TaxDome Vs Canopy: Which Should You Use?

The value of software solutions like Canopy and TaxDome lies primarily in their ability to roll every feature needed for accounting practice management (project, client, and team management) into one software.

When these features are in separate apps, accounting firm owners have to jump between one too many apps to:

• Track project deadlines.
•  Access client information.
• Balance employee workload to prevent burnout.
• Create efficient, repeatable processes to meet client deliverables consistently.

However, practice management solutions are as different in their operation as in their name.

This article examines the similar features in Canopy vs TaxDome (which are many), where they differ, and the available alternatives–if any.

TaxDome: A Brief Overview

TaxDome’s practice management solutions centralize project and client information for accounting professionals, helping them run their firms from one place—instead of using separate tools.

With many features (client management, tax organizers, and time and billing), TaxDome enables busy accountants to automate manual, repetitive processes, freeing time for more valuable tasks.

Canopy: A Brief Overview

Canopy seeks to “unclunk” the process of getting tax and accounting work done by breaking down information silos to enhance firm-wide productivity.

It combines proposal and payment features with IRS integration to ensure on-demand access to IRS transcripts for tax resolutions.

Canopy vs TaxDome: Core Features Compared

a. Project Management

The project management feature ensures the timely execution of projects.

TaxDome provides:

• Ready-made Templates: save your team the time to create projects from scratch.
• Automated Status Updates: show your projects as they progress through the stages.
• Calendar: shows your future projects so you can plan your team’s capacity.
• Insights Dashboard: prioritizes client projects and shows team workload, helping you understand team performance.

Canopy provides:

• Task Dashboard: shows the tasks your firm has completed within a time frame.
• Project Status: automatically updates the status of projects as your team completes the tasks.
• Filters: show your project information by roles, service, and date to see critical metrics.
• Tasks from Email: turns client requests into projects to keep them from getting lost in email inboxes.
• Insights: help you understand what’s happening with your client projects at any time.

Project Management in Financial Cents

Financial Cents organizes all your project resources in one place to save you the context-switching that kills productivity, wastes your manpower, and reduces work quality.

Some of its project management features include:

• Due Date: shows project timeline, enabling you to plan against the deadline.
• Time Tracking: measure how well your team is spending its time.
• Project Resources: links to project-related files and information.
• Capacity Reports: shows employees’ workload so you can optimize team performance.

b. Workflow Management and Automation

Workflow management, the ability to customize your workflows, enables quick, efficient, and accurate client services.

TaxDome’s workflow solution has:

• Automove (Dependency): notifies your teammates when to start their tasks in a project.
• Job schedules: recreate jobs at set times (weekly, monthly, etc.)
• Automatic Client Update: sends routine, personalized information to tell clients what they need to know about their project.
• Automatic Work Assignments: distributes tasks in a project to relevant team members.

Canopy’s workflow module has:

• Priority: sets the order of task performance.
• Workflow Templates: use rules (conditions and actions) to automate and set tasks in motion without human input.
• Client Reminders: automatically follow up with your clients for anything you need from them.
• Recurring Tasks: Use logic and rules to repeat your regular tasks at the end of the previous one.
• Automated Client Notification: sends emails to clients upon task completion.
• Automated Team Notification: alerts relevant team members when their task approaches its due date.

Workflow Management and Automation in Financial Cents

Financial Cents workflow automation features are more straightforward. The desired action is triggered once the condition is met. They include:

• Recurring Project: creates a new project when it is due or has been completed.
• Tag Automation: updates the status of each project to show where the projects stand.
• Dependencies: passes tasks between people in a project of multiple assignees by notifying them when their task is due.
• Workflow Triggers: perform an action (sending an email to a client, creating a project, and changing a tag on the project) when a task is complete.
• Workflow Filters: display specific project information to help you give clients timely feedback.

c. Team Collaboration and Communication

This helps with exchanging files and information with your team and keeps everyone in the loop.

TaxDome provides:

• Chat: a platform to securely share information with team members inside the project.
• Mention: tags teammates in your comments on a task.

Canopy provides:

• Comments: for discussing project requirements with team members.
• Tag feature: notifies your teammates about your comments.
• Client Notes: share client updates with your team.
• Document Annotation: collaborate on documents with your team.
• Virtual Drive and Desktop Assistant: a platform to exchange documents with your team.

Team Collaboration and Communication in Financial Cents

In Financial Cents, all discussions with your team happen inside the project in Financial Cents so that nothing falls through the cracks.

The team collaboration features include:

• Comments: to ask or give clarity at a project level by adding comments to the project.
• @Mentions: tags your teammates in your comments.
• Team Chat: displays all project-related conversations in the workflow dashboard.
• Client Notes: provide client-related updates in the client profile.
• Notification: notifies your team members about relevant conversations inside Financial Cents and by mail.

• Client Portal

Client portals are secure platforms for client collaboration.

TaxDome’s client portal offers:

• Information Sharing: build clarity through document-related communication with your clients.
• Document Exchange: a secure platform to share and receive client documents.
• E-Signature Collection: request signatures securely and help clients sign from anywhere.
• Prebuilt Organizers: pre-filled forms for clients to complete anytime and from anywhere.
• Custom Branding: use your firm’s colors and logo in your client portal.

Canopy’s client portal offers:

• Collect E-Signatures: allows your clients to sign documents without having to download and scan them.
• Share Files: facilitates document exchange with clients, who can snap and share documents with their phone camera.
• Request Files: ask for documents and specific actions from clients in the portal.
• Prebuilt Organizers: Send forms to your clients to fill out.
• Client communication: discuss projects and document needs with clients.
• Complete Custom Branding: design your client portal with your firm’s logo and color.

Client Portal in Financial Cents

Financial Cents’ client portal does not need clients to create login information, which increases their response rate.  To access the passwordless client portal, we send them a verification code each time they want to log in, ensuring security.

In the portal, they can:

• Upload Documents: clients can upload documents in a click or two.
• E-Sign Documents: to request client signature where they (client) can sign from wherever and at whatever time.
• Leverage Client Chat: to ask questions and receive answers to your document or E-Signature-related requests.

e. Document Management

The Document Management (DMS) feature gives accounting firms a central place to store and access documents.

TaxDome’s (DMS)include:

• Virtual Drive: a dedicated platform to view and edit your accounting documents.
• Unlimited Cloud Storage: organizes your documents to your preference.
• Integration with Tax Software (like Drake and TaxAct): enables you to import documents from these programs directly into TaxDome.

Canopy’s (DMS) includes:

• Unlimited File Storage: keep all your files in one place.
• Folder structures: store documents in a consistent order.
• E-Signatures: send and receive client signatures in the client portal.
• Bulk Files: save time by sending files in bulk.

Document Management in Financial Cents

The Financial Cents’ Document Management feature reduces the time most firms lose to document organization processes.

Our document management features include:

• Creating Folders: to store client files in categories.
• Searching Your Document Folders: using keywords to search for specific documents.
• Editing Documents: renaming them to make them more accessible.
• Moving Documents: take documents from one folder to another to help your team members find them on the go.

• Integrations

App integration connects your practice management feature with your favorite accounting programs to reduce the need to jump between applications.

TaxDome’s integration includes:

• Gmail, Outlook, Office365, Yahoo: work with your team in one shared folder.
• QuickBooks Online: view invoices created in TaxDome and track payment information.
• IRS Transcripts: request transcripts directly from TaxDome and see clients’ financial information.
• RightNetworks: host your firm’s information in the cloud.
• Schedulista and Acuity Scheduling: schedule appointments with clients.
• Zapier: to access 2000+ relevant apps from TaxDome.

Canopy’s Integrations include:

• Email (Gmail, Outlook, Exchange): track client emails, save attachments, and create tasks for ad hoc client requests.
• QBO: sync financial information and prevent double data entry.
• Intuit ProConnect Tax: sync data with Canopy to prevent forgetting important information.
• IRS Transcripts: pull transcripts (automatically) from the IRS and understand changes in the transcripts.
• Zapier: connect Canopy to other relevant software.

Financial Cents integrations include:

• QBO: imports clients from QBO and export time tracked in Financial Cents.
• Email: syncs Financial Cents with Gmail and Outlook to create a focused client folder in Financial Cents.
• SmartVault: links data between Financial Cents and SmartVault.
• Adobe Sign: Collects E-Signature from clients conveniently.
• Zapier: integrates Financial Cents with 5000+ other apps.

g. AI Capabilities

Artificial Intelligence reduces the time-consuming tasks that render the average accounting firm unproductive.

TaxDome’s AI features include:

• Document Tags: organizes client documents into categories.
• Descriptive Naming: renames client documents with easily identifiable names.

Canopy’s AI features include:

• Emails: Canopy AI writes your client emails in minutes.
• Reporting: lets you ask questions or make a statement so that Canopy can create data points and visualization from your firm’s data.
• Search: Find answers in your data without using a professional data analyst.

Financial Cents AI Features

Neither Taxdome nor Canopy has the AI capability by which Financial Cents creates workflow checklist templates.

This means that you can’t do any of the following:

• Create Checklist Templates: create SOPs that help your team (especially new hires) complete tasks accurately without asking you for clarity all the time.

• Draft Client Emails: use ChatGPT to compose emails for client communication so that you can focus on core accounting work.

• Save Email Templates: save the client emails you created for future use.

TaxDome vs Canopy: Ease of Use

Canopy’s modern interface is easier to navigate than TaxDome. The client management solution, for example, is laid out in clear sections—client portal, client information, client tasks, notes, recent files, and client projects sections.

This eases access to the information you need to complete any task.

TaxDome has a learning curve, usually requiring watching a handful of tutorial videos to get things off the ground.

Ultimately, Financial Cents’ user interface is friendlier to navigate than Canopy and TaxDome’s, taking an average of 3 hours to set up and begin using.

With a review rating of 4.9 for ease of use, Financial Cents is easier to use than accounting practice management solutions, such as Karbon (4.6), Canopy (4.5) and TaxDome (4.5).

TaxDome vs Canopy: Pricing

TaxDome operates a multi-year subscription model (with upfront billing). That is:

• A 3-year plan of $700/year per user ($58/month per user).
• A 2-year plan of $750/year per user ($63/month per user)
• A 1-year plan of $800/year per user ($66/month per user)

They also have a plan for seasonal staff at $85/month per user (billed monthly).

Canopy has separate prices for its features (called Licenses): the standard plan of $150-a-month covers the client management feature.

Other features attract additional costs ($31 for Workflow, $36 for Document Management, etc.).

Alternatively, Financial Cents has a pricing structure that suits all firm sizes

Apart from its $39 and $59-a-month plans for accounting teams, Financial Cents has a Solo Plan of $9, which saves self-employed accountants the cost  of paying for team collaboration and capacity management features they don’t need.

TaxDome vs Canopy: Customer Support and Onboarding

TaxDome supports its users primarily from its knowledge base.  The TaxDome community is also another source of insights into the product. Personalized customer support is available by chat, mail and phone..

Canopy also supports its users with articles on its knowledge base. Personalized support is available by chat, mail and phone.

TaxDome vs Canopy: Reviews

TaxDome has 4.7(out of 5) stars on Capterra and G2.

Canopy has 4.5 (out of 5) stars on Capterra and G2.

When to Choose TaxDome

TaxDome is more feature-rich  than Canopy. Beyond the core practice management features, it has  website creation and branding capabilities, which enables accounting firms to customize their client app, portal, and link. This visibility increases your firm’s customer affinity and loyalty.

When to Choose Canopy

While TaxDome has more features, Canopy covers practice management features in more details. Canopy’s depth makes it more scalable for growing accounting and bookkeeping firms.

Canopy’s feature-based pricing also makes it a better option for firms that want to choose only a few features from a practice management solution.

Financial Cents: The Best of Both Apps

Financial Cents’ combination of the features accounting and bookkeeping firms need to grow their firm has helped firms like Walker Solutions to save time and money. Financial Cents features on the scale plan include the ability for accounting firms to customize their client portal, set up advanced automations, connect their workflow to 5000+ apps through Zapier, an open API, and so much more.

Its client management and portal solutions are designed to ease client collaboration and project completion, especially during the busy season.

It is arguably the best of the three practice management solutions, judging by the words of firm owners who have used TaxDome and Financial Cents.

Canopy vs TaxDome: Your Choice Boils Down to Your Specific Practice Management Needs.

No solution is a one-size-fits-all, but understanding your practice management needs will help you recognize the most suitable solution in a sea of other tools.

Canopy and TaxDome are great practice management options for accountants. TaxDome provides extensive features (but doesn’t cover the features in as much detail as Canopy does), and Canopy has a complex automation and pricing system, making both software difficult for small and mid-sized firms to set up and use as quickly as they want.

Financial Cents’ easy-to-use workflow client and capacity management features take small and mid-sized firms an average of three (3) hours to set up and use and large firms, a couple of weeks depending on how much data they’re setting up Our onboarding team offers 100% support, making transition seamless.

Don’t take our word for it; click here to request a Demo or start a 14-day Free Trial today to judge for yourself.