Whether you’re new to the tax industry or you’ve been preparing tax returns for a few years now, comparing tax software products based on recent industry standards is a must-do. While you might have your mind made about what software you’d like to use; comparing the best professional tax preparation software products could draw your attention to what your software is missing, or to a software product that has new features you’re missing out on. In this article, we’ll help you make a best rated professional tax software comparison based on a few criteria, so you can make a more informed choice.
List Your Needs
First, we suggest you start your list of tax software products by writing down your main needs. In order to avoid naming every tax software product in the industry, we suggest you keep the software products that lack one or many of your main needs out of your list. For example, if you’re planning to grow your business and expand to more than your current location in the future, any software that doesn’t support multiple locations should not make it to your list in the first place. Most tax businesses look at a few criteria when choosing their software such as e-filing limit, bank product integration, third-party gadget support, as well as multiple locations setup. You can start with these comparison criteria for now and get your list shorter as you go.
Read User Reviews
When you download a demo of the tax software you’re considering, you get to see how the interface functions. However, not all issues -or benefits- appear when you try the software for a few hours. Reading best tax software for professionals reviews helps you identify long-term issues based on what current and previous users of the software you’re considering had faced. This could save you a lot of time, since it’d be a time-consuming, pricey process to change from one software to another during the tax season.
Getting Paid
The next criteria you should consider is collecting payments. Some tax offices still prefer to keep it old school and charge their fees upfront. However, tax season isn’t the best time for everyone to pay a few hundred dollars before receiving their refund. This is why best professional tax preparer software with bank products is becoming more of a popular choice thanks to the benefits it offers. With bank products, you can get paid when your clients’ returns get funded and offer your clients a wide variety of benefits such as cash advances and several disbursement methods to choose from. Bank products also offer businesses benefits such as start-up loans to keep tax business cash-positive during the tax season.
Software Providers
In our best professional tax software review, we found that some people prefer to deal with service bureau, and others prefer main providers. While the software remains the same no matter where you get it from; the package it’s part of differs from one provider to another. The main difference is how fees are set up. Most service bureaus charge less for the software up front, with more bank product fees charged to taxpayers, while main providers charge more upfront, with less bank products fees charged to clients. There isn’t a standard, which is why you should compare each and every single offer you received or found individually and decide what’d work for your needs.