Taxfiler practice management system is now live!

Not so much a question as an announcment - it appears the Taxfiler PM is now live...

Didn't find your answer?

...Certainly is for me and I guess others as well

Replies (27)

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By ohgoodgodno
09th Mar 2020 10:30

nothing for me :(

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By wilcoskip
09th Mar 2020 11:18

Yep, opened up and got the new look and notification this morning. Haven't had the nerve to activate it yet, but will assess things a bit later on today.

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By David Plastow
09th Mar 2020 12:37

Yes, activated this morning and seems quite straightforward but I suppose the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

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By SouthCoastAcc
09th Mar 2020 15:17

Nothing for me, maybe I'm not paying enough

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Replying to SouthCoastAcc:
By Moonbeam
09th Mar 2020 16:36

You have to pay the pro sub to get it.

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By SouthCoastAcc
09th Mar 2020 17:18

Ah so my price doubled with no benefit. Great.

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Replying to SouthCoastAcc:
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By legerman
12th Mar 2020 10:57

SouthCoastAcc wrote:

Ah so my price doubled with no benefit. Great.

My price doubled also, from £10 to £20 a month, yet I have it (just over 50 clients)
and they kept me on the previous plan (up to 50 clients) Go to the cog at the top right of the screen and you can enable it from there I believe

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By Paul D Utherone
09th Mar 2020 15:36

Oooo so it is :)

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By Rick Deckard
09th Mar 2020 17:17

Well, I've been waiting on this to see if it's worth using compared to say AccountancyManager or Senta (especially as it's essentially free).

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Sparkly Orange
By Sparkly
09th Mar 2020 23:13

I turned it on, looked at one client and then turned it off again. I'm not about to manually input start dates. I'll stick with Senta. Plus no facility to electronically sign Accounts and Tax Returns. Maybe I missed something?

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Replying to Sparkly:
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By legerman
12th Mar 2020 11:06

Sparkly wrote:

I turned it on, looked at one client and then turned it off again. I'm not about to manually input start dates. I'll stick with Senta. Plus no facility to electronically sign Accounts and Tax Returns. Maybe I missed something?

They have IRIS openspace built into the pro version don't they?

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By Ken Howard
09th Mar 2020 21:10

I turned it on, had a look, saw that it seems to require an enormous amount of effort to set things up, so turned it off again. It reminds me of that old ACCA practice manager system that had the same flaws. Systems like that are fine if you have several staff and some admin staff to set it up, but for sole practitioners, it just sucks your time and energy. Sorry, taxfiler, back to the drawing board for you I think. It needs some "quick start" and "quick set up" functions before it's going to be any good for small practices, which is it's target market.

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By Moonbeam
10th Mar 2020 07:40

I rely on what other people say on here, and until there are lots of positive vibes I won't waste any time looking at this option - I can manage with spreadsheets easily given my low number of clients.
The fact that it took so long to launch speaks to me of lack of investment and possibly a low level of updates in future.

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By Manchester_man
10th Mar 2020 07:45

It seems to me that a very lightweight, half-hearted effort has been made, by creating a couple of additional ‘filters’ and sticking them onto the main menu to give the impression of a fully fledged system.

No actual new functionality. I was looking forward to this long awaited development but am very much underwhelmed.

In addition, despite Taxfiler pronouncing that the ‘engine’ has been upgraded, I’m finding that it is taking longer to load pages than previously. Has anybody else noticed this?

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RLI
By lionofludesch
10th Mar 2020 11:49

I'll have a look at it but if it's too hard, I'll carry on with a bit of A4 and a biro.

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By [email protected]
11th Mar 2020 10:51

A very basic PM tool. If you're using Xero then XPM/WFM has more functionality, and is free to accountants.

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By MJTT
11th Mar 2020 11:54

As others have said, I read the bumph and thought I'd give it a go. Quickly turned it off when I realised how much manual data entry it required.

As a new user to Taxfiler I didn't experience the price increase but could understand other's complaints if the increase was on the back of on the PM function being rolled out. An option should have been given if you wished to add the function or not. Seems a sneaky way to roll out an increase to me.

As a long time Iris user I'm very familiar with their price increases but at least Iris PM was vaguely useful.

I'll stick to my manual spreadsheet checklists!

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By Charlie Carne
11th Mar 2020 12:02

As I have noted on here before, I wish companies would stick to what they are good at and stop trying to be a jack of all trades. There are already great PM tools for the small accountancy practice. Senta, Accountancy Manager, Karbon are the three key products in this space and none of them attempt to prepare tax returns or file accounts; they focus on building the best PM tools that they can.

Taxfiler is excellent at preparing tax returns and final accounts production. But now, instead of perfecting that important service, they lose all focus and instead choose to produce a second-rate PM tool. Taxfiler - when will you allow me to file LLP accounts online? When will I be able to rename the P&L accounts headings? When will you improve the navigation between years and clients without having to head back to the start each time? Be the best at what YOU do and stop trying to be average at everything else!

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By indomitable
11th Mar 2020 12:47

Totally endorse Charlie’s view. Why do these software providers just concentrate on being the best at what they do and improve their tax return/ accounts production software which still needs improving. There are many great practice management systems out there and taxfiler no way will be able to compete with their functionality. I won’t even be looking at it even though it may be free

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Replying to charliecarne:
Sparkly Orange
By Sparkly
11th Mar 2020 18:42

Spot on - if they could develop a link to a PM product like Senta and the others you mention then that would be much more useful.

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Replying to Sparkly:
Chris Caspell CTA TEP
By ccaspell
12th Mar 2020 15:10

I spoke to James K at Senta Discovery yesterday about this very same topic as Senta are keen to collaborate with other software providers. He said that Senta have tried to speak to TaxFiler for some years and have had no interest from TF at all. Over the same time Senta have been talking to Xero who have embraced the collaboration and now Senta and Xero work very well together, and continues to improve. There was so much opportunity here for TaxFiler to be best; however I fear the worst.

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Replying to ccaspell:
By Charlie Carne
12th Mar 2020 22:26

Given that Taxfiler was bought by Iris, I can understand them not now talking to Senta, as Iris will want TF to link into the Iris ecosystem. However, that does not explain why the only new facility rolled out by TF in the past 2-3 years is a (very basic) PM solution. They need to rapidly spend some of Iris' development cash on improving the tax and accounts production facilities and I gave three examples of fixes that are urgently required. One might argue that navigation improvements and ability to rename P&L headings fall into the wish-list category, but an inability to file LLP accounts online at Companies House when other competitors have offered this for some time shows a distinct lack of interest in the basic requirements of an accounts production tool.

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Replying to charliecarne:
By Paul D Utherone
12th Mar 2020 08:35

charliecarne wrote:

Taxfiler ... When will you improve the navigation between years and clients without having to head back to the start each time?

Glads it's not just me. My get around is to try to remember to right click and 'open in new tab' rather than just click the return link.

I shall give PM a go. Not looked in any great detail as yet, but for my small practise it may be a better option than the current spreadsheet as it is all in the one place.

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Image is of a pin up style woman in a red dress with some of her skirt caught in the filing cabinet. She looks surprised.
By Monsoon
11th Mar 2020 14:13

I'd rather have stuck with a cheaper subscription.
It doesn't do anything my current CRM doesn't.
I only have about 30 clients now, so inputting start dates was irritating but doable, would be unworkable for a larger practice.
I'll run it in tandem with my CRM to see how I get on but it's not really dazzling me.

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Jennifer Adams
By Jennifer Adams
11th Mar 2020 18:04

I must be out of favour with Taxfiler... I have Pro and I cant see any Practice Management tab.

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Replying to Jennifer Adams:
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By lionofludesch
11th Mar 2020 19:00

You need to click on one of the existing tabs first. I forget which .......

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By legerman
12th Mar 2020 11:03

Actually I like it. Very basic but that's all I need. Yes a bit of a fad setting it all up but I can do that as and when in quiet times.

First play yesterday and I added a task and clicked complete and it returned me to the same screen, so I did it again about 6 or 7 times not realising that they were all new tasks that were changing at the top of the tab.

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