Canopy vs. Sovos Intelligent Compliance Cloud

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

In our case, sales and use tax are a must-have. With the recent change and continuous change in tax law, companies find it harder to comply with tax without a system. In our case, managing thousands of customers with thousands of tax codes - city tax, state tax, zone tax - proves to be a challenge. We need a system to minimize any exposure with federal and state tax law, and certainly protect us from an audit.

Incentivized

• 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

• They are good at updating the tax tables with all the new sales tax law changes
• They are good at charging the correct sales tax amount as long as the software is set up or configured correctly
• They are good at following up at sales tax correspondences

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

• The admin portal needs work - I cannot simply add and remove users, and have to create a case support. I think this is a low-hanging fruit Sovos is working on to resolve.
• The UI could be improved.
• The sync does not always happen instantly and sometime can take up to 24 hours.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

For the most part, the support team is responsive. However, with the recent switch from a legacy server to S1 server, Sovos created a problem for us. We simply can't upload a tax certificate. I logged a case with support, and they could not help, so they escalate to their senior technician. All in all, it has been more than 7 days, and they could not resolve a "simple" issue.

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

I have used sales tax tables in the past and they are a lot more accurate as long as the configuration is done correctly up front. I have also used Avalara. Avalara has a more consumer friendly interface and better reporting function

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

• It saved us a lot of time and money but eliminating the manpower needed to process manually ourselves
• It helped reduce the time needed to follow up and resolve sales tax correspondences
• It helped reduce costs and time to register in new taxing jurisdications

Incentivized