Each document is named from its date, type and sender, for example 1099-INT_Acme_Bank.pdf when the payer’s name is read, and every name can be typed over. A Social Security, employer identification, card or bank account number, or an email address, is taken out of a name before it is used, and kept out of the unstack-index.csv that lists the documents. Keep that index with the client’s file: next season, Compare with last year’s index lists the forms that came in last year and are missing this time, and matches by type, and by sender where one was read. IRS Publication 4557 and the FTC Safeguards Rule are the context here: both are about protecting client data and knowing where it goes. Splitting on the device keeps this step from adding a place the data has been; it does not make a practice compliant, which depends on the practice’s own written security plan. Nothing is uploaded.
How it works
- Scan the client’s forms into one PDF, with a blank sheet between them if you can
- Drop it here — Unstack opens with Tax season on — and check the proposed cuts, types and names
- Download the named PDFs with unstack-index.csv, and keep the index for next year’s comparison
Questions people ask
Does this make my practice compliant with the FTC Safeguards Rule or IRS Publication 4557?
No tool can do that, and Bindery does not claim to. The Safeguards Rule asks a tax practice for a written information security program covering how client information is handled, and Publication 4557 is the IRS guide to safeguarding taxpayer data. What Unstack changes is one step: the scanned pile is split on the computer in front of you instead of being sent to another service. Where the files go afterwards — your document system, a client portal, email — is still a matter for your own plan.
Which tax forms are recognised, and how?
With Tax season on: W-2, 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, 1099-NEC, 1099-MISC, 1099-B, 1099-R, 1098, 1098-T, 1098-E, 1095-A, Schedule K-1 and SSA-1099, each by a form title in the top or bottom strip of the document’s first page, so a form that mentions another in its body, as a 1040 mentions the W-2, is not mistaken for it. Bank statements, invoices, receipts and letters are recognised too. Anything else is typed Document, and every type can be changed from the list before you download.
Where do the Social Security numbers end up?
Only in the PDFs, where they already were. A Social Security, employer identification, card or bank account number, or an email address, is taken out of a name before it is used, including a name you type, and out of the index CSV, so a file listing or a spreadsheet does not repeat them. The pages are read, split and written in your browser tab, the strips of scanned pages are read with OCR on your device, and nothing is sent anywhere.