Canopy vs. QuickBooks Desktop Pro

If you want to have an all in one solution for managing you clients (from sales lead to loyal client) this is the answer. We rarely have to use other systems to take a client from a lead to completing their taxes or representation case. It's also given us the freedom to switch our business model to focus on value added pricing and shift to be an advisory focused firm. If you want to pump out hundreds of returns and don't care about managing your clients on a long term basis because you're a quantity over quality shop, you may not find value in the software.

Incentivized

For a small business, QuickBooks Desktop Pro is great! For a larger, more complex business, another system may be more beneficial. We actually run multiple businesses on QuickBooks Desktop Pro, but all are very small. The help feature is sometimes so beneficial, and sometimes it seems like you just can't get the right answer and need to find a workaround - but this is usually for more complex issues.

• As TheCPATaxProblemSolver, Canopy is a great timesaver in helping me complete IRS Offer In Compromises. An Offer in Compromise (OIC) is an IRS program that allows taxpayers to settle their liabilities for less than the full amount owed.
• I use analytics contained in the state-of-the-art Canopy tax resolution software to calculate smart recommendations based on each unique case to arrive at the best solution and prepare successful cases.
• Canopy tax has an all in one practice management software. It features Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Document Management, Workflow Management, as well as Billing and Invoicing

Incentivized

• It is easy to manage and adjust inventory on hand.
• It is easy to make reports and customize them to your needs.
• We also use it to pay our employees directly.
• It is easy to make year-to-year comparisons to see where we can make improvements and the current financial situation.

Incentivized

• Connectivity with Outlook for email tracking - the connection is sometimes lost and there is no notification. You just look for your email trail and there is nothing.
• Electronic signatures for multiple contacts on one document with some fields being optional would be a great help.
• Being able to see contact transcripts in the client record view versus just the transcript screen would be more efficient.

Incentivized

• QuickBooks Desktop Pro has been around for a few years and after an update[,] they force you to look at the changes/updates before you can use [them] after updating.
• QuickBooks Desktop Pro does not have 2FA.
• QuickBooks Desktop Pro should offer a way to store backups to a personal cloud without having to map a local network drive.

Incentivized

I'd love to keep using it, and do intend to - though we've not been pleased with price increases over the past several years. In fact, we used to subscribe to the payroll service, but QuickBooks priced themselves out of reach for us, so we discontinued that. Currently, pricing would be the primary reason for NOT renewing, if we didn't.

Incentivized

The set up was quite easy. I took some online training causes, and figured our the rest pretty quickly. The only issue I had during the implementation process was it was very hard to change some of the GL Account name to reflect the needs of a non-profit organization, such as Net Assets. At the end I had to scratch what I did, and used the existing formats that the third-party bookkeeping firm shared. Everything else is simple and easy to manage and implement.

Incentivized

I haven't experienced a time when QuickBooks Pro was unavailable when I needed it in the entire 20 years of using the software

Incentivized

We had to contact the company many times because of the problems we were encountering. They were not helpful in any way

Incentivized

They are awful. Intuit doesn't spend real money on support. They appear to have typically said, first-level script readers who are sending messages to the senior people for anything even a little bit difficult. Many of them don't speak particularly good English. Considering that they recently doubled (or, if you are paying annually, tripled) their pricing, and touted as one of the benefits that it includes [..] support, it's a real ripoff. However, we have to use the product because it is ubiquitous. I look forward to the day a competitor comes up with something good enough, which has excellent support, that matches all the features QuickBooks Desktop Pro currently has [...] or at least gives us a way to have all the functionality we currently have without excessive sacrifice [...] so that we can switch. I was very satisfied with QuickBooks for many years. This latest [rise] in price, and their sheer gall at touting the benefit of the 100 to 200% increase as being [the] inclusion of support, is what turned me so far against them.

Incentivized

Best thing I ever did was to attend a two day training seminar on QuickBooks, I learned an immense amount in a short time with hands on training by experts. I strongly recommend such training for anyone using any part of the software. It will pay for itself in the first month.

We implemented the software ourselves. The training we received on the software was done by taking a community course teaching us how to use QuickBooks. It allowed me to get started with some basics of how to use the program and have not needed much assistance since completing the course work.

Incentivized

Canopy works efficiently for all the companies, more so the CPA firms and other programs have no such advancement. The existence of an individualized client portal from Canopy is a remarkable step. Canopy records the due dates for a project and checks them when they are near or notifies the user.

Incentivized

We tried switching from QuickBooks Desktop Pro to QuickBooks Online, but there were a lot of issues and bugs so we ultimately decided to stay with Desktop Pro. Unfortunately, we are losing a lot of Online Banking capabilities on 5/31 as we have an older version of QB, but we plan to stick with Desktop Pro. In terms of invoicing, SaaSOptics beats QuickBooks in almost all aspects as it's all automated and takes seconds to create and send invoices. However, SaaSOptics is not really a full ERP program so it wouldn't serve us as a main bookkeeping software like QB.

Incentivized

• We have eliminated our admin position as our tasks are more streamlined.
• We can support a year-round client demand breaking the season-to-season cash cycle.
• We're looking to become 100% remote/virtual helping clients all over the country/world within the next 12 months due to this cloud solution.

Incentivized

• Training time is low compared to other accounting packages
• It was difficult to adapt to DCAA requirements, [which] required [the] hiring of [a] special consultant for that
• QuickBooks Desktop Pro is a standard for small companies and makes it easy to hire bookkeepers

Incentivized