TaxDome and Paper-Based Clients

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#1
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About 60% of my clients are purely paper-based and 40%, to varying extents and enthusiasm, work partly or wholly electronically. I currently use Sharefile as my portal and TPS for practice management. The idea of having it all under one roof is appealing. So I have been looking at Tax Dome, which is not much more expensive for a sole practitioner than my current providers combined.

I see the benefits that Tax Dome has for clients who work electronically. I like the iPhone app a lot. For those who use Tax Dome and have paper-based clients, do you think it works well enough for those clients? Although I like the mobile app, that may not apply to clients. What is your experience with clients using the app?

I charge by the hour - it works for me. However, I see no way to write off WIP against a fee note. In fact, I do not see any mention of WIP as such. I have asked Tax Dome this question but they have yet to answer it directly. Which leads me to another thought. How good is customer support? Is it script-based on do they trouble-shoot the actual problem?

I have looked at Firm360 (it's just me with no admin help so too expensive), Financial Cents (relies on QBO for billing, but I market myself as "Not QuickBooks") and Drake Portals (have studiously avoided answering a straightforward question for months).

Edited for typos.
Last edited by SumwunLost on 18-May-2023 6:41am, edited 2 times in total.
 

#2
smtcpa  
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We moved from Sharefile to Taxdome this tax season. I would say that the Taxdome portal easily replaces the Sharefile portal, but clients like TD a lot more. For paper-based clients, it makes no difference what system you use. Taxdome is more about tracking and automating workflow so you will get a lot more out of it than just Sharefile.

I honestly cannot say how many clients have used the app. I don't have a way of knowing so I can't help there.

As far as Taxdome billing, we don't use it and likely never will. We use Harvest to track time, and QBO to bill (which has been a game changer). It's pretty hard to find one platform that does everything really well, so I stopped looking for time and billing with my practice management a long time ago.

Overall we are very happy with Taxdome and look forward to the next stages of using it more fully.
 

#3
Miami88  
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I started using Taxdome this year and it was great for all the remote clients and for the few hybrid clients that used it. Because I have so many paper clients I still tracked everything "the old way" using excel just to make sure nothing fell through the cracks. I ended up not using pipelines for the 100% paper clients but did upload the returns to their portal for future use. I had planned on making the use of Taxdome optional, but I really plan on pushing that to required (less a few elderly clients).

I don't know if anyone used the app, didn't receive any comments on that.

I did use Taxdome billing for the 100% remote clients and it worked well but I just do very simple billing, "2022 Tax Prep - $xxx".

I have used support before and they have been very helpful and responsive. I plan on using more features in the future and tweaking it so it works better for me.
 

#4
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Thanks, both, for the thoughts. So it seems that the positives I found are the ones that you have experienced.

Miami88, why did you not use the pipelines for paper clients?

smtcpa, I looked at Harvest, but I can't get it to write off WIP. I tried the fixed fee and the hourly billing with the Example account but neither one achieves what I need it to. I haven't yet e-mailed them so there may be a trick I'm missing. I am strictly by the hour and write up and down as appropriate. I would love to find something that will let me send a $350 bill with, say, $300 on the clock and anticipated further time of $50 after I send the bill.
 

#5
smtcpa  
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Harvest is definitely a weak T&B app. And the reporting I have to do through using Zapier to send my data to Google Sheets where I have pivot tables. Not the best, but the only solution I found without breaking the bank.
SumwunLost wrote:
smtcpa, I looked at Harvest, but I can't get it to write off WIP. I tried the fixed fee and the hourly billing with the Example account but neither one achieves what I need it to. I haven't yet e-mailed them so there may be a trick I'm missing. I am strictly by the hour and write up and down as appropriate. I would love to find something that will let me send a $350 bill with, say, $300 on the clock and anticipated further time of $50 after I send the bill.
 

#6
Miami88  
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SumwunLost wrote:Miami88, why did you not use the pipelines for paper clients?



1) I implemented TD late and at the beginning it seemed like more work for me for those clients (I'm solo)
2) I don't have emails for a lot of those clients so they wouldn't be getting updates or requests anyway
3) TD does have a learning curve and I've realized I probably need a separate pipeline for those clients that is more streamlined
 

#7
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That makes a lot of sense, Miami88. Agreed on the learning curve! Separate pipelines sounds like a good idea for the 100% paper holdouts. Mind you, I discussed electronic communication with an 85 year-old client. He revealed that he has an e-mail address and he would "reactivate it" if it is something he could use. He was quite high up in a tobacco company and I think he understands that if something is efficient for me, it is good business for him. I wish I could clone him 300 times over. I'd be done by Memorial Day.
 

#8
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So here I am with 24 hours left on my TaxDome trial. Apparently, they are building a WIP system from the ground up. Still considering options.

Option 1 - TaxDome
It costs serious dollars, all up front. If it does everything well that I want it to do, it may well be worth the money. What I want is:
(a) Paperless 8879 signing. I assume it is worth the dollar a signature.
(b) Syncing e-mails and texts. That would tidy up my inbox quite a bit, but is there a way to tag an e-mail for a particular job? I want to keep e-mails for, say, payroll, accounting and tax separate. Pipe dream? Or pipeline?
(c) Mobile app. It looks good to me but it seems there is no way of knowing if it works for clients without rolling it out and then seeking opinions.

Option 2 - Current Practice Management (TPS) and Drake Portals
Considerably cheaper, by hundreds of dollars a year. Drake Portals would give me (a) for a small extra cost and TPS would give me (b) if I move up one tier - insignificant extra cost. The big problem I have is that I asked about a scenario some months ago and have yet to be afforded the courtesy of a response. Imagine a partnership return with three partners but I only do the 1040 for one. My question was whether I could link the non-client partners to the Drake Portals file. Does anyone happen to know the answer to this? Mind you, I'm thinking that the lack of an answer (I have asked three different people at Drake) might tell me something about whether i should buy into the Drake ecosystem so deeply.

Any and all thoughtful replies would be most welcome.
 

#9
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In my opinion, the advantages of whatever kind of system you choose far outweigh the cost.
My point being, it doesn't matter what the cost of either is. They are all in the ballpark. Choose the one that addresses your problem(s) best. Bringing cost into it distracts from the proper focus on decision points.
~Captcook
 

#10
smtcpa  
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The paperless 8879 works great.

I don't think you can tie emails to jobs (not that I have found) but we found we end up using the messages almost exclusively (not that those can be tied to jobs either). But our process is to print everything into a single PDF for 1040 tax workpapers or print individual emails/message threads to their tax workpaper folder, so it makes tying emails to jobs irrelevant.

I can't comment on the mobile app. I would set yourself up as a client and try it. I think it works great. I have no idea how many clients have used the app, all I can say is I have never received compliments on a portal system like I have with Taxdome. Clients seem to really like it.

SumwunLost wrote:
Option 1 - TaxDome
It costs serious dollars, all up front. If it does everything well that I want it to do, it may well be worth the money. What I want is:
(a) Paperless 8879 signing. I assume it is worth the dollar a signature.
(b) Syncing e-mails and texts. That would tidy up my inbox quite a bit, but is there a way to tag an e-mail for a particular job? I want to keep e-mails for, say, payroll, accounting and tax separate. Pipe dream? Or pipeline?
(c) Mobile app. It looks good to me but it seems there is no way of knowing if it works for clients without rolling it out and then seeking opinions.
 

#11
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Aye, you're right CaptCook. That was just me being a parsimonious Scotsman, if that's not a tautology. If TaxDome does roughly what it says it will and if it saves me less than five hours a year, the extra cost is worth it. I expect to keep TPS around for billing until I can be confident that TD has something that works.

smtcpa, glad to hear about the paperless 8879 and not surprised about the e-mails. Still, it's a step forward. I tried the mobile app. I like it a lot. It feels as if it's idiot-proof, but then I feel about that with Sharefile and it's amazing how many clients mess it up.

I think I'm going to pull the trigger and roll it out over the summer, client by client. My Sharefile plan is $120 per year (yes, year) so I'll probably keep that till summer 2024. Inclining towards a one year plan to see how it goes. If it doesn't work, I will revisit Option 2.

Thanks for all the thoughts.
 

#12
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CaptCook wrote:Choose the one that addresses your problem(s) best. Bringing cost into it distracts from the proper focus on decision points.


This is especially true given the cost of TaxDome. It's $800 per year for a one-person firm. In the grand scheme of things, the cost of this decision is better measured in time -- the time you invest in setting up and maintaining your system, the time you can save during tax season, the time you spend if you don't implement the right solution, etc.

SumwunLost wrote:Mind you, I'm thinking that the lack of an answer (I have asked three different people at Drake) might tell me something about whether i should buy into the Drake ecosystem so deeply.


My gut feeling about the private equity company taking over Drake has been that the portal will not exist in its current form in a couple years. I expect it to be either sold off to another portal provider or used as a foundation to build a larger suite of software, even potentially into a TaxDome competitor. Your current customer service experience is unfortunate, but even without that, I would be generally hesitant to start using their portals until I had a better feeling of where the product was going.
 

#13
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Good points, missingdonut. Just signed up for a year.
 

#14
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SumwunLost wrote:Good points, missingdonut. Just signed up for a year.


As a last thought on this, given the implementation cost (the single biggest cost of this kind of change), I wouldn't enter into any system with the thought of having it for fewer than three years (MINIMUM!!). The thought of "I've only purchased one year's subscription" is also ignoring this implementation/transition cost.
I expect my system to last for 5-10. If you can't get comfortable enough or conceptually commit to that timeline, gather more information. Talk to other practitioners on the platform. Whatever you need to get there. If you don't, you may find yourself very frustrated if you really don't like it in a year. Whatever time in the next month or so you can spend to get there will be good time spent.
You won't go back to not having a platform like this, the advantages are too great, but the implementation is a meaningful cost.

I hope that helps.
~Captcook
 

#15
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Oh I’m going into this with every intention of using it for years. However, for now, I want to make sure the service is as good as it seems. I am minded of the old gambling maxim. Never bet more than you can cheerfully afford to lose.

You’re right about implementation time being the biggest cost. Indeed, it was the time argument that swayed me. It doesn’t take many hours to make back the increased cost.
 

#16
Preppie  
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I switched to TxD this year and mostly loved it. It was a great improvement over Drake Portal, which I had been using for 5 years.
I like the chat feature for client communications. I found the one built into Drake unhelpful to the point that I disabled it. TxD's is quite good for getting the additional information needed to complete the return. BUT - one lesson learned: it is very much like SMS texting in that clients seem to expect a response (or at least acknowledgement) within a few hours. Set expectations accordingly.
 

#17
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Yes, that is something that crossed my mind, Preppie. I am putting together a letter to clients now and that is something I have to word as delicately as possible, without my point being too subtle for those who need a baseball bat to knock something into their head.
 

#18
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How does this sound?

"Although texting is often seen as “instantaneous” please bear in mind that I may not be able to reply immediately. My most important client is the one whose file is in front of me at that moment. At some point in tax season, that person will be YOU."

That's the third and final paragraph in the Texting section of the letter I'm drafting.
 

#19
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I would convey that messaging via the platform will get the same attention level as emails. For me, that means acknowledgement or a meaningful response within two business days.

As much as I love my clients, work-life balance is important and I don't think the reasonable ones are going to expect a message back immediately, especially if the original message was sent outside of business hours or on the weekend. It is a business relationship after all. Boundaries are important.
 


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