In this article we’ll walk you through how to get started with Preparer. You’ll learn best practices and how to integrate Preparer into your firm’s processes.
Step 1: Check out the Preparer Tutorial
If you haven’t already, try out the Preparer tutorial by clicking on the “John Doe - Demo Preparation” preparation in the Preparer dashboard. This tutorial will walk you through the basics of Preparer. There are a few example documents included in the preparation.
You can always delete this example preparation from your Preparer dashboard by clicking the trash can icon on the right side of the screen.
Step 2: Start a Tax Preparation
Now that you understand the basics of Preparer, it is time to try it out on one of your own clients returns! When first getting started with Preparer, we recommend choosing returns that are indicative of the majority of your firm’s workload.
Many firms jump right to trying one of their most complex returns as part of evaluating Juno. We recommend trying a variety of returns when first starting out. Being a CPA is challenging, and you’ll find Juno handles the vast majority of tax prep, but its important to understand where you and your team will need to be part of the process.
Once you have a few returns in mind, navigate to juno.tax in your web browser and sign in. Once logged in, select the “Start Tax Preparation” button in the upper right of your screen.
Now select “Add New Client” and enter client information. It is important to note that after becoming a Juno customer, our Customer Success team will walk you through connecting your tax software and syncing your clients so they are available in the select client dropdown.
Step 3: Upload the Prior Year 1040 (Optional)
Before the standard document upload screen, you'll now see a step for the client's prior year 1040 - whether you're starting a new preparation or reopening a draft with no documents uploaded yet. This step is optional: click "Skip" to move straight to uploading this year's source documents, or select the prior year return and the button will change to "Continue."
If you do upload the prior year 1040, Juno will populate a new "Expected Documents Checklist" feature on the uploaded source documents screen. This checklist lists the specific documents your client is expected to provide for the current year, based on what was reported on the prior year return - shown as document type plus issuer (for example, "2026 W-2 Disney"), for easy reference. Each document lists its type, status, and an action to upload or remove it, as needed.
Once the checklist is in place, select "Generate Email" on the same screen to have Juno draft a client email listing the documents that are still missing. The draft is fully editable, so you can review and adjust it before copying it over to send.
Don't want to use this feature? It's on by default, but you can turn it off entirely: navigate to Organization > Organization Settings and toggle off "Request Prior Year 1040 in Preparer".
From there, head back to your preparation to continue uploading this year's source documents.
You’ll notice some documents receive a status of “Not Supported” this indicates that Juno can not extract any data from the document. However unsupported documents will be still be included in the Binder that Juno creates for you and can still be used for Advisor.
As you will see, Juno extracts the data in real-time allowing you and your team to Validate the data in an easy to use interface. We call this the Human-in-the-loop screen. Whether you are upskilling your admin team, or supercharging your preparers, the Human-in-the-loop screen does more than validate data.
As seen below, Juno not only extracts data but also notifies you of documents that don’t match the current year, along with several other checks that are helpful in the heat of tax season.
After opening a document you’ll see the following three statuses:
It is important to know Juno nor any AI data extraction system is 100% accurate. This is why we have the human in the loop step. You’ll see that the vast majority of data Juno extracts will be assigned a “Validated” status meaning that Juno was very confident in extracting the data. However you will see other statuses which are explained below:
Possibly Missing - The system did not extract a value and believes there might be a value missing. In most cases, fields with this status are blank on the form and require you to validate that it is in fact blank. You can do this by hitting the “Validate” button below the field.
Flagged for Review - The system suggests taking a look at this field to double check. Often times a value may be calculated (i.e. gain/loss on a 1099B) but the system will request verification of correctness.
Validated - The value was extracted with near perfect confidence and doesn’t require review.
In order for a document to receive the status of “Validated” you must either validate all individual fields or select the “Mark All as Validated” button at the bottom of the page.
Step 4: Download Workpaper + Binder
Once all of your client’s documents are in a “Validated” status you are ready to export the preparation to your tax software. Before doing so it is important to check out the “Download Excel Workpaper” and “Download PDF Binder and Checklist” button.
Clicking on “Download Excel Workpaper” will have Juno automatically build a workpaper using the extracted data that you just finished validating.
Similar to the workpaper, Juno also builds a bookmarked Binder of all uploaded source documents. The binder will be generated in the order in which documents appear on a tax return. The first few pages of the binder are the “Tax Preparation Checklist.”
While Juno will handle the vast majority of the return, this checklist tells your preparers which values from each document Juno does not export to your tax software.
Step 5: Exporting to Tax Software
Now that all your documents are validated you are ready to push the data to your tax software. Please note, connecting to your tax software is done after becoming a customer, not during free trial.
You can see a real-time demo of one of Juno’s Staff Accountants completing an export. Select your tax software below to see it in action:
Next Steps:
Now that you’ve completed a preparation using Preparer we recommend checking out our Reviewer Free Trial Guide.