Copper Ledger

Picking our practice management software was the most important piece when we started out years ago. We decided to go with Karbon, and it’s since become the backbone of our practice. It’s an entire checklist from start to finish for internal processes and all client communications. Any software integrations we move forward with are based on how well they integrate with Karbon.

One of the things that was really frustrating was sending clients to 3 different places to give us what we need. People already have a jaded relationship with the tax and accounting process and bulky request lists from different apps don’t help. When we interview clients, we often hear “I get this long list of things and I never know what they [accountants] need”. Our number one goal in our entire practice is to make the clients’ experience of working with their accountants easier. If clients are requesting the same tax return five times that’s a red flag that they don’t know where to find their information, period. It also means that’s probably the experience everyone’s having, even if they’re not asking us about it.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have an archive area for legacy tax returns, which left a gap in client document management. Over time, we realized that clients were requesting historical workpapers, tax returns, and deliverables because there wasn’t an access point for them to easily navigate retrieving this data on their own. We couldn’t find a solution without having another software for clients to learn and password to remember until we learnt about SuiteFiles.

All the initial work of implementing new software can really make or break your experience. If we didn’t have Sarab helping us migrate to SuiteFiles we wouldn’t have had the same success. He was very detail oriented and made sure that our initial folder structuring was how we wanted it and worded in the best way to ensure successful Karbon integration.  

The onboarding was very pleasant, and I feel like we were helped as much as we needed long the way. Our customer success rep Roshni was great, she was completely on top of it, very responsive and we could tell she cared. The few points of feedback we’ve submitted are already in testing and there are updates coming down the pipeline for a few of the issues that we were concerned with.  

We previously couldn’t send encrypted documents in email without paying for third-party software, so SuiteFiles’ connected folders are saving us $50 a month on subscription costs alone. They’re also document centric and suit our preference for sharing files with clients. I think they’re the best feature — especially now that we can send documents to multiple recipients at once. In the past we’ve had married couples that aren’t able to access their documents in a shared environment, whereas now they can access the exact same folder and contents therein. Those folders are also synced with Karbon so we can go on autopilot instead of manually duplicating deliverables in each one. Remember, the number one goal in our entire practice is to create a better experience for clients working with their accountants. So, if we can say ‘Hey, we’ve archived all of these documents here for you, just log in and you can access them at any time” then clients don’t have to rely on us.  

SuiteFiles is definitely a time and a cost-saving tool, but most importantly, it’s peace of mind that we have everything in place. We’ve had a couple of missing pieces for a while and it’s unsettling not having a full grasp on your processes. SuiteFiles makes communication of what to do, how to do it, and what to expect easier.