Plan: Not Available: Intermediate Available: Pro or Elite
Users: Available: All users
Practice Management Source: Available: All sources
PDF Collation makes it easy to bring related PDF documents together into a single, organised package without leaving FYI. PDFs can be collated for a single client or across related entities in a family group, arranged in the required order, while the original source documents remain unchanged.
This feature is currently in beta. Learn more about beta registrations.
Collating PDFs in FYI
Before creating a collation, ensure the selected PDFs are not checked out for editing, and consider the order in which they should appear once collated.
Note: For practices on the Elite plan, PDFs cannot be collated from the Employee Documents List.
To create a collation:
- Select two or more PDFs from any Documents List.
Tip: Documents are collated in the order they are selected. If required, the order can be changed before the collation is created. - Click the Collate PDFs button in the Toolbar.
- The Collate PDFs drawer displays.
Tip: To add more PDFs to the collation, select additional PDFs from the Documents list while the drawer is open. - Where required:
- Update any Filing details.
- Review and reorder PDFs.
- Review the total size of the collated PDF.
- Click Create.
The collated PDF will display as a new document in the list. All original source PDFs remain unchanged.
Note: The Activity section of the drawer displays when the new collated PDF was created. The drawer does not display a record of which source documents were used to create the collation.
To make further changes to the collation, for example, adding bookmarks, a watermark, or reordering individual pages, refer to Editing a PDF in FYI (Beta).
Collate PDFs Drawer Details
Filing
| Collate PDFs Drawer Details | Action |
| Client |
Select the Client the collated PDF will be filed to. If all selected PDFs are filed against the same client, the Client will be populated automatically. If the selected PDFs are filed to different clients, the client field will be blank. Type at least three characters of the client name to display matching results, and select the required client. |
| Name |
Enter the name of the collated PDF. For example, "Collated Financial Statements and Returns - Marshall Group". |
| Cabinet |
Select a Cabinet. Note: The Cabinet will be populated if all selected PDFs have been filed to the same Cabinet. |
| Job |
Select the Job to file the collation to. This field will display if Jobs has been enabled on the selected Cabinet settings, configured by an FYI Admin. |
| Categories |
Select the document categories, such as Year. The document Categories displayed will depend on the default settings of the selected Cabinet, configured by an FYI Admin. |
Reordering PDFs
The order of PDFs displayed in the Collate PDFs drawer determines the order in which the PDFs will appear in the completed collation.
Before creating the collation, the order should be reviewed.
Note: Once the PDF collation is created, pages can only be moved individually. Refer to Editing a PDF in FYI (Beta).
To reorder PDFs:
- From the PDFs section of the Collate PDFs drawer, locate the PDF to be moved.
- Click and drag the PDF using the icon on the left to position the PDF where required.
- Repeat this until the PDFs are in the required order.
- This order will be retained when the collation is created.
Reviewing the size of the collated PDF
Before a collation is created, it is important to review the total size of the PDF. Larger collations can be difficult to manage, particularly when the document needs to be edited.
It is recommended that collated PDFs do not exceed 50MB.
When the Collate PDFs drawer opens, the PDFs section displays the number of selected PDFs and the total size.
If the collation exceeds 50MB:
- Review the PDFs included in the collation.
- Remove any PDFs that do not need to be included by clicking the X icon or deselecting the PDF from the Documents list.
- Review the updated total size.
Tip: Consider creating separate collations for different types of documents rather than combining a large number of documents into one. For example, where a year-end collation exceeds the recommended size, create separate collations for financial statements and tax returns.