Comptaflowbeta
← All guides

Updated July 24, 2026

Run personal tax season (T1/TP-1)

Track a family's return from the moment they walk in to the day it is filed and paid, with everyone on the file and what they owe.

Who this is for: managers and owners running T1 season; employees work the same views for their own slice.

Why it matters: personal tax is kept separate from business work throughout, so a few hundred family files never bury the business client list, and business compliance never clutters tax season.

Before you start

  • You need to be signed in. You see your own firm's clients only.
  • A family is one file, not one client per person. One file, one status, one price for the household.
  • Creating and editing clients is limited to owners and managers unless your firm granted the right to other roles.

Steps

  1. Open the Clients page and switch to the Individuals tab. This is the personal tax book; the Businesses tab is the rest of the firm's work, and All shows both.
  2. Click New family file. Enter the family name, optionally a phone number, the date you received the documents, and the tax year. Add a row for each person who is filing, with their name and their social insurance number if you have it. Blank rows are ignored, so you can add the rest later.
  3. Save. The family file is created, personal tax is turned on for it, and this year's task appears in Suivi. You land on the file's Tax returns tab.
  4. On the Tax returns tab, use the year arrows to move between tax years. Each year stands on its own: what you record for one year never changes another.
  5. Click Add a taxpayer to put another person on the file. Tick Files a return for anyone filing, and enter their SIN, or their ITN if they are a newcomer who does not have a SIN yet. Leave it unticked for a dependent child who does not file: a name and a date of birth are enough, and no number is asked for.
  6. Open a return with the pencil icon to record the year's detail:
    • Tax situations, ticking everything that applies. One return can combine several, for example a senior with rental income who is also self-employed.
    • Residency status, including part-year for a newcomer or someone who left Canada.
    • The spouse for that year, and the dependants the return claims.
    • Free-text notes.
  7. Link the family to the business its documents come from. Above the tabs, use Linked clients, pick the business, and label the link in your own words, for example "T4 — Shawarma MTL". The chip appears on both files and takes you across in one click.
  8. Track the season in Suivi: open the personal tax service to get one row per family, with the checklist columns for the steps you work through, and the price and payment columns described below.

Recording what the client owes

On the personal tax grid, the Price / Payment column is typed straight into the row. A row where a price is recorded and payment is missing or short shows an Unpaid badge, and sorting the column brings the unpaid returns to the top, which is the list of who still owes you.

If you bill the return on an invoice, the invoice takes over: the amounts stop being editable in the grid and the badge follows the invoice's status instead. Before a return is invoiced, the grid columns are the record.

What can go wrong

  • If a person already has a return for that year: you are told, and no second return is created. One person has one return per tax year.
  • If you try to delete a family file that has returns: the deletion is blocked and you are told why, so filed history is never lost by accident. Remove the returns first if you really mean to delete the file.
  • If you remove a linked client: the link disappears with it. A link never blocks a deletion.
  • If a number looks wrong when you enter it: the SIN and ITN formats are checked before saving, and nothing is saved until the whole entry is valid.

When a family's situation changes

Record the change on the year it happened, and leave earlier years alone. A separation is recorded by putting the person's later-year return under a different family file: the earlier year keeps the household exactly as it was filed. The same applies to someone who arrives during the year, leaves the country, or passes away, each is a situation on that year's return.

Limits

  • A family file is one client record. People on it are not separate clients, so they do not appear in the client list on their own.
  • Social insurance and individual tax numbers are stored encrypted and shown masked, with only the last three digits visible. Showing a full number is recorded in your firm's access log.
  • A dependent child who does not file has no number recorded at all.
  • The price and payment columns are informational. They do not produce an invoice; invoicing is a separate feature on Pro plans and up.

Was this guide helpful?