What you can access
The Communication history gives you access to view available digital correspondence we send to your clients on the following channels:
- myGov
- SMS
- paper
- agent digital – used to send digital communications to Online services for agents when you've set up Communication preferences to your practice
- ATO Online – used to send a digital copy of a statement of tax record and digital activity statement notice.
Some communications cannot be sent digitally. These will continue to be sent by post and won't be viewable in Communication history. We'll continue to add more communication types to enhance this function further.
If your client registers for a myGov account and links it to the ATO, they'll get an email or SMS notification from myGov to let them know there are new messages in their myGov Inbox.
Communication preferences
If you set communication preferences for your client to your practice, then the client won't get an email or SMS notification from myGov. However, the correspondence will be available in Client Mail and Communication history in Online services for agents and Communication history in the clients myGov Inbox.
Viewing communications history
To view a client's communication history, see Communication history – client summary.
To view your communication history, from the agent home page:
- select Communication then Communication history
- select or deselect All clients depending on the communications you want to view.
- for up to 3 clients deselect All clients and type the client identifier.
- if searching for multiple clients you can only use the same identifier type, TFN or ABN – you can use a combination of the identifier and name.
- select Type
- Communications – list of available digital correspondence sent to your clients
- Activity statements – Digital Activity Statement Notice – Digital quarterly GST and PAYG instalment notices
- select Time period using the drop-down menu – Last 24 hours; Last 7 days; Last 30 days; Last 5 years (client summary only); or Choose dates
- select Channel
- myGov
- SMS
- paper
- agent digital
- ATO online services
- then Search – results will be displayed
- select Download CSV – a new window will open with the search results as an Excel spreadsheet
- select Print friendly version to print or save a copy.
You can also watch our How to view client communication history video.
Viewing and downloading statements
You can view and download a digital activity statement notice for quarterly GST and PAYG instalments (forms R, S and T) for your clients who lodge activity statements electronically.
To view and download a client's digital activity statement notice from the agent home page:
- select Communication then Communication history
- select or deselect All Clients depending on what you want to view
- then select Activity statements box, and deselect Communications box
- select the Time period and then Search – this'll display the list of clients and their Digital Activity Statement Notice.
Paper delivery preference
If your client's registered delivery preference is paper, we'll continue to send paper instalment notices. We don't change their delivery preferences from paper to electronic unless you have lodged electronically.