Intuit ProConnect Tax Online is cloud-based professional tax software. It integrates with QuickBooks and includes a client portal so that clients can input their tax data online. ProConnect has a pay-per-return pricing structure.
$70.78
per return 1-9 returns
Vertex
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Vertex combines tax research with technology to improve tax accuracy and
consistency on sales and purchase transactions. The automation aims to support high volume and complex transactions at speed and scale to streamline internal
processes and improve audit performance. Integrations to
ERP, e-commerce, procurement, and other billing systems enables a single tax
engine to seamlessly support a growing business. In addition to tax
determination, Vertex provides tools and services to automate and…
Intuit has coined the term "Firm of the Future" and its products live up to that moniker. If you run a practice that is cloud based, paperless and makes use of cutting edge tools such as e-signatures, client portals, etc., then this product will be a good fit for you. If you are slow to change and want to use the traditional desktop computing environment and frequently print client draft returns for review, use wet signatures, etc. then this might not be the product for you. If you are already using some of Intuit's products and plan to implement more business clients into QuickBooks Online, I would say this product is a "must have".
Vertex is pretty diverse in that it can support large or small organizations. If you're looking for a robust tax calculation engine then Vertex is a great option. It offers the sales and use tax calculations, reporting that supports all tax types and that can be used organization wide, and the ability to prepare the required sales tax returns. They keep up on all the tax rules so you don't have to and their customer service is good as well. At this point I've not found a reason that it wouldn't be suited in a tax environment.
Vertex does a great job of building in-house industry expertise (leasing in our case) so they truly understand the tax technical and compliance obstacles we face day to day.
Vertex actively solicits for and responds to customer feedback on development and product roadmap suggestions. The Leasing users group is an example where Vertex takes an active role in communicating with and taking feedback from our industry.
Vertex tax updates are very timely and thorough, which makes the compliance process less stressful for our team.
Reporting: Vertex VAT Compliance is not fully ready to support all EU country's requirements.
Data storage.
Online reporting in VVC: many countries require to report VAT Declaration in an electronic way. This function is still missing for some of the countries from VVC.
We are satisfied with the overall performance of Vertex. The software has provided my company with many efficiencies. We have shorted our audits and found that many audits are happy that we are using Vertex to calculate our taxes. We no longer need to worry about updating our rates each month since Vertex sends us a file to upload
We have very complicated tax rules for our business, which took some time to set up in Vertex's software, but now it is running almost perfectly smoothly, but there are still sales orders that we need to go in and check the difference in sales tax since we are using two different systems. Without being in two different systems I wouldn't see any need for manual adjustments to sales orders
Our Vertex performance is good, although we are now experiencing Error 502 when adding additional data points to our transaction tester single tests. At Exchange, I was told to reach out to support....that most likely the On Demand system needed some additional CPU resource added. I have a currently open ticket, that has not yet been fixed on this matter
The support is, excellent and Intuit overall provides good support. Their customer service representatives are friendly and always assist with issues when needed. There are multiple ways to contact the support team. I have not sued them though very much for technical tax issues and primarily the customer service team when needed.
I cannot speak from personal experience, but our IT staff has found contacting Vertex support staff to be challenging. One coworker has gone through several support tickets because he was an unrecognized contact. He has also expressed frustration that communication with support staff is conducted solely by email, drawing out issues over an extended length of time that could be more easily resolved by a brief phone call.
By training I'm referring to our engagement with Vertex Consulting's professional services group. Each person on the engagement had prior leasing industry tax experience and most if not all used O Series before joining Vertex. Consultants with industry specific tax experience provide so much more than just "training". They are able to engage in deep tax technical discussions with actual experience while in private practice. This coupled with having visibility to how numerous other leasing peers approach similar tax issues is a huge plus on top of the standard training.
Vertex has offered multiple webinars for the products we have purchased that are informative and helpful. I've also attended a few of the Vertex annual conferences where I was able to strength my knowledge of Vertex. I also found that their online library and videos can be helpful in resolving issues and answering questions.
The implementation is challenging, make no mistake but will provide much value over time. Make sure you have full support of IT and your major stakeholders in your company. I found that while many people claimed to understand tax was important, they had no idea how deep tax in entrenched throughout the lease life cycle.
I think ProConnect Tax Online is better than competitors. As I am new to my career, the only software I have used are ProConnect Tax Online, and Thomson Reuters Ultra Tax. I prefer cloud-based software, but I think Ultra Tax is easier software to learn on. It is easier to learn on because it is form based
For Sales tax many years ago I had used a product called Alternadev. It probably doesn't even exist anymore. It was created in someones kitchen and there wasn't much support. Other than that for sales tax I have only used Vertex. I have used ONESOURCE but that was for property tax
There needs to be a time-consuming setup both in the Enterprise Resource Platform and in Vertex and the related tools as well but once this is all established, Vertex is very proficient at calculating Sales and Use Tax in the USA and in Canada with GST/HST, as well as several of the provinces where we are located. As we added plants in different jurisdictions via greenfield expansion and aquisition, Vertex was able to integrate those as long as the tax department is fully informed of the system.
Just being the administrative assistant I can't really talk on ROI - that would be for my boss to address. But since our office strives to be completely paperless efiling fits in with our paperless narrative.
We use Vertex on a monthly basis to see if tax has been over-accrued or over-charged on invoices. We do save tax every month using the tool. Not at liberty to share too much more - the technology does assist the human efforts.
