13. The Case of the USPS Delivery

PREVIOUSLY: THE CASE OF THE EMAIL DELIVERY

At Ernest’s suggestion, Walter decided to pursue the possibility of delivery vendor forms by email. Tax1099 offers this service at no additional cost. Emails are sent out immediately, even if the forms have a scheduled date of submission to the IRS that has not yet arrived.

Walter was happy to hear about this option, but he had a couple vendors who did not provide email addresses. What was he supposed to do for these vendors? How would he deliver their forms?

THIS WEEK

Walter opened Tax1099, and returned to the page he had visited to email forms to vendors. This is the Forms > Manage Forms page. He selected the Payer and Tax Year from the drop down menus at the top of the page. Next to the “Email Recipient Copy” option, he saw a blue button that said, “USPS mail to Recipient.”

Walter selected this option. He would be charged an additional fee for the mailing, but at least he wouldn’t have to go through the time and effort of printing, folding, stuffing, stamping, and mailing forms himself. That may have been too much for him to handle, what with the amount of business in his bakery.

He wondered how he could make sure that the forms were successfully mailed. He knew that Tax1099 automatically verified that vendor addresses matched the USPS format. This eased his mind a little, but he’d prefer to have a report on the delivery.

Walter navigated to the Dashboard. Under the heading, “What would you like to do,” Walter selected the last option: “Track Mail Status.” The status of a form could be tracked either by reference number of the form, or by the recipient’s taxpayer identification number.

Walter wondered how else he might be able to track the status. He thumbed over to Reports, and selected “Forms Delivery Report.” He was asked to fill in the tax year, and the time period in question. After entering this information, Walter could select fields to be added to the report.

His options included: Payer Name, Payer TIN, Form Type, Mailed Date, Emailed Date, Submission Date, and more.

He generated this report. He would continue to check back, and to make sure that the forms had been delivered. Walter was relieved that he would be able to track the mailing status of his forms.

He wondered if there were anymore form delivery options. He decided that, next week, he would look into the matter.