The best tax consultant software compared

Tax Consulting Software Definition: What are Programs for Tax Consultants?

A tax consulting software package normally includes a set of tools that allow relevant professionals to digitally execute core processes and routine tasks of their services. Those who use tax consulting software often organize the majority of their day-to-day tasks through it. These procedures can be performed more efficiently and even partially automated with such a solution.

Tax consulting software can be used for private and business clients. A good tax consulting program can handle the following tax requirements from the client's side:

• Sales tax including pre-registration of sales tax and extension of ongoing deadlines
• Income tax
• Separate and unified determination
• Trade tax
• Corporate tax
• Inheritance and gift tax
• Wage tax reduction
• Tax certificate / Capital gains tax registration
• Year-end accounts as balance sheet
• E-balance including current taxonomy
• Tax and commercial balance sheets
• Deviating fiscal year
• Change in type of taxation

In fact, software for tax consultants can even assist with many more tasks: keywords "payroll programs for tax consultants", "auditor program" and "planning program for tax consultants".

Program for Tax Consultants vs. Tax Software for Companies Tax consulting programs are quite often confused with tax software for companies or viewed as identical systems. However, there are clear differences.

Tax consulting software refers to programs that enable tax professionals to manage the tax affairs of their clients and their office. Whereas tax software is generally not able to manage clients, but is targeted at end users. Companies use such solutions to meet their tax obligations independently or at least largely independently. Often these programs have tools for order processing, sales tax organization and the digital filing of documents on board, and sometimes have an ELSTER interface. They can facilitate the handling of the entire financial accounting and payment transactions.

Sometimes business tax software also cooperates with tax consulting software. Then company officials handle basic tax actions with a specific program themselves. The respective solution sends the tax-relevant data to a tax consultant's office software. The tax experts check everything and eventually complete the tax procedures properly.

Why should tax consultants use tax office software?

There are indeed many reasons for using good tax consulting software. Primarily, the appropriate digital processes are obviously much more efficient than their analog counterparts. They save a lot of paper and all relevant persons work or plan via a central platform (sometimes automated). Furthermore, tax experts (at least with tax consulting software in the cloud) can easily use the solution from any conceivable location or via all internet-enabled devices.

An even more important argument is the changed expectation of (potential) clients over the years. Clients have always been demanding. However, these demands have now expanded - especially regarding digital communication.

In many tax offices, digitalization is still in its infancy. However, their business partners or private individuals have usually already achieved a high level of digitalization. Therefore, they increasingly expect to be able to handle their tax matters digitally as well.

Clients use a variety of online communication channels every day, they work largely networked, organize their documents using specific document management tools and/or generate more and more sales in e-commerce. For people who are so digitally oriented, it can quickly seem strange if their tax consultants still demand mountains of paper for their work.

With appropriately selected or compiled tax consulting software, tax professionals can optimally accommodate the digital perspective of their clients.

How does a tax consultant program work?

Tax consulting software can take on a variety of tasks or support tax experts in them. Most of the time, such solutions are used to digitize and make more efficient the entire management of the firm. The platform then combines client management, invoicing, accounting, assets management, as well as payroll and salaries, employee organization or travel expense accounting.

The following functions or processes are often at the forefront.

• Client Management: A tax consulting software can allow all clients or their address and company data and associated tax cases to be centrally organized. Tax consultants thus have quick and uncomplicated access to all relevant client information and always maintain the necessary overview.

• Performance Capture: Not only clients, but also firm employees can be managed through a properly equipped tax consulting software. The activities of individual employees are captured and evaluated within the program. As a result, superiors get an insight into work efficiency and, if necessary, can redistribute, reduce or add resources.

• Tax Returns: The ability to handle tax returns and other tax matters digitally is naturally the heart of almost all tax consultant programs. With these tools, tax consultants usually cover all major types of assessment - sales tax, income tax, detailed trade tax and more.

• Specialized Database: Some tax consulting software has a specialized database where current laws, guidelines, regulations, administrative regulations, court judgments, assessment books and other relevant documents are stored or can be stored. Ideally, this database is updated regularly. Tax consultants can thus quickly draw the right information on any tax question.

• Document Management: Even in the digital realm, tax matters are always associated with a large number of documents. If the tax consulting software has a database and a powerful document management, corresponding papers can be stored quickly, categorized easily and found again without any complications.

What are the Pros and Cons of Using Tax Software for Tax Consultants?

Above, some clear advantages of a tax consulting firm software have already been outlined. The following offers a summary of the most important benefits.

• Efficiency: Software can significantly simplify our (professional) life in many situations and save a lot of time. Accordingly, the general demands for efficient work have greatly increased. Tax consultants also do not see the point of repeatedly entering data manually when it is actually possible to automate the processes concerned. The same applies to checking deadlines, saving invoices or organizing employees. Why proceed analogously or manually everywhere when it can be done much more reliably and quickly using law firm software with specialized tools? Tax consulting software makes the daily routine of the law firm considerably more efficient at many points.

• Recruiting and retaining professionals: Work-life balance and flexibility are also important factors for employer attractiveness among tax consultants. This does not only concern working hours, but increasingly also the workplace. Whether from home or on the road - with the right program for tax consultants, you can do your tasks from anywhere. Offering such a work option can have a very convincing effect on new as well as existing employees.

• Acquiring and retaining clients: Clients are used to digital processes from various areas of their (professional) everyday lives. Thus, they increasingly expect to be able to handle their tax matters digitally and online. Tax consultants who offer corresponding possibilities can (in the long term) look forward to many clients.

• Future-proofing: As already clarified in the last point, digitalization of typical tax processes itself is an important factor for the future viability of firms. It should not be underestimated that in the course of time savings through specialized software, tax experts can concentrate more on their advisory, interpersonal competencies. A corresponding client-oriented, personal way of working is often decisive for long-term strong business relationships. Last but not least, the software makes fewer mistakes and works generally faster. Of course, these are also considerable factors for future viability.

Are there any disadvantages to using tax consulting software? Not really - but certain difficulties can occur. The following challenges are typical.

• Conversion Effort: Firms that switch to digital processes often have to discard or realign and adapt many established processes for digitalization. This of course requires a considerable amount of time. On the other hand, it can also be difficult to convince all employees of the new way. However, it is worth accepting this challenge. Because the simplifications and other benefits to be achieved more than make up for the effort in the long run.

• Paper Digitalization: Those who want to approach digitalization correctly or comprehensively should also convert any remaining stored paper documents to a digital format. All documents that were not transmitted electronically must be captured and digitalized using a scanner. This undoubtedly involves a huge amount of work. On the other hand, dealing with paper is also very labor intensive, so the short-term peak for the conversion pays off in the long run.

• Data Security: Whenever important documents with personal data are processed digitally, data protection is quickly called into play. In this case, tax consultants are ultimately responsible for the security of sensitive information. Accordingly, it is highly relevant that the selected tax consulting software provides sufficient protection. Prospective customers should pay particular attention to specific certifications, such as TÜV seals and ISOs. Information about a hosting location in Germany is also good security features.

How to choose the appropriate law firm software from the tax consulting software comparison?

Which law firm software for tax consultants is the right one? This is actually not so easy to determine. The market and providers are now very diverse. Filtering out the truly perfect solution from the resulting diverse offer can be a real challenge. To make things a bit easier, interested parties should primarily take into account the following criteria during their research.

Tax consulting software from the cloud or locally? Cloud-tax consulting software has gained a huge market share in recent years. The advantages of the Software-as-a-Service model (SaaS) simply speak for themselves. The provider takes care of everything here - from proper data backup to updating and maintenance to server provisioning. In addition, the tools of a SaaS solution can be used from anywhere and with any internet-enabled devices. This also applies to working from home. The provider also ensures the absolute functionality.

Despite these considerable advantages, there are still so-called on-premise solutions. They run on the basis of a firm's internal IT infrastructure. This variant also has its advantages. Particularly the fact that with it all sensitive data is directly stored with the tax consulting firm, makes it attractive for many firms. However, some things need to be taken into account: especially compatibility with the existing operating system, provision of capacities for hosting and personnel for system maintenance, updates, access management, data backup and fail-safety. Remote use is also possible with such programs, but involves more effort.

What about data security? Those who opt for cloud software must always accept that sensitive data is hosted on external servers. This requires a strong security concept. Accordingly, responsible parties should inquire whether the tax consulting software provider in question complies with the GDPR and professional special laws. If the servers are located in Germany, that is already a good sign of compliance with local regulations.

Of course, data protection and data security also play an important role with on-premise software. However, users here have to act even more responsibly. The provider takes care of only the must-haves concerning the program. The IT environment on which the respective system runs must be protected by the tax consultants themselves.

Is data transfer from old programs simple? Especially when switching from an old to a new firm software, stored information must be transferred from one solution to the other. This should of course be as uncomplicated, fast and above all error-free and secure as possible.

In this context, the conversion of paper files into digital formats is also an important issue. Good tax consulting software providers provide their clients with technical assistance and specific advice on data transfer.

How Reliable is the Provider as a Partner? Tax consulting software coordinates a variety of essential processes in a tax firm. If it stops, everything stops. It is therefore all the more important to take a very close look at the providers of individual solutions.

If there is perhaps a lot of public criticism, this is not a good sign. The provider must be a strong, reliable partner. It should guarantee the functionality of its software and also respond quickly to changes in the law and technological progress. Last but not least, there must be a long-term update promise - ten years minimum.

What Support Does the Provider Offer? As discussed in the last section, a problem with the firm's software can quickly bring the entire operation to a standstill. This affects not only a general failure of the solution, but also user errors. Especially in the latter case, often only a good quality service can help. If one is available, it saves nerves and especially time and ultimately costs.

Thus, those responsible for searching for tax consulting software should always check the quality of the service very carefully: What service channels are there and when can these be reached? Is there a 24/7 hotline available or is there only community support? The more contact methods are offered and the longer they are available daily, the better.

How flexibly can the tax consulting software be adapted to the needs of the firm? Looking into the future is difficult - especially into the digital one. Technological progress is happening faster and more disruptively. Even the legislator is increasingly going paperless. Societal and economic upheavals are added to this. All this and more has a massive influence on tax consulting sooner or later.

No matter what comes - the tax consulting software should be able to accommodate the new realities. Basically, the more modular the law firm solution is constructed and the more flexibly integration of data or programs via interfaces is made possible, the more future-proofing exists. So it is important to pay attention to modular building blocks and generally an innovation-oriented orientation.

Software for Tax Consultants Price Comparison: What Does Law Firm Software for Tax Consultants Cost?

As a tax consultant, if you want to estimate your software costs, you should first base this on the range of functions and the clients to be served with the respective solution: The more features and the more tax clients, the more expensive it will be.

Using a tax consultant program for free is theoretically possible. However, the functionalities are then usually very strongly limited. For tax firms, such solutions are only very conditionally useful.

Good or well-equipped tax consulting software is never free of charge. Interested parties here have to reckon with average prices around 100 Euros per month.