Software for accountants and tax practitioners




















QuickBooks Pro helps to automate the billing and invoicing process and work order management from a single reconciliation window. With 'Bank Account Reconciliation' feature, users can link their bank accounts and define workflows Online accounting software that provides features including invoicing, billing, payment tracking, payroll management, finance management, credit card processing, and receipt scanning.

Wave Accounting is designed to help businesses Happay is a cloud-based expense management solution that helps medium to large businesses manage and track expenses. It uses AI and machine learning technologies to automate processes related to expense claims management, reimburs QuickBooks Online Advanced is a cloud-based accounting solution that helps small to large enterprises manage expenses, projects, invoices and more. It comes with a centralized dashboard, which enables users to gain insights into b TimeSolv is a cloud-based legal time tracking and billing solution that caters to law firms, accountants, consultants, architects, and freelancers, helping them manage daily business operations.

TimeSolv integrates project ma BQE Core makes it easier and more profitable to run your business. It organizes information, automates repetitive tasks and allows your firm to spend more time providing service to your clients instead of managing internal process Zoho Books comes with automatic bank feeds, collaborative client portal, accounting and taxing, online payments, invoice templates and analytical reports.

The system allows users to manage multiple time sheets of different project Key features include project billing, time tracking, reporting, customiz Sage Intacct is a provider of cloud-based financial management and accounting software.

Sage Intacct's software solution is suitable for small to midsize accounting firms and can provide financial reporting and operational insight Sage cloud is a market-leading cloud-connected ERP platform for medium-sized manufacturers, distributors, and professional service businesses.

Financials, budgeting and planning, inventory, supply chain, production management, Patriot Software offers accounting software for American businesses and accountants. Patriot's accounting software is affordable and easy to use for the non-accountant, but has powerful capabilities for accountants.

Patriot Premiu Bench is the online bookkeeping platform for small business owners. Each month, Bench automatically gathers transaction data from all connected business accounts. Then, a dedicated team of bookkeepers ensures books are tax-ready. Agiled is an all in one business management platform. Users can manage all of their business in one place and provide a client portal acc Fetch Expense Reporting is a cloud-based expense tracking and reporting solution suitable for small and midsize businesses.

It allows employees to upload expense receipts from their smartphones and claim reimbursement from their e Accounting Software.

CPA Software. Searching for the best cpa software for your business? Save yourself time and stress. What is cpa software? Since Certified Public Accountants CPAs manage the finances for dozens, or even hundreds of corporations and individuals, they need software that can keep up. CPA-specific accounting programs will be designed for payroll, expense and reporting for multiple companies, and will also include useful tools like auditing, tax preparation and time-based billing.

Jump to:. Multi-company accounting Unlike other industries, professional accountants need to manage the accounting for multiple companies, so the software should allow you to categorize access all their data to keep it separated but easy to recall. Tax preparation The U.

Financial reports Reporting is a critical component for freelance accountants. Online forum. For Sales: Sign in. Other Intuit Services. View and track status of multiple clients in one view, and get automated data conversion from our Easy Start onboarding program. Pricing Demos FAQs. ProSeries Basic Pay-as-you-go pricing for and business returns Forms-based data entry, just like TurboTax Add to cart Try it free.

ProSeries Tax. Take the guesswork out of tax time and file returns faster and easier with the software that is trusted by more tax professionals than any other. ProSeries is now even better with the new option to add secure, cloud hosting so you can work from anywhere and on any device.

ProConnect Tax. Maximize your productivity with the 1 online professional tax software, Intuit ProConnect. Tap into powerful integrations that let you customize your experience and streamline your work all in one place. Plus, with the strong backing of Intuit security and the flexibility of the cloud, you can manage your practice when, where and however you want.

Can I use TurboTax as a professional tax preparer? Similar to , the Tax Book had the top rating 4. It is interesting to note that the products with the highest value for cost ratings also received the highest ease of use ratings; these ratings take on particular importance, given that ease of use is rated as the most important feature for research software.

The Tax Book had a sizable increase in its customer support rating, from 3. Bloomberg BNA was the only other product to see an increase in its customer support rating, from 3. The other products all experienced decreases in their customer support ratings.

Checkpoint 3. The ratings for timely updates decreased for all products, although four of the providers received ratings in excess of 4. Parker Tax Pro had the highest rating for this feature at 4.

Since survey respondents consider this to be the second most important feature of research software, the decreases in timely update ratings are somewhat concerning.

Finally, the company reliability ratings also decreased for all of the products, reaching their lowest level since this survey began in Bloomberg BNA had the highest rating for this feature 4. Except for Parker Tax Pro, all of the commercial tax research packages had been used by the survey respondents for five or more years on average; thus, respondents would generally be characterized as experienced users of the software.

Parker Tax Pro was used on average for three years, making its raters somewhat less experienced with the software. Similar to the past several years, the number of ratings received for free tax resources far exceeded those received for commercial tax research products, suggesting that they are becoming a more popular source of tax research material for tax professionals. The overall ratings for all of the free resources declined modestly from and are at essentially comparable levels in , ranging from 3.

The IRS website once again received the most ratings of all commercial and free research tools, but it was closely followed by ratings of state tax websites 94 and Google searches Other Internet searches received a comparatively small number of ratings Not surprisingly, value for cost is the most highly rated feature, and customer support is the lowest rated feature, for all of the free tax research resources.

Although ratings for individual features changed slightly from to , none of the changes were significant. It appears that the ratings for the free resources have reached a relatively steady level, and for some features the ratings do not vary significantly from one free resource to another.

All of the value for cost and customer service ratings are similar; however, survey respondents consider Google and other Internet searches to be easier than searches on the IRS and state tax department websites higher ease of use ratings.

While survey respondents find Google and other Internet searches to be a helpful tool, they undoubtedly recognize that the official IRS and state tax department websites are more reliable for obtaining and confirming technical tax guidance. Exhibit 5 provides descriptive detail on the tax research software users. The IRS website, state tax department web-sites, and other Internet resources were used across all firm sizes, but have a disproportionate amount of usage by the smaller firms.

This is similar to what has been reported in previous years. A look at the top-rated software by feature, in Exhibit 6 , shows that Drake Software continues to dominate the ratings for tax preparation packages in value for cost, customer support, and overall rating, a pattern that has been observed for several years.

Although CCH ProSystem fx was rated second overall, it did not have the highest ratings for any individual feature; however, it had the second highest rating for accuracy—the feature that respondents rated as most important—and availability of forms.

UltraTax CS, rated third overall, was rated highest on accuracy and availability of forms. Lacerte Tax, which was rated fourth overall, had the highest rating for ease of use for the second year running and the last four out of five years. There has been less consistency in the ratings for tax research software. In , the Tax Book was the highest-rated product overall and for ease of use for the second year in a row.

Ease of use is the feature that respondents rated as most important for research software, so it is not surprising that a high ranking on this feature influences the overall rating. The highest rating for value for cost in was Parker Tax Pro, which was excluded from the analysis due to a lack of ratings. The highest rankings for this feature have alternated between Parker Tax Pro and the Tax Book over the last several years. The Tax Book also earned the highest rating for customer support in , after Checkpoint and Bloomberg BNA each held this distinction during the previous three years.

Parker Tax Pro was the highest-rated research software package for timely updates, which was ranked by survey participants as the second most important feature for research software. Top rating for timely updates has also been held by Checkpoint and CCH during the last few years.

Interestingly, for top-rated the Tax Book, timely updates was the only feature for which it did not hold the first or second highest rating; for this feature, it was fourth out of five. The rankings for this feature were generally quite high, however, with an average of 4.

Finally, Bloomberg BNA was the highest-rated software for company reliability. CCH and the Tax Book also held the highest company reliability ratings during the last several years.

Which tax software features do practitioners consider the most important? For tax preparation software, accuracy and ease of use have consistently been the two most important features, although they have switched between first and second in some years.

Similar to previous years, cost remained in third place, and availability of forms was fourth. The remaining features—availability of states, customer support, familiarity, company reliability, and data security—were in fifth to ninth place, respectively, identical to Consistent with recent years, there is substantial gap between the two most important features—accuracy and ease of use—and the remaining features for tax preparation software.

For tax research products, ease of use, timely updates, and cost have typically been the top three features in terms of importance; however, there has been less consistency in their rankings than with tax preparation software. Ease of use was the most important feature in , although it ranked second in Cost dropped to the third most important feature after being first in Timely updates moved up from third most important feature in to second in ; however, the difference between the importance ratings of timely updates and cost is minor.

The ranking of customer support as the least important feature may be due to increased reliance on free tax research resources, which provide little or no support, and general dissatisfaction with the level of customer support for commercial products. Similar to the tax preparation rankings, the most important tax research features also show a gap between the top three and remaining qualities. In , the Tax Book had the highest rating for the most important tax research feature ease of use , while Parker Tax Pro had the highest ratings for the next two most important features timely updates and cost, respectively.

Repeating the same rankings as and , company reliability was reported as the fourth most important feature for tax research software, familiarity as fifth, availability of states as sixth, and customer support as the least important.

Several of the tax preparation software packages allow adopters to integrate practice management software or other applications with tax preparation software. These percentages are roughly similar to those reported in Other than cost, the most common reason given was dissatisfaction with customer service, which reinforces some of the general comments received on the survey and the decreases in customer service ratings observed in Other reasons given for changing software included technology issues, desiring more features or functions, and desiring a product that is easier to use.

Reliance on customer support was generally similar to , with some shifts in the usage of support options. Outsourcing has again been appearing in practice-related articles as a popular means to address both of these issues. Historically, outsourcing was utilized by only a small percentage of survey respondents, and the topic was dropped from the and questionnaires. In addition to the issues discussed above, the survey asked respondents about the extent to which several issues created problems for them during the tax season.

The issues included in the survey were identified from news articles and discussion boards monitored during the past busy season. The best tax service for professionals is one that lets you prepare and file state and federal returns for a variety of client needs: Individuals, business owners, freelancers, or contractors should all be well-taken-care-of. Moreover, a good tax solution should make your job easier through e-filing capabilities, client management tools, electronic file sharing, electronic signatures, refund estimators, and third-party integrations with relevant applications, such as data-import and accounting products.

Platform efficiency was also at the top of our list of criteria while preparing our professional tax software reviews. We focused on scalable, customizable, and easy-to-use solutions. Most companies provide downloadable software for Windows and Mac computers, cloud-based products, and even mobile apps for faster filing.

The products we listed also contain step-by-step guidance and tax explanations to help you to complete your tax returns. We made a point to choose companies that offer trial periods, demo versions, and money-back guarantees on their products. Finally, we made sure to test their customer service channels, help pages, and any educational resources each provider included. Developed by Intuit, ProSeries is a comprehensive but reasonably priced tax software for tax professionals.

According to the ProSeries website, more than 58, accounting professionals have been using this Intuit solution year after year. There are two ProSeries plans to choose from — Basic, designed for users who limit their preparation to forms, and Professional, created for accounting firms handling both personal and business returns. Both tax prep software plans are tiered, highly customizable, and can only be purchased on an annual subscription basis.

The ProSeries Basic plan is an excellent choice for those just starting out with returns and their accompanying Schedules.

Each plan comes with a set number of federal returns and state returns that you can file. The ProSeries Basic pricing structure works as follows:. The plan includes 50 federal returns and 50 individual state returns in two states. This expert-level solution comes with four packages to choose between.

The features contained within the Professional packages match the capabilities offered with the three ProSeries Basic solutions but also include additional support, multi-user access additional fees apply with some packages , cloud hosting additional fees apply with all packages , and K-1 import, along with client checklists, presentations, and tax planning suggestions.

The Choice package supports returns, individual returns for all states, state business returns , S, , , and , federal business returns , S, , , and , and estate and gift returns and It lets you file returns more than federal forms and schedules , individual returns for all states, state business returns , S, , , and , federal business returns , S, , , and , and gift and estate tax returns and There are no filing limits.

One of the best things about this tax preparation software company is that all its packages come with step-by-step onboarding support for new users. To make your transition to its software as smooth as possible, Intuit lets you convert previous tax year data from your current online tax preparation software and upload taxpayer personal information, important carryover amounts, and names of interest to your new tax-prep application.

The things that make it the best tax software for tax preparers are its attractive price points for small and mid-sized accounting firms, on-premise and cloud access, and seamless integration with other Intuit applications.

On the downside, business returns are only available for more expensive packages, and the software cannot perform complex functions, such as consolidating subsidiary or oil and gas returns. This accurate, thorough, and streamlined solution offers excellent value to tax professionals handling any type of federal or state tax returns for a variety of client needs. Drake Tax provides a scalable solution that offers e-filing, multi-state returns, document management, tax organizers, and MFJ to MFS comparison for a fraction of the price many other companies would charge.

Although its services are mostly used by accounting firms with small to mid-sized business clients, Drake Tax also offers support for complex tax situations.

The software comes with all forms, federal and state packages, as well as forms for S-corps, C-corps, partnerships, trusts, estates, and tax-exempt organizations. As one of the tax software companies known for their affordable solutions, Drake offers seasonal discounts on its Unlimited and Power Bundle products. Both versions of the program are packed with features to help tax professionals prepare returns for their clients quickly and efficiently.

The software is relatively easy to use, and it comes with demos, explanatory videos, a user manual, a handy reference guide, and similar resources we suggest you use to make the most of all capabilities offered by Drake Tax.

During tax season from December 3 to April 19 , agents are available from 8 a.



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