Point has a documents surface. Files gather out of your mail into one list on their own, and each of them stays one click from the conversation it came in on. You can ask a file a question in plain words and get the answer back with a link to the place it was read from. What this is not is a filing system, and being clear about that is most of what the page below is for.
- Nothing gets filed. Files land in the list named and dated, with no folders to design and no naming convention for a firm to agree on and then stop following.
- The conversation comes with the file. One click opens the thread it arrived on, one click brings you back, and the list is where you left it.
- The figure inside a PDF can be asked for rather than hunted for, and it arrives with its source attached, which is the part that makes it usable in a practice.
- Files sit in the same search box as your mail, your tasks and your calendar, because almost nobody remembers a document by its filename.
- It is not a document management system, a client portal, or a register of what each client still owes you. That last one is the misread worth clearing up before you evaluate anything.
The file is not lost, the email is
An attachment has no address of its own. It inherits one from the message that carried it, so the only handles you ever get on a file are a sender’s name, a date, and a subject line somebody else wrote about something else.
Which means going to find a document is not a file operation at all. It is an act of recall about an email. Who sent this. Was it February or March. Was it on the thread about the extension or the one about the payroll question. You are searching for a message in order to reach a file, and if the memory is wrong at any step the file is gone for practical purposes, even though nothing was deleted and everyone involved did their job.
Three things about a practice make that harder than it is for most people.
The sender is frequently not the client. A depreciation schedule comes from the bookkeeper, a W-2 from a payroll provider, a closing statement from an attorney, a brokerage summary from the spouse who handles the household mail. The name you would search under is the client’s. The name on the message is not, and you have to remember the intermediary before you can remember anything else. That most of the traffic about a client arrives from somebody other than the client is one of the things the first firms in the beta taught us, and it is in what the beta taught us.
Documents also arrive one at a time across months, and a form arriving alone gets the worst label of the year. A client replies to a six-week-old thread with one attachment and the word “here”. The subject line now describes a conversation with no relationship to the form, and it is the only description that file will ever carry.
And forwarding re-wraps everything. A file that reaches you inside a forwarded chain is stored in your mailbox under the forward rather than under the message it started in, which puts a second layer of somebody else’s subject line between you and the thing you want.
The usual answer to all of this is to search the mailbox for messages carrying attachments, which returns threads. You are then opening messages to see what is inside them, which is the work you were trying to skip. The cost is rarely a document that is genuinely lost. It is four minutes, thirty or forty times in a March week, and the quiet decision not to check something because checking it would take four minutes.
One quiet list that builds itself
Documents in Point is a list of the files that came out of your mail. They appear there without anybody putting them there. Nothing is dragged, nothing is renamed, no folder gets created, and no convention has to be agreed on by seven people who then follow it for a month.
Each line carries a name and a date, which is what a list you are scanning needs rather than a list you are querying. The vendor quote from Daniel. The cost breakdown Margaret sent. You read a shelf instead of composing a search, and that difference counts for most at the exact moment you cannot remember enough to search well, which is the moment you usually go looking.
One click opens the file’s card. The card holds a preview of the file itself, what kind of file it is, how big it is, and the conversation it arrived in. You read it there, without downloading it to a folder, without a viewer taking over the screen, and without fetching it again an hour later because the window got closed.
The tie back to the thread is the part a folder cannot copy. Dragging a file into a folder separates it from the note that came with it, and in a practice the note is often where the caveat lives. “Here is the schedule, though I think the March number is wrong.” The file on its own does not say that. In Point the file and the conversation are one click apart in both directions: open the thread from the file, read what was written above the attachment, come back, and the list is where you left it rather than scrolled to the top again.
Two honest notes about the shape of it. The list gathers the files worth finding again rather than every byte your mailbox has ever received, and the thread underneath still holds everything that came with it if you want the strict version. And there is no folder tree, which some people will genuinely miss. If your habit is a folder per client per year, this does not reproduce that, and the section on what it does not replace matters more for you than for most readers.
The number is inside the PDF
For a great deal of what a practice receives, the message is the envelope and the content is the attachment. A client writes “invoice attached” and the thing you actually need, a total, a period, an account number, a set of terms, is on the second page of a file.
The old sequence is: open the thread, download the file, wait for a viewer, find the figure, close it, go back. Five steps for one number.
The other way is to ask. Plain words, no keywords and no filters, in the way you would ask a colleague who had the paperwork in front of them. What is the total on the Tamarack invoice, and what are the terms. The answer comes back as an answer, the figure and the terms together, rather than as a list of hits you then have to read.
And it comes back with its receipt: a link to the source, one click onto the invoice itself, the answer and the evidence for it in the same place.
The receipt is the whole thing rather than a courtesy, and it is worth being exact about why. In a practice the answer is not the deliverable. The answer plus where it came from is. A figure you cannot trace is a figure you will look up again before you rely on it, which means the first lookup saved you nothing. A figure with a link to the page it was read from is one you can act on, hand to a preparer, or put in front of a client. That is the line between software that gives you a head start and software that finishes a step.
What it does not do is the judgment. It reads what is in the file. It does not know whether the invoice covers the period you are working on, whether the client attached last year’s statement by mistake, or whether the number is the one that belongs in the return. Asking a document a question is a fast way to reach a figure with its source attached. It is not a review, and the receipt exists precisely so the review stays yours.
One search box over four kinds of answer
There is a second route to a file, and it fits the way people actually store things in memory.
One shortcut, Command-K or Ctrl-K, opens a single search box from anywhere in Point, and what it covers is your mail, your tasks, your calendar and your files at once. Type a client’s name and the email, the task, the meeting and the file sit side by side in one list. Walk down it with the arrow keys and land on whichever of the four you meant.
That suits documents in particular because nobody files a document in their head under its filename. They file it under the job. “The Henderson thing” is one memory that happens to be spread across four systems holding a quarter each, and a search answering with all four is closer to the shape of the question than four searches are. It also removes the step nobody counts, which is deciding which application to look in first.
The same box takes a question rather than a keyword, so you can go at something by what you remember about it instead of by the words that were in it. Where that pays off most is the thread you can describe and cannot name, which is the ordinary case for anything more than a week old.
Where the list comes from and what it will not hold
Three limits. The first is the one most likely to matter in your practice this year.
The list is built out of your mail. A growing share of what a firm receives is not an attachment at all. The client uploads to a portal and emails a link. A bank sends a notice with a download behind a login. A shared folder gets shared with your address. A link is not a file: the document sits in another company’s system behind another company’s credentials, and nothing reading your mailbox can gather what was never sent to it. What Point holds in that case is the message, ranked and summarized and searchable like everything else, with the link inside it.
It is your mail, not your file room. Working papers your own people produced, last year’s file, the signed return in your document system, the scans somebody made at the front desk: none of that came through the mailbox, so none of it appears here.
What is kept, and for how long, belongs to the account rather than to this surface. Point holds copies for the periods written into its own terms, and those periods are not your firm’s retention policy. If a document has to be held for a fixed number of years, the system that guarantees it is the one you already run. What is held, by whom, and for how long is set out in how we think about your clients’ data.
What is inside an attachment and who reads it
This is the part of the documents question that the rest of the product does not raise as sharply, and for a firm handling client financial information it is the one to read twice.
An attachment is denser than the message that carried it. The email says the K-1 is attached. The K-1 has a name on it, a taxpayer identification number, an address and a set of figures. Nearly everything a practice would call sensitive lives in the files rather than in the notes above them.
So the plain statement is that Point reads attachments. That is how a file reaches the list with a name and a date on it, how a preview and a summary exist at all, and how a question about one gets answered. Anybody deciding whether to point this at a practice’s mailbox should be deciding about the attachments, because that is where the material is. A decision taken only about message bodies has been taken about the wrapper.
None of the answers change because the content is a file. What is held, who at our end can reach it and under what circumstances, how long any copy lives, and the one category our standard service does not cover are all written out in how we think about your clients’ data. If you prepare returns, read the exclusion first: tax-return information sits outside what the standard service covers and needs a separate supplement, and in February that material arrives as attachments by definition. It is a question to settle before a mailbox is connected rather than after a season has run through it. Whether a tool ought to be reading any of this in the first place is a prior question with a full answer in is it safe to use AI with client financial data.
There is an inbound half to the same question, and documents are where it bites. An attachment from a stranger has been the standard delivery vehicle for hostile mail for thirty years, and software that reads documents is a new thing to aim one at. Point’s answer is not to read it: mail from a sender it has no history with is held at the door unprocessed, so it is not summarized, not turned into a task, and nothing it carried is gathered into your files. You open it in a sealed view and decide about it yourself. Why blinding the software to unvouched senders is a defense rather than a caution is what it sees, and what it does not.
Three things this does not replace
A document management system. Your DMS or file server holds the copy of record with its version history, its retention rule and its permissions, and it will carry on holding them. Point holds the copy that arrived in the mail, joined to the conversation it arrived in. Those are two jobs rather than one job done twice. What a firm with a DMS gets from this is the part before filing, which is finding the message the file came in on.
A client portal. Point does not give your clients somewhere to upload, and it is not how documents go out to them. That is a separate purchase with a security answer of its own, and nothing here touches it. If your clients email you documents today they will keep emailing you documents, and this is about what happens to those once they are on your side.
A register of what is still outstanding. This is the misread worth heading off early, because it sends firms to evaluate Point for a job it is the wrong shape for. Point can tell you a file arrived and put your hand on it in seconds. It does not hold the knowledge that this client owes you eleven items and three have not come, it will not tick a line, and it has no opinion on whether what arrived is what you asked for. That register wants a single list kept deliberately in one place, and the argument is one PBC list, not five copies of it in the mail. The chasing that runs off the register is a related and separate craft, in managing client document requests without the chasing. A firm shopping for a status board should buy a status board, and being clear which of the two you are shopping for saves a month.
A fair test takes about a week
Change nothing about how you file. Keep the folders, keep the DMS, keep whatever the firm agreed to in 2019. Adding a filing habit on day one turns a trial into a project, and it tests the wrong thing anyway.
The test is narrower and it more or less runs itself. Over one ordinary week, notice every time you go looking for a document. Most people find it happens between five and fifteen times and are surprised by the count, because each one is too small to remember on its own. Each time, go to the list first. Either it is there, which answers your question about the surface, or it is not, which teaches you something more useful: you have found out how much of your document traffic arrives as a link rather than as a file. That is worth knowing whatever you end up buying.
The one new habit worth trying on purpose is asking instead of opening. Next time you need a figure off an invoice or a date off a statement, ask for it, then click the receipt and check it against the page. Do that five times. After five you will know whether you trust it, which is a better basis for a decision than any description on this page.
Two practical notes while you do it. Documents is a desk surface: the phone app is built around three tabs that are the inbox, tasks and the calendar, and while you can read an attachment on a phone, working through a client’s paperwork on one is a different proposition. Where that line falls is Point on your phone, and the window with room for a reading pane is Point’s desktop app. Separately, how far Point goes on its own is set per kind of work and starts at review, which prepares something and then waits for you, and reading a file or answering a question about one is not an action taken on your behalf in the first place. The setting itself is setting how much your inbox does on its own, and what has been done is a timestamped list in the activity log.
What the first two weeks ask of a firm generally, including the ten minutes a day from one named person that separated the firms it worked for from the ones it did not, is in what the beta taught us. Point is a private beta, so there is nothing to download and no sign-up of your own: the whole inventory a seat carries is on the benefits page, who is being admitted this fall is the beta opening wider, and the practice-shaped version of all of it is Point for accountants.
Common questions
Do I have to file anything, or set up folders?
No. There is nothing to create and nothing to drag. Files appear in the list on their own, named and dated, out of mail that was arriving anyway. If your firm keeps a filing structure somewhere else, keep it. This does not ask you to move it and is not competing with it.
Does this replace our document management system?
No, and it would be a poor trade if it tried. A DMS holds the copy of record with its version history, its retention rule and its permissions. Point holds the copy that came in the mail, next to the conversation it came in on. What a firm with a DMS gets out of this is the ten minutes before filing that used to go on finding the message a file arrived with.
What about documents that arrive as portal links rather than attachments?
They stay where the sender put them. A link is not a file, and the document is sitting in another company’s system behind a login. The message carrying the link is ranked, summarized and searchable in Point like any other message, but there is nothing to gather out of it. Whether that matters depends on the mix in your own mail, which the week-long test above measures directly.
Can Point tell me which client documents are still missing?
No, and this is the one to be certain about before you evaluate anything. Point knows what arrived and can find it. It does not hold a list of what you asked for, does not track eleven items against a client, and has no view on whether what came is what you wanted. A register like that belongs on one list kept on purpose, for the reasons in one PBC list, not five copies of it in the mail.
If Point reads the attachments, what does that mean for client data?
It means the decision about Point is a decision about the attachments, since that is where the sensitive material in a practice mailbox actually is. What is held, who can reach it, how long copies live and the one category our standard service excludes are written out in how we think about your clients’ data. If you prepare returns, read the exclusion first: tax-return information is outside the standard service and takes a separate supplement, and that is a question to settle before a mailbox gets connected.
What happens to the original attachment in Gmail or Outlook?
Nothing moves. Point runs as a layer over the mailbox your firm already keeps, so the message and the file it carried stay where they are, there is no new address, and filing a thread in Point files it in the real mailbox rather than in a private copy of it.
Is an answer read out of a document good enough to rely on?
It is good enough to save you the lookup, and the receipt is there so you do not have to take it on faith: click through and you land on the file at the place the answer came from. What it cannot do is the judgment. Whether the invoice covers the right period, whether the client sent last year’s form, whether the figure belongs in the return at all. Treat it as a quick way to reach a number with its source attached rather than as a second reader.
The short version
Attachments have no address of their own, so finding one means reconstructing an email, and in a practice that email frequently came from the bookkeeper rather than the client, on a thread about something else, inside a forward. Point’s documents surface takes that job away by gathering the files out of your mail into one list that builds itself: named, dated, nothing to file, no folders to design. A card shows the file, its kind, its size and a preview without leaving Point, and the conversation it arrived on is one click away in both directions, so you never lose the note that was written above the attachment. Where the thing you need is a figure buried on page two, ask for it in plain words and the answer arrives with the page it was read from attached, which is what makes it usable rather than merely fast. Files also sit in the same search box as mail, tasks and meetings, which is how people remember documents in the first place. The limits are worth taking seriously: the list is built from mail, so portal links stay in the portal and your working papers stay in your file room; the retention that governs copies is the account’s rather than your firm’s policy; and this is not a document management system, a client portal, or a register of what each client still owes you. Point reads attachments, which is where a practice’s sensitive material actually lives, so decide about Point on that basis and read the tax-return exclusion before you connect a mailbox. To try it, change no filing habit at all. Just notice, over one ordinary week, how often you go looking for a file and whether the list has it.