OfficeTools Erfahrungen

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

When the product worked (and yes, I said "when") it was sleek and efficient and brought the management of several key elements of our practice under one integrated tool.

The product was incredibly buggy, it typically took at least a day to get connected with anyone in Tech Support (and 24-36 hours can feel like a lifetime during tax season!) and then the "fix" frequently didn't work. We had the same issues come up again and again, we would implement the proposed solution, only to have it not work. We spent thousands of dollars having our own IT firm work in conjuncture with their tech support people, and lost thousands of dollars of productivity. Worst of all, management (and yes, we escalated our issues up the chain of command) seemed utterly indifferent to our issues, seeming to believe our problems were "User Error" - despite the fact that ~everyone~ in our company was dealing with the same issues, and that we were using several other specialized applications with zero difficulty. This was a terrible experience, and I would caution anyone against using it. There are better, cheaper options in the market, sold by companies that stand behind their product and value their customers.

Ease of use and the reports are great. You can customize it to your particular needs. We use it for timekeeping and billing.

Sometimes have to wait for support as we are in NY and they are in California. I use Demandforce for marketing and coordinating the 3 of us was difficult.

This is the best program that I have seen to keep track of billing, projects, client calls, to do lists, and much more. Everything is easily found and gotten to.

this is the first piece of software that every staff member opens in the morning & last to close at night.
Everything you need to track your accounting office in one place

now that they got bought out, price is going up

- Office 365 integration is quite helpful

- "Due date" reminders are life-savers

- The to-do section helps in personal management of tasks

- Synchronizing with Quickbooks is only supported for the desktop platform, and not the web platform, which is kind of a pain right now

- Integrations with other bookkeeping tools isn't great, like excel for example, which makes collaboration outside your immediate team quite difficult. Please help look into this.

I like the recurring invoice feature and that I can find documents easily. It doesn't alter your files the way eFileCabinet does and so if you want to change software, no exporting is necessary. I also like that it syncs with Lacerte, QuickBooks and Outlook.

It is very difficult to figure out on your own. You have to pay for training and there are not enough online resources to figure out how to change settings yourself. Since the middle of 2017 support does a terrible job of returning your call or email. You will have a very long hold time. I left a message to schedule training (which I will have to pay for) and they never returned my call. Though most of their clients are CPAs they took presidents day as a holiday, even though it is tax season. I have an immediate need but will have to wait until tomorrow to even get an appointment to get on the schedule.

Intergration with other applications like quickbooks

To complicated to run, not user friendly at all. Poor support.

The numerous reports and ways in which to cater a report to our specific needs. For example, I can create a WIP which shows work by date, or work by employeee, or work by code. These options have all been useful for different needs.
The contact lists are also versatile which helps with birthdays, phone lists, contact type lists.
Form letters is useful and we have created several this past year catered to contact type.

There have been issues with the document signature feature; months went by with giant red lettering appearing on the documents, so we could not use that feature; when the feature was fixed with a new upgrade, we were not informed of the upgrade.

The email link from Outlook is not reliable and keeps stopping on two of our computers. This feature would save time and keep records straight with our clients, however, we cannot keep it connected.

This software has all the vital functions you would expect. Invoicing, Billing, Project Management, File Storage

This software is constantly freezing and giving error messages.

What I love about this suite is that it includes a bunch of software that you would typically need for billing, invoicing, tax, etc., and provides them in a nice one-stop-shop package. All offerings are well integrated with each other and handle simple to complex scenarios. My most used and I think their best feature is their invoicing. Very easy to customize, apply markup, and set up for an ad-hoc or a reoccurring subscription.

If you are only planning on using the basic functionality, then you will get a big sticker shock. This product is very expensive, especially for a small business. Also, make sure you set a reminder before renewals. They add you to auto-renewals without specifically notifying you.

Projects allow us to ensure that Corporate info, Bookkeeping info and Personal Tax info gets properly sorted. Our use of Outlook Sync also ensures that our Office365 Inbox and Sent folders are captured to client's communication. Many shared documents are quickly categorized allowing for a quick, specific search of information.

Invoicing module currently only links to Quickbooks desktop for bookkeeping and we've been using Quickbooks Online for past 4 years. Support Team doesn't always comprehend our "real-life" situations and how we need to operate - thus leaving us not able to use OfficeTools to its full potential.

Ease of use is the plus, but they have re-engineered their layout with the latest update.

Integration with Lacerte and Quickbooks isn't what it used to be. Lacerte 2018 security issues have made the integration cumbersome (in all fairness it's not OTPs fault) because the sync is not a push of the button that it used to be. QB sync is also not working which is completely frustrating.
Support is horrible. You call and stay on hold only to be told 10 min later to submit a ticket online. You submit a ticket online and NEVER get a call. I've gone through this three times!
I can't recommend this product at this time.

It makes organizing files very easy. There are money sort options to choose from when searching for documents.
The time tracker is really useful when working on large accounts.

It does not require an account to have a designated number. It stores information by the name on the account. If there is ever a name change, (such as with a marriage or divorce) all documents assigned to the original name disappear.

Also in the billing feature, there is no report that you can run that will let you search by a specific invoice number.