OfficeTools

I like having everything tied together, having all a single client's info in one place, being able to link related clients, have all notes in one place, etc.

There are some bugs, it's also a very hefty program so it sometimes runs slow on our aging server. Also it's pretty complex to learn and some features are counterintuitive.

It has all in one capabilities such as client management, time tracking, billing and payment, reports, scheduling, and document storage.

The platform layout is clean and user friendly.

The learning curve to its features is low to mid-range which can be credited to it's design functionality.

It does utilize some integrations well such as the Dymo label printer and Drop Folders.

Overall, calls to Customer Support have been adequate with at least 90% problem resolution. I do have to knock the Customer Support to 2 stars because they do not have any early morning east coast support hours. If I have an issue with Office Tools I have to wait 4 hours to reach anybody on the phone. Half of my day is now gone.

Communication from Office Tools to its software owners is horrible. Known disruptions in services was communicated after the fact.

Software updates are non-existent. As of this review, 10/19/17, there has only been 1 public release update to the software in all of 2017 (v2017.019) and that was in January. That is unacceptable.

The Contact Screen has a narrow scope in what it allows for user input. I believe there are only 5 open variable fields that we can alter to collect data specific to our practice. The rest of it is dead white space underneath of it.

Software only allows one taxpayer's information to be displayed on the main Contacts screen with the spouse relegated to a "More Contacts" tab. It is more efficient to have all contacts displayed on one screen.

Client portal only allows for 1 contact email address.

The portal is not a responsive web design and certainly not friendly to mobile devices. There are buttons in the portal that are only seen when scrolled over (Pay Now buttons on invoice tab).

Payments made via a portal invoice do not sync down to the billing screen.

Downloading multiple documents from the portal is inefficient. There is no "Download All" button.

E-signing process is convoluted to the signer and has bugs which have not been fixed.

Form letters do not give you access to all collected data variables.

No user community to introduce or vote on feature requests. LinkedIn or Facebook aren't the solution.

We appreciate the ability to have one software that provides so much utility -- Contact info, Notes, Documents, Projects, Calls, etc

There is a learning curve on how to use the software fully. And the reports are a bit difficult to decipher.

The product has a lot of features that made the implementation in the first year wonderful. The support staff was great and easy to access. Ease of use, reporting, billing features

40% + cost increase for the new year. The Lacerte software integration did not work very well. There are issues that could not be resolved with the multi-firm features of the product