Priorities & statuses

Engagements have two independent axes: status (what state the work is in) and priority (how urgent it is). Both show up on every card, every table row, and every detail page.

The 5 statuses

Status	What it means	Card appearance	Counts toward…
Active	Work in progress, currently advancing through the pipeline.	Normal card.	Open engagements, capacity reports.
On hold	Temporarily paused — waiting on an external dependency, the client is unresponsive, an internal blocker. Still on the pipeline, just frozen.	Greyed out, On hold badge.	Total engagements, not active engagements.
Completed	Work finished — return filed, audit signed off, bookkeeping closed. Engagement reached the final stage.	Greyed out with Completed check.	Closed engagements, revenue reports.
Cancelled	Engagement called off — client withdrew, scope change, replaced by a different engagement.	Greyed with a strike-through.	Cancelled count only.
Archived	Old engagement, hidden from active views. Typically prior-year work that’s done and not relevant day-to-day.	Hidden unless Show archived toggled.	Historical totals only.

When to use each

Situation	Status
Normal in-progress work	Active
Client hasn’t responded to intake for 2+ weeks; we’re going to stop nudging until they reach out	On hold
Return was filed and accepted by the IRS	Completed
Client withdrew the engagement before any work was done	Cancelled
Last year’s 1040 — we’re working on this year now	Archived

Changing status

From the engagement detail page header:

Click the Status pill (top-right of the header).
Pick the new status.
For status changes that aren’t reversible without consequences (Cancelled, Archived), Assure Pro shows a confirmation.

The change is logged in the activity timeline and visible to everyone with view access on the engagement.

What changes when status changes

New status	Side effects
Active (from any)	The engagement re-appears in active views and pipelines. AI reminders resume. Recurring engagements that were paused stay paused — you have to explicitly resume the recurring schedule.
On hold (from Active)	AI reminders pause. Tasks stay open but are de-emphasized. The card greys on the pipeline.
Completed (from Active)	The pipeline card moves to the Done column (or the final stage of its pipeline). AI reminders stop. Outstanding tasks roll into a “Wrap-up” group.
Cancelled (from Active or On hold)	Outstanding tasks are marked Cancelled (not deleted). Pending invoices on the engagement stay but won’t auto-generate new ones.
Archived (from Completed or Cancelled)	The engagement disappears from default views. Restorable via the Show archived filter.

Status vs stage

Don’t confuse status with pipeline stage. Status is the overall state of the engagement. Stage is which column on the pipeline it’s in.

Status	Stage interaction
Active	Can be at any stage. Moves through stages normally.
On hold	Stays at whatever stage it was at when paused. Can’t move stages while on hold.
Completed	Always at the pipeline’s terminal stage. Can’t move backward without reactivating.
Cancelled	Stays at whatever stage it was at. Can’t move.
Archived	Stays at whatever stage it was at. Hidden from the board.

The 4 priorities

Priority	Card emphasis	Sort behavior	Typical usage
Low	Subtle blue badge	Sinks to the bottom in priority sort.	Non-urgent advisory, planning meetings, post-season cleanup.
Medium	No badge (default)	Standard sort.	Most work.
High	Orange badge	Surfaces near the top.	Approaching deadline, complex returns needing attention.
Urgent	Red badge with pulse	Always at the top.	Today-or-tomorrow deadline, client-impacting issue, IRS notice with short response window.

Setting priority

Three ways:

From the engagement detail page header — click the priority pill.
On a kanban card — right-click → Set priority.
In bulk — select multiple cards in the table view, then Set priority in the bulk action bar.

When Assure Pro auto-bumps priority

Engagements default to Medium at creation. Assure Pro automatically bumps to High when:

The due date is within 14 days and status is Active.
A blocker has been active for more than 7 days.
An IRS notice (manual blocker tagged for the IRS) is attached.

The auto-bump can be turned off per-firm at Settings → Workflow → Auto-priority (default: on).

Putting it together — typical flows

A standard 1040


created (Active, Medium)
→ work progresses, priority bumps to High near Apr 15 (auto)
→ filed (status manually moves to Completed)
→ archived next January when the new year's engagement is created (manual)

A client who stops responding


created (Active, Medium)
→ multiple reminders, no response
→ status changed to On hold (manual)
→ months later, client returns and uploads documents
→ status changed back to Active (manual), priority bumped to High
→ filed (Completed)

A withdrawn proposal


created (Active, Medium)
→ client decides to go with a different firm
→ status changed to Cancelled (manual)
→ no further work

Filtering by status and priority

The workflow page and the client detail Engagements tab both let you filter:

Status filter — multi-select, defaults to Active plus On hold (the engagements you’re actively managing). Toggle on Completed, Cancelled, or Archived to include the rest.
Priority filter — multi-select.

These combine with assignee, pipeline, and due-date filters. See Pipeline views.

Pipeline views — where you see status and priority on cards.
Stages & gates — pipeline stages vs status.
Custom pipelines — configuring auto-priority rules.