New Features Announcement
As a result of continued growth and feedback from users, the Ohio Business Gateway made a number of important enhancements and added features on March 30, 2009.
General updates to promote ease-of-use included the following:
- Improved navigation throughout the site, including fewer screens during the login and checkout processes.
- Easy access to any service or transaction offered on OBG using a new, consolidated site-wide home page. You no longer have to "check" the services you want to access as you login. The new home page still provides the ability to start, edit, or review any transactions that have not yet been confirmed during checkout.
- An enhanced checkout process that combines confirmation of filing and payment in one simple step. No transactions will be filed and no payments will be made until you press the "confirmation" button during the checkout process.
- Quick access to all historical filings via the "History" link at the top of the home page. Prior confirmations and checkout receipts are also available in the history section.
New features help manage users and their access to OBG, and are conveniently grouped under the "Administration" link at the top of the home page:
- The ability to define or limit the specific OBG services that users may access. Administrators (primary users) can choose the specific services (e.g. Sales Tax, CAT, Worker's Compensation, Unemployment Compensation Tax, etc.) that a user may access on behalf of the company. Within each service, the administrator can further define whether or not the user may file (checkout) transactions or only create/edit transactions.
- The ability to authorize service providers, CPAs, and representatives to use OBG on behalf of the company. Company Administrators can establish and manage "shared access" for service provider organizations similar to the way they manage their own individual users' access. Service providers manage their users and decide which users should have access to each client.
As a result of these new features, the number of sign-on accounts needed by service providers, CPAs, and representatives are significantly reduced. Service providers are able to logon with one Username/Password and then change to the home page of a client in order to complete transactions on behalf of the client. The ability to use OBG on behalf of any client is dependent upon each client establishing and managing the access of the service provider organization as mentioned above.
Many things have not changed, enabling pre-update OBG users to use the enhanced system with little impact:
- All pre-update OBG user IDs and passwords continue to work, and users continue to have the same level of access to OBG until it is changed.
- The overall look and feel of the site remains the same. The consolidated site-wide home page is very similar to the previous service area home pages (e.g. Sales Tax, CAT, Worker's Compensation, Unemployment Compensation Tax, etc.).
- Screens for creating transactions and entering data remain virtually unchanged. You'll continue to enter data for Sales Tax UST-1 returns, CAT returns, withholding returns, etc. the same as before.
Please visit the OBG Electronic Filing Help section for more information on how to use all of the new and existing features.
