Best 5 TaxDome alternatives to consider for your accounting practice management software

TaxDome is a cloud-based practice management software solution for accounting and tax firms.

Summary

  • For sole tax CPAs and smaller tax firms, TaxDome is a good option.
  • For full-service tax and accounting firms with distributed staff, Karbon is the top choice.
  • For specialized tax firms, Canopy is a good solution.
  • For smaller firms looking for a simple solution, Financial Cents may be one to consider.
  • For firms looking for workflow management features only, Jetpack Workflow is a good alternative.
  • For firms looking for a general but customizable project management tool, Asana is a great option.

Like other accounting practice management systems, TaxDome provides a central workspace that helps practitioners manage their clients, jobs, documents, and teams.

Task view in TaxDome

TaxDome brands itself as an all-in-one platform that replaces many apps a firm needs to run its day-to-day operations. Here's a look at some of its top features:

  • Project management

  • Workflow automation

  • Tax organizers

  • CRM

  • Document management

  • Client portal

  • Client-facing mobile app

  • Website creation service

  • eSignature

  • Invoicing and payments

For $66 USD/month per user, TaxDome offers a wide range of features at a reasonable price.

Note: $66 USD/month per user is based on a 1-year contract with an upfront payment. If you sign up for 2 years, the price per month is $58 USD per user, and for 3 years, the price is $50 USD/month per user.

But as the saying goes, 'you get what you pay for'. In this case, TaxDome users often report a wide breadth of features that don’t actually function very well.

With that in mind, here are TaxDome's top limitations you should be aware of before making a decision.

Why you should consider TaxDome alternatives for your practice management solution

1. TaxDome delivers more on quantity than quality

TaxDome’s biggest strength is its breadth of features, but that also happens to be one of its major flaws.

As one TaxDome user noted, “Although the system has everything you need, they’re badly placed and organized, creating more work than necessary.” Other users have also called out how the platform under-delivers on its CRM, internal communication, and email management functionalities.

If you require robust functionality in these areas, TaxDome may not meet your expectations.

2. TaxDome is time-consuming to onboard, and its implementation support is unclear

Because TaxDome is so feature-dense, users often experience a steep learning curve and a time-consuming onboarding and implementation process

With TaxDome, you will have to spend many hours on video tutorials, product webinars, team training sessions, or even hire a third-party TaxDome consultant to properly set up and customize the platform. And it’s unclear whether TaxDome offers in-house implementation support like other practice management platforms.

If TaxDome’s pricing entices you, be prepared to invest more time and possibly more money before you can fully reap its benefits.

3. TaxDome’s communication and collaboration capabilities are underwhelming

As a solution geared towards sole practitioners, TaxDome’s internal communication and collaboration capabilities are limited. 

Its ‘Inbox+’ feature (touted as a centralized location for your communication) only syncs emails from clients. That means you still have switch between your email and TaxDome to manage all other communication, like emails from staff members, IRS notifications, or any other emails from anyone else.

Inbox+ in TaxDome

Rather than fully embedding emails into your workflow, TaxDome becomes yet another siloed destination to manage your communication. One user has found TaxDome’s Inbox+ so flawed that he voted it his ‘least favorite feature’

If effective collaboration and communication are crucial to your firm, you may want to look for an alternative practice management platform to streamline your workflows.

4. TaxDome has no current plans to integrate AI into its platform

AI (artificial intelligence) has taken the world by storm and it’s quickly becoming a highly desired (if not expected) feature of an accounting practice management system.

When asked whether TaxDome has plans to implement AI, the company’s answer was disappointing.

In comparison, other accounting practice management platforms like Karbon and Canopy have launched AI-powered features that promise to transform accountants’ productivity and efficiency.

5 best TaxDome alternatives for accounting and tax firms

1. Karbon

Karbon is a comprehensive practice management platform for accounting, tax, and bookkeeping firms. 

It offers essential features of an accounting practice management solution, but it stands out from the crowd for its unmatched ability to provide visibility and transparency on team and client communication, job statuses, staff productivity, and firm profitability.

Karbon has solved the 'silo' problem in my business. Complete visibility of communications between team members and customers is now a reality. The Karbon development team and support team are amazing and really care about me and my business.

Kirk Jeske, CEO at K. Jeske & Company
A capacity dashboard view in Karbon—an accounting practice management tool with deep project management capabilities—using the Kanban view functionality.
Workflow dashboard view in Karbon

Karbon's top features

Karbon pros and cons

Pros

  • Karbon is the only accounting practice management solution that allows you to @mention colleagues and comment on emails, turn emails into tasks, and assign emails to colleagues, client and project timelines

  • GPT-powered AI tools that help you work faster, smarter, and more securely

  • Constant innovation and frequent product releases

  • Simple and comprehensive pricing

  • Ranked #1 for ease-of-use in G2’s accounting practice management category

  • Open API so you can integrate apps, build custom solutions, and optimize workflows

  • Highly customizable to match your practice’s workflow

  • Unite your team and collaborate with a single source of truth for all communication and client information

  • CRM capabilities allow you to track your firm’s relationship with every client and deliver the service you promise

  • Reveal insights to guide critical firm decisions and improve efficiency with Karbon Practice Intelligence

  • Built by a team of accounting professionals and those with experience in the accounting space

Cons

  • Requires a more hands-on implementation and onboarding, because it is a more robust solution

  • More expensive due to more features and functionality

Who is Karbon best suited for?

Karbon is most effective for teams of at least 3 staff or a sole practitioner who’s looking to rapidly grow within a short period of time.

Reviews

Here’s how Karbon and TaxDome stack up against each other on popular software review sites:

G2

Capterra

Karbon pricing

Karbon has three pricing plans: Team, Business, and Enterprise. 

Annually:

  • Team: $59 USD/month, per user

  • Business: $89 USD/month, per user

  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Monthly:

  • Team: $79 USD/ month, per user

  • Business: $99 USD/month, per user

  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Karbon or TaxDome?

Karbon and TaxDome both offer essential features you’d expect from an accounting practice management platform. The key difference comes down to their depth of functionality, pricing, and ideal firm size.

TaxDome delivers an abundance of features with relatively basic functionality at a reasonable price. This makes it a more suitable product for sole practitioners who simply need a system to consolidate different apps or replace Excel-based project trackers.

Karbon is a robust practice management platform with some of the strongest project management, workflow automation, collaboration, analytics, and artificial intelligence capabilities in the market. It’s ideal for teams with at least 3 staff members, and firms looking for a system that will scale with them.

If you’re still on the fence, evaluate Karbon and TaxDome with a detailed side-by-side comparison or get started with Karbon to see for yourself.


2. Financial Cents

Financial Cents is a no-frills practice management tool for accounting firms. It provides email integration, project management, client management, time tracking and a few native reports that enable firms to work with clients, manage tasks and deadlines, and report on key metrics.

A view of the work dashboard in Financial Cents
Workflow management view in Financial Cents

Financial Cents’ top features

  • Email integration

  • Client portal

  • CRM

  • Project and task management

  • Workflow automation

  • Invoicing (through QuickBooks Online integration)

  • Time tracking

  • Native reports (time tracking, effective hourly rate, capacity management, client tasks, team activity)

Financial Cents pros and cons

Pros

  • Affordable pricing

  • Quick to implement (however, this might be a drawback for some firms looking for a more powerful solution)

  • Responsive customer support

Cons

  • Basic workflow features (tasks and projects are only available in a list view or a calendar view, not as Kanban boards or customizable work dashboards)

  • No native invoicing and payment functionality

  • Very limited integrations (only QuickBooks Online, Gmail and Outlook)

Who is Financial Cents best suited for?

Financial Cents is suited for smaller accounting or bookkeeping firms that are looking for a simple and cost-effective solution to stay on top of tasks, projects, and clients.

Reviews

Here’s how TaxDome and Financial Cents stack up against each other on popular software review sites:

G2

Capterra

Financial Cents pricing

Financial Cents pricing starts at $49 USD/month per team member, billed monthly ($39 USD/month on an annual plan).

Financial Cents or TaxDome?

Financial Cents is a comparable alternative to TaxDome for smaller CPA firms. It’s similarly priced as TaxDome and has an adequate amount of features that can help smaller teams get started relatively quickly. 

Keep in mind that TaxDome offers more features, but the depth of functionality may not stack up against the fewer, yet more well-rounded, Financial Cents features.


3. Canopy

Canopy is a cloud-based practice management solution for mid-sized tax and accounting firms. 

Initially founded as a tax resolution tool, Canopy’s strengths lie in its robust tax workflow features, such as pre-built client organizers, IRS transcript auto-retrieval and notice creation, and tax resolution. 

For tax firms that frequently handle complex client issues, Canopy can significantly reduce the amount of client chasing and manual work in the resolution process.

Work and task view in Canopy

Canopy’s top features

  • Integrated email inbox

  • Task and project management

  • Client tasks and auto-reminders

  • Client portal

  • CRM and client management

  • Invoicing and payments

  • Time tracking

  • Document management

  • Budget planning and tracking

  • ChatGPT-powered email drafting

  • IRS integration and transcript service

Canopy pros and cons

Pros

  • Tax resolution cases and integration with IRS (paid add-on)

  • Flexible document and file management functionality (paid add-on)

  • Time, billing and invoicing capabilities

  • Pre-built reports on firm efficiency, revenue, and billing

Cons

  • ​​Key product features are only available as paid add-ons (e.g. workflow management and document management)

  • Complicated and expensive pricing (pay per client, per add-on module, per user)

  • Limited workflow functionality and templates

  • Despite the prebuilt reports available, customized reporting is limited

Who is Canopy best suited for?

Canopy is best-suited for specialized tax firms that value the Canopy tax resolution cases and integration with the IRS.

Reviews

Here’s how Canopy and TaxDome stack up against each other on popular software review sites:

G2

Capterra

Canopy pricing

Canopy has a modular pricing model that charges by the number of features you add on.

Their Standard and Pro pricing tiers include 250 free contacts and charges extra for these add-ons:

  • Document Management: starting at $40 USD/month, per user

  • Workflow: starting at $35 USD/month, per user

  • Time & Billing: starting at $25 USD/month, per user

  • Tax Resolution: starting at $50 USD/month, per user

Canopy also offers two other tiers for firms with fewer than four staff members:

Starter:
$45 USD/month per user, plus $50 USD/month per user for their tax resolution feature.

Essentials:
$45 USD/month per user, plus $50 USD/month per user for their tax resolution feature.

Canopy or TaxDome?

TaxDome and Canopy are a close match on practice management software features. But their differences lie in the finer details: 

  • TaxDome offers many features, but because of the sheer quantity, they lack depth. 

  • Canopy has more depth and a unique tax resolution suite, but it’s also significantly more expensive.

For sole practitioners or small firms who are looking for more features with basic functionality, TaxDome may suffice. But if your team is larger or you have complex tax clients, Canopy or Karbon may be a better choice in the long run.


4. Jetpack Workflow

As its name suggests, Jetpack Workflow is a workflow management tool for accounting firms. It’s not a practice management solution. Because of that, you won’t find typical practice management features in Jetpack Workflow (like a client portal or invoicing).

But, despite its distinction as a workflow management tool, Jetpack Workflow still has many useful functions that rightfully place it as a noteworthy alternative.

Dashboard view in Jetpack Workflow
Jetpack Workflow dashboard view

Jetpack Workflow’s top features

  • Work dashboard

  • Job and task management

  • Workflow automation

  • Calendar view

  • Jobs and progress report

  • Client management

  • Time tracking and budgets

  • QuickBooks Online and Zapier integration

Jetpack Workflow pros and cons

Pros

  • Affordable pricing for simple workflow management

  • Time tracking capabilities

  • Useful dashboard with a high-level overview of work

Cons

  • Dated user interface

  • Limited collaboration features (no ability to comment on or @mention or team members on tasks or subtasks)

  • No integrated email inbox, which means you have to constantly switch between Jetpack Workflow and your email provider

  • No client portal

  • Basic CRM 

  • No invoicing or payments

Who is Jetpack Workflow best suited for?

Jetpack Workflow may be a good option for accounting, bookkeeping or tax firms that are simply looking for a tool to manage their tasks, jobs and/or projects. 

Because it’s not a practice management system, firms will need to use Jetpack Workflow alongside other software such as a client portal, CRM, and a billing and payment app to fulfill their needs.

Reviews

Here’s how Jetpack Workflow and TaxDome stack up against each other on popular software review sites:

G2

Capterra

Jetpack Workflow pricing

Jetpack workflow has two pricing plans: Organize and Scale.

The Organize plan costs $45 USD per month, per user on a monthly subscription ($36 USD annually).

The Scale plan costs $50 USD per month, per user on a monthly subscription ($39 USD annually).

Jetpack Workflow or TaxDome?

Jetpack Workflow and TaxDome are both built for the accounting industry, but they are intended for different use cases, which is reflected in their key features and prices.

If you’re simply looking for a workflow management tool, Jetpack Workflow may be the answer. But if you need other features that are more commonly found in a practice management solution,  you might want to consider more well-rounded tools like TaxDome or Karbon.


5. Pixie

Pixie is a user-friendly practice management solution that primarily focuses on smaller firms across the UK. They market themselves as providing ‘everything you need to manage your practice and get things done faster in one simple, flexible practice management tool’.

Work view in Pixie
Work/task view in Pixie

Pixie’s top features

  • CRM with custom fields

  • Workflow management

  • Email management

  • Workflow template library

  • eSignatures

  • Client reminders

Pixie pros and cons

Pros:

  • Modern, clean user interface

  • Affordable solution for small firms with 1-3 employees

  • Flexible recurring work functionality

  • Best-practice template library

Cons:

  • Limited collaboration functionality (unable to @mention colleagues in comments or notes, making teamwork difficult)

  • No time and budget tracking means that productivity and profitability insights are limited

  • No Kanban board view, which makes it difficult to get a high-level view of your firm

  • No ability to assign work subtasks to different team members

  • Limited to mostly UK-specific integrations

Who is Pixie best suited for?

Pixie is suitable for a UK-based firm with a smaller volume of clients and complex projects.

Reviews

Here’s how TaxDome and Pixie stack up against each other on popular software review sites:

G2

Capterra

Pixie pricing

Pixie’s pricing is based on the number of clients you have and includes an unlimited number of users:

  • Less than 50 clients: $69 USD per month

  • 51-250 clients: $129 USD per month

  • 251-500 clients: $199 USD per month

  • 501-750 clients: $249 USD per month

  • 751-1,000 clients: $329 USD per month

  • More than 1,000 clients: Custom pricing

Pixie or TaxDome?

Pixie is an option to consider if you’re a UK-based accounting firm with 1-3 staff members and you’re looking for a straightforward practice management tool. Its UK-specific integrations with partners like Companies House and Xama may make it even more convincing.

But if you’re based in the US, TaxDome is a better fit because:

  1. It has more US-based accounting and tax workflows and templates.

  2. Its customer support is based in the US.


Try Karbon for free

Now that you have an overview of the top alternatives to TaxDome, you should have a better idea about which options best suit your practice. 

If that’s Karbon, you can learn more or book a demo.

If you need more information to help with decision-making, you can review this in-depth guide to the 11 best accounting practice management software solutions

To see how professional services firms save an average of 16.5 hours per employee each week, you can explore the Karbon Effect. Or you can use the Karbon ROI calculator to see what your return on investment could be.

You can also hear directly from Karbon customers about what Karbon is enabling them to do at their firm (and for their clients).