CCH® SureTax® vs. Keap

I would put CCH® SureTax® at the top of the scale for any Telecom business or anyone with a known tax scenario that will be similarly sketchy. This software, while not always user friendly, can do amazing things to help you navigate the tax issues facing us all today. This would not be appropriate for a company just needing help gathering their sales tax information. There are plenty of other, friendlier solutions, possibly what they are already using for their accounting that will do it cleaner, easier and cheaper. You just have to ask an expert in that software.

Incentivized

Keap is very good at contact management and automation creation but weaker at email campaign creation. I was particularly interested in a function where when manually entering a new contact, you are then able to email that contact using a premade HTML template. It will currently not do this. There is a workaround, but it is unnecessarily ponderous.

Incentivized

• Maintains Nexus nationwide.
• Implements all of the various sales tax rates nationwide automatically.
• Clean website that is very user friendly.
• Support is very quick to respond and always fixes any issues you may be having.
• We have had this since 2013, and not one time has a sales tax rate been wrong. We used to have Avalara, where we had 12 different overrides in their system just to calculate the correct tax. It is nice not having to maintain those.

Incentivized

• Pricing: Keap Max Classic (formerly Infusionsoft) is affordable for nonprofits and small businesses and includes all the automation features we need!
• Customer Support: Our onboarding and success coaches have been so helpful, taking into account some unique processes we have and finding solutions.
• Updates: Keap is constantly providing more and better solutions!

Incentivized

• We have participated in some prepayment testing so we know that functionality is being built out and what we saw looked really good. We're anxious to have that rolled out.
• We'd like a cleaner way to export documentation of what was paid and EXACTLY what was paid. Currently web fees and some small balances are not shown by the website and that means making journal entries is a more manual process than hoped.
• We've been working with folks at SureTax about discrepancies between CCH RADAR rates vs the rates which get used in SureTax. We have learned the 2 systems do not utilize the same data and we often find RADAR is more accurate.

Incentivized

• More articles and videos on how to use the various functions of Keap
• Having representatives designated to certain regions or companies for a point of contact when help is needed
• More options when building the emails. While the click and drop options can be a plus, they can also be negative because you are limited to image and text sizing and positions

We switched our tax service from Avalara to SureTax years ago. Prior to this, we manually prepared the data and ran a report uploading and then got the tax result every time. With Suretax providing enough and flexable APIs, we redesigned and implemented our new application to communicate with SureTax seamlessly and automatically. This greatly reduced our workload, improves the system efficiency, and increased the data accuracy.

We have invested a lot into Infusionsoft and are using it to automate our processes and marketing. Changing CRMs would have a HUGE cost for us and based on our evaluations, the grass isn't greener elsewhere. Infusiosoft fits most of our needs and is slowly getting better each year. Their support is great and we will continue to use them until something much better comes around or our company outgrows a small business CRM.

SureTax is very reliable in with the integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP. It provides accurate tax calculations in accordance with tax updates. SureTax also has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to navigate. It is easy to add customers and also run reports on the website. The overall manageability of it is great!

Incentivized

You do need to spend some time on-boarding and implementing the software in order to have full functionality. We were lucky - we had colleagues at the university with experience with Keap and then hired an intern familiar with the software to get us set up and ready to use it. We've had some functionality issues with it along the way and that has frustrated myself and the other uses in our department.

Incentivized

There have been few outages since we became a customer, and when they have technical issues they are typically resolved rapidly.

OMG, it's all in one and that compromises everything, fundamentally. If you want a race car, invest in a race car. If you want a dune buggy, get that. If you want a boat that floats, go for it.

It has taken much longer than we would like to get certain issues - and problems - resolved. And the initial product support as we designed the implementation left much to be desired

Incentivized

Generally, very responsive support for even our more complicated issues. We do have some open issues that we need resolutions on and that I understand are complicated and will take longer to resolve but the open issues are significantly impacting to our business.

Incentivized

I have been to a number of in-person training sessions over the years with Keap and all of them have been FANTASTIC. They really put a lot of time and effort into these sessions. Staff and facilitators go out of their way to ensure that participants are getting what they need.

Incentivized

The results of training online are often based on how people learn. The training was great but with feature updates, you just have to get in there sometimes and do it! The training definitely lays a firm enough foundation for you to be successful even if its can't be updated with every feature update.

Don't let the fear of implementing a new software solution keep you from unleashing the power of automation that Infusionsoft provides. With the right implementation partner, the process can not only be smooth and painless, it can actually help you get a better understanding for how your current communication process can be improved upon.

100% better. Avalara is a self-starter kit where businesses are forced to create and develop their own bundles and product types. The support that you get from the AvaTax is not as user-friendly. SureTax is full of seasoned experts and full of industry leaders. Law firms that I have worked with in the past, as well as other CPAs, only recommend SureTax.

Incentivized

Keap is fast. The learning curve is shorter and they have an academy for learning with videos quite extensive that explain a lot of different scenarios, specially when you need to customize scenarios of automations and segments. Is cheaper if you consider that this services CRM + Mailing don´t come often in one package and the realiability to send mails is quite good.

Incentivized

You get a lot of features included, but you don't need to use them all at once to start seeing an effect. When you are ready to use them, they are there. It also scales without costing too much money.

• Previously we paid $5,200 per year for a standalone telecom tax calculation program. The overall cost of the combined solution that we have is just about the same as the cost of everything that we have before adding that cost in.
• Once you add in the additional benefit of the API integration and the automation that's freed up employee time, I think it's fairly safe to say that as we've grown, the combined efficiencies have allowed us to operate with two fewer employees than we would have otherwise needed.
• Over past 4 years we have yet to be notified of any errors in our submitted regulatory taxes.

Incentivized

• Automation has allowed us to be more engaged and invested in our customers by reminding us about birthdays and other important events in their lives so that we can celebrate with them.
• We lacked the manpower to sell and distribute orders online before setting up the payments and automation features. We now collect $5k+ a week in lost sales through online ordering.
• List cleaning functionality and engagment settings have allowed us to run a 40-50% email open rate that allows us to create an engaged community around local events and opportunities as well as sales and special offerings.

Incentivized