Welcome to Heard! We're excited to support your private practice as your financial back office. An essential first step to ensure success using your Heard account is clearly understanding the steps to get started. We have provided four steps below that will help you quickly progress through setting up your account to get the most out of your Heard subscription.
Account Setup
-
Sign BAA Agreement: The BAA Agreement is a contract that protects both you and Heard and allows us to handle your data securely. If you'd like to learn more about the ins and outs of a BAA agreement, you can read more about it here.
-
Connect Business Bank Account(s): In order to complete your bookkeeping and taxes, you must connect your business bank accounts. Heard connects with your bank through Plaid, a trusted service that securely pulls your banking information into Heard. We can only access your transaction history when your bank is connected to Heard. We can't move money for you or do any banking on your behalf. You can learn more about what we see, How does Heard use Plaid?.
The bank accounts you need to connect are the only ones used for your practice: credit cards, debit cards, etc. You can choose to open a business account with one of the major banks Heard therapists use: Bank of America, Citibank, PNC, TD Bank, U.S. Bank, or Wells Fargo. - Upload Bank Statements: To start bookkeeping, you may need to upload your bank statements from the past month.
Onboarding
- Onboarding Webinar: Once you've finished your account set up, you'll be able to schedule to attend the Onboarding Webinars hosted by a member of our Engagement Team. You will have an overview of Heard and a step-by-step walkthrough of each menu item. We also reserve time for a live Q&A session.
- Upload Bank Statements: A great alternative to manually uploading monthly business bank statements for each of your accounts is to set up automatic bank statements or limited bank access, where you grant Heard permission to download your bank statements on your behalf. To read more about which banks offer this feature, please see Bank Statements at Heard.
- Clarify Transactions: When your transactions are missing information or the tax compliant category is unclear to your bookkeeper, the transaction will be marked as "Needs Review". For example, a transaction from Amazon does not describe what was purchased, and your bookkeeper will mark it for your review. You can find these transactions in Bookkeeping>Transactions>Needs Review.
Your Practice Profile
The practice profile is located under the Your Practice> Profile section on the left side of the Heard dashboard. The profile is a set of forms that asks for the basics of your practice: business name, entity, address, EIN, etc. Below are a few definitions that may help you prepare for this portion. These three sections include.
- The Your Practice section includes information about your business name and contact information.
- Business entity: Your form of business determines which income tax return form you must file. If you need help deciding which one to use, please take a look at this IRS help article.
*S Corporations only: Please upload a copy of your CP261 Letter or Form 2553. - Employer Identification Number (EIN): is a nine-digit number the IRS assigns. Please upload a copy of your EIN paperwork and state registration related to your business entity.
- Business entity: Your form of business determines which income tax return form you must file. If you need help deciding which one to use, please take a look at this IRS help article.
- In the Tax Information section, please complete your filing status (e.g., married filing jointly) and your Tax Entity Type. Your business is most likely taxed as a sole proprietorship or an S Corporation.
- The Personal Information section lists helpful personal contact information. We do not share this information or make it public.
Messages
You can use the Messages tab to contact our team. When you first join, you will be greeted with a "Welcome to Heard!" message.
It can be helpful to read through and respond to the Welcome to Heard message to collaborate with the bookkeeping team. This helps ensure that the bookkeeping for your private practice is set up for success from the beginning. To learn more, Why is bookkeeping important?
Transactions
We have some quick videos below that will walk you through a general overview of your transactions section, how to review needs review transactions, and also how you can add additional transactions.