Online Professional Tax Prep… Is it time, yet?
In the upcoming July issue of The CPA Technology Advisor, I’ve written a column that discusses why few tax and accounting professionals are using an online tax preparation system for their client returns. Considering how popular online tax prep is for do-it-yourselfers, I think it’s a curious situation. Some might blame it on the old stereotype of the “tech-leery” accountant. I think there are many reasons, but I don’t buy that argument anymore.
Tax and accountng professionals are no longer tech curmudgeons… they are pretty savvy, actually. And many have recently turned to online (aka hosted/SaaS) applications for many other areas of their practices, so they’re obviously not “leery” of remotely hosted programs anymore. Personally, I think professionals are ready. But there aren’t many options yet, and if you’re brand loyal to your tax compliance system (or just don’t want to learn a new system), what choice do you have?
So, here’s my question to you…
Would you use an online professional-level tax prep system if it was offered by your vendor?
And a followup…
Would you consider changing to an online system if it was offered by a different tech vendor, but one that you was familiar to you?
Let me know. You can reply below - no registration required.
My expirience with CPA’s is they are very loyal to the tax prep software they have become familiar with over the years. The approach of , “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” I think is the overwhelming feeling among many CPA’s. I don’t think they are as tech leery as they are just comfortable with the solutions they already have.
As a 3rd question (if I may) Would you consider moving your software you already know and love to a hosting provider to be delivered like a Saas solution but with the exact same software you already use?
Thanks for following, Byron. I agree that SALY (”Same as last Year”) is often the guiding principle in practices when it comes to tax prep. And it isn’t really a brand loyalty anymore as it is the fear of changing something so integral to a practice as its tax compliance system.
That’s why in the first question, I asked professionals if they would change to a hosted version of the same program they already use… I should have included the ASP model. The point being that if they could get the same program as a hosted application, would they move to it? It really gets rid of a lot of the headaches associated with tax programs- with all of the updates that come between Jan. 1 and late February… plus the remote accessibility to it would be useful to many professionals (imagine having dinner with your family in April!)
Byron- Since your company offers hosted services, including hosting of tax prep and accounting systems, please post your company name and link. Note that this is not an endorsement of your company, but I’d welcome any ASP vendors who offer tax prep system hosting to announce it here so that our followers know they have this option.
Yes, it is time. Actually I think we are behind the times as a profession in this area. Simply look at the number of people who now file returns online using the various tax vendors. That is a huge market for online professional tax services that is already waiting for us as a profession to come around. I feel like the road to this change is littered with many obstacles that will force tax preparers to change the way they currently get from start to finish with a tax return. Most of the time it is not as easy as simply providing online tax services one day as a preparer and using the same old techniques for work papers, document retention and client tax return delivery. Most of the time the whole system (or at least part of it) must be modified. This task appears daunting and scares many away from the change. With this in mind, I think many in the profession would welcome their vendor to give them the ability for online tax prep, but I feel that changing vendors altogether for this one perk is an uphill battle.
Great points Isaac! Brand loyalty is less the issue as just change in general to a new interface and screens. Also, thanks for clarifying question 1. You had said it clearly but in my mind I translated it to something like (dare I say it) QuickBooks Online… sorry to anyone I have offended
Thanks for the invite to share my corporate info here,
Hosted Solutions Inc
http://www.goapps.us
bpatrick@goapps.us
We focus on CPA firms so we can help anyone wishing to move their practice and applications to the cloud.
Beau, your concerns are what I hear a lot, which is why companies like ours are a great answer because we can provide you that same interface you are already comfortable with and the security and portability in the cloud all in one package.
In response to the suggestion of Isaac Obannon, I am giving details of our company. Our company Real Time Data Services http://www.myrealdata.com has been hosting tax applications for the last 4 years. We have
customers who have hosted tax software with us such as Proseries, Lacerte, UltraTax, ATX etc.
We found that our customers were happy in the sense that we could host all of their previous versions of the software also. They normally want the previous 4 to 5 versions hosted so that they can handle tax returns of some of the clients for the previous few years as well. Additionally, they could also host a few years of QuickBooks versions so that they could export the QuickBooks data to the tax software directly on the hosted server.
In one case, we simply did a P2V (Physical to Virtual) for a CPA firm. We generated an image of the existing windows 2003 terminal server located in their office and moved this image over the internet to our data center and hosted exactly the same server using that image. The configuration, the installed applications, the users and everything else was exactly the same. So, there was no need for re-installations of applications or doing the configuration setting.
Some of the questions that arose in the client’s mind while migrating the existing local installation to the data center were:
1. How will we move such a large server image to the data center? Our internet speeds are not that fast.
2. Should we mail the hard disk to the data center?
3. Will it interrupt our work while the server is being moved? (There were fears that there may be a downtime for such a large server to be moved.)
The answers were however, extremely simple.
To the first question, our answer was to use advanced delta technology. The server image could be moved bit by bit over the existing normal broadband internet connection. It took 48 hrs to move but there was no downtime even during the migration period. The users could continue to work on their existing local server even while the image was being transported over the internet..
once the image was moved, we simply hosted the server. New or changed files on the existing server, during the migration period were a few MBs in size. we moved them over in 15 minutes - The users could connect to the new server in exactly the same environment with a downtime of only a few minutes.
We find that there is an increasing level of interest in CPA firms to move their servers to a data center because it provides them the ability to work from anywhere during the busy tax season. It also enables them to outsource tax preparation work to home workers or even outside of the national boundaries. They do not have to worry about backups, Security or downtime. 24×7 phone and chat support enables our customers to have the issues resolved in a few minutes most of the time. In a local environment, normally they have to wait for a tech to arrive if there is any issue with the server but not if the server is hosted. The response is rapid and it is 24×7.
Our company Real Time Data Services has filled a long standing need of the CPA firms to be able to host tax software. This season we are reaching out to a large number of CPA firms. In fact we have a new offer that allows CPA firms to try out a hosted tax software server for one month without any charges or commitment. They are allowed to have unlimited number of remote users during the trial period.
The process of setting up a hosted tax server (unless migrated P2V) is time consuming and can take up to 8 to 10 hrs of tech time. But we have ventured to give free trials because we feel that some of the CPA firms do not want to try out because they are not sure if it will work out for them or not. And it is our experience that once online - they do not want to give it up so easily. It is also our belief that if a CPA firm is willing to work with us to set up a hosted server, they are investing their valuable time with us and it is definitely not a frivolous attempt on their part to do it for fun sake. Time is equally important for them. Therefore, recognizing this fact, we decided that it is worthwhile investing those 8 t o10 hrs with them to give them a real life experience of a hosted tax software environment and once online - they are not going to go back to the old system. It is a win win situation for both the parties.
I hope the above information helps.