everything in one product, a suite is the better choice.

No. There is no account, no password and no app. Your client clicks the button in the email and the request opens on one page. Everything is saved as they go, and the same link works again later, so they can send two items today and the rest next week.

Yes. "Take a photo" opens the camera, so a paper receipt does not need a scanner. Photos are resized in the browser before upload, and a photo that is too small or too dark is refused before upload, so your client can take it again at once. More on the client upload page.

When a link is opened on a new device, the page asks for a 6-digit code sent to the contact's email address. A person who has the link but not that inbox cannot get in. The link also belongs to one request only. If a colleague should upload, add them as a contact and they get their own email.

Yes, if they want to. A client can open "My documents", type their email address and get a sign-in link, with no password and no account for you to manage. They then see every request any firm has sent to that address, what they uploaded, and what is still open, and they can carry on from there. It is optional: the link in the email is always enough. More on the client upload page.

Yes, in the countries where that is available, and only from your firm's own number. You can send from your own phone with a prepared message, or connect your own WhatsApp Business account so requests and reminders go out by themselves. Your client can switch it on or off, replying STOP stops it for good, and quiet hours work exactly as they do for email. Meta charges you per message on your own account. The countries, and what you set up, are on the WhatsApp page.

PDF, photos, CSV, Excel and Word files, up to 25 MB per file. Unsafe file types are never stored, and a duplicate file is refused with a clear message. The email and the client page come in English, Spanish or French: you set a language per contact, and your client can change the page language.

Fixed rules run first: a password-locked PDF, a "Page X of Y" document with pages missing, dates outside the requested months, the wrong tax year, and a photo that is too small or too blurred. If the rules cannot decide, the check reads the document for its type and period. The last layer is your own review. Details on the file checks page.

It cannot reject. The check has three results: accept, ask your client to look again, or pass the file to your firm. A check will be wrong sometimes, so your client can always answer "This is correct, send it anyway"; the file then reaches you with a flag. Only a person at your firm can send a file back, with a note.

If the file covers several months and the requested month is one of them, it is accepted, and your staff see every month the file covers. It does not mark future months as received: if the statement covers September as well, the September request still has to be answered when it comes.

All three, from one card in your settings. "Ask the client" questions a file on the page while your client is still there; "warn only" says nothing to your client and flags the file for you instead. You can have files that pass every check accepted without a click, so only the questionable ones reach your review list. You can also switch off the layer that reads a document, and keep the fixed rules, which run on every plan. And when you accept a file the check had questioned, that problem stops stopping that client next time. More on the file checks page.

The check, then your firm. When the fixed rules cannot decide, the document is read for its type and period, nothing more, and the result is a suggestion that never rejects a file. Every file is checked. Your plan carries a monthly number of files for the document reading, shown on the pricing page; the fixed rules always run. The services involved are listed in the privacy policy.

By default on day 3, 7 and 12 after sending; you can change that and set up to six. Each one lists only the missing required items, plus anything you sent back. They go out between 8:00 and 21:00 in the contact's timezone and skip weekends unless you turn that off. After the last one your firm gets a "time for a call" email and they stop.

Both. On each request you can pause reminders, send one now, or switch to "I will follow up myself". Per contact you choose whether they receive requests and reminders. Your client can stop reminders with one click on the link in every email, which keeps you out of the spam folder. Bounces and complaints are shown on the contact. Reminders go by email; where WhatsApp is available for your country you can also send them on WhatsApp from your own number. There is no SMS.

The application encrypts every file before storage with AES-256-GCM. Each file has its own key, wrapped by a master key kept apart from the files, so the storage provider holds only ciphertext. All traffic uses TLS. Client links are long random tokens, stored hashed. The full list is on the security page.

No. We do not hold SOC 2, ISO 27001 or any other certification. The security page lists the measures we actually take and the gaps we know about, so you can judge for yourself. If your firm's policy requires a certified vendor, we are not the right choice today.

You set the retention period, from 30 to 3,650 days, and files are deleted automatically after it; a read-only account (no plan) keeps new files for 90 days. You can delete one file or all files of a client. A client can remove their own file until you accept it, and after that can ask you to delete it. Deletion removes the file and its only key.

They can ask, and you decide. Until you accept a file, your client can remove or replace it themselves. After that they can send a deletion request from their upload page, with a reason if they want to give one. It appears on your dashboard and you choose to delete or to keep: you are the one with a legal duty to hold records, so the decision is never taken out of your hands. Deleting removes the files and the only key to them.

Yes, on every plan, and also when your account is read-only. You get one zip per request. Files inside are renamed with your own pattern, by default {client}_{period}_{item}, and answers to questions are included as a text file. Accepted files can also go straight to your own Google Drive or Dropbox, to QuickBooks Online, or by email to tools like Dext and Hubdoc; you set that up once under Integrations.

No. There is a 14-day free trial, then one price with every feature in it: US$9 for each client, every 30 days. You pay a client's first 30 days the day you add it. Then it renews on your one bill. Add-ons are separate and optional: you pay for one only when you buy it. There is no email quota. Prices are in US$ on the pricing page.

No. Sign up, set up your firm, send a test request to your own email and build your first real request without a card. Your first request to a client goes out without a card too. You add a card when you add a second client, so the trial can run straight into a paid plan without a second sign-up. Nothing is charged before day 14, unless you add a third client. We email you on day 7 and day 13 of the trial with the amount and the date of the first charge. You can stop it yourself at any time before then: open Billing from the link on your dashboard, click Cancel, and confirm. Only the person who owns the account can do that. We never see the card itself; the payment provider holds it.

Active clients only. A client you pause or archive keeps its history and its files, is not on your next bill, and no recurring request goes out for it. So the client who leaves in March, and the seasonal one you only see in January, cost nothing while they are paused. Your client list has a search box and a filter by state for finding them again.

We give you free days instead. Every firm has an invite link, on any plan. When a firm that signed up with your link starts paying, you get 30 days of Pingtail free, or credit on your account if you already pay. They add up, to at most twelve times a year. Referring your own firm does not count, and we will not email your contacts for you: the link is yours to send.

With a card on file, the trial runs straight into your plan on day 14, and each client renews every 30 days on your one bill. A client you add later pays its first 30 days at once, then a small one-time top-up to your billing day. There is no yearly plan. If you cancel, or a payment stops, your access continues to the end of the period already covered. After that the account is read-only: every file stays, you can sign in, download files and export zips, but nothing new can be created or sent until you choose a plan again. You are never locked out of your files.

No: every charge is final, because the 14-day free trial, with one client and no card, is there for you to learn the product before you pay. A client you pause or remove works to the end of its paid days and is not refunded; rights the law gives you that cannot be excluded still apply, as the terms explain.