Key takeaways
- Test return status on a real return before you buy anything.
- The Form 8879 record and state filing are the two features most often missing.
- At 20 staff, role permissions and a review queue matter more than the portal.
- Total cost is seats plus setup hours, migration overlap and add-ons, not the list price.
What the category covers and where Usual fits
Most products sold as tax practice management combine four parts: a client organizer, a document request and portal, a return tracker with stages, and time or fee billing. Tax preparation itself stays in the return software your preparers already use, such as Drake, Lacerte, UltraTax or ProSeries.
Usual is a document collection and client portal product. It does not prepare returns, track return stages or bill time, so pair it with a tracker if you need those. Decide first which job hurts most, because a tool that is strong on one is often weak on the others.
Organizer workflow: what to test
Load one prior-year Form 1040 client into the trial and check two things. Can the organizer copy last year's answers and mark them to confirm rather than re-ask? Can a client's answer attach to the right return line, or does staff retype it?
Decision rule: if the organizer cannot roll forward from one year to the next without retyping, drop the tool from the shortlist.
Return status: the stages you need
The stages to ask for are documents requested, documents received, in preparation, in review, client review, signed, filed and delivered. Each stage should carry a date and a named person, and the board should filter by preparer and by stage.
Decision rule: if the board cannot show the date each return entered its current stage, fail the trial. Failure mode: status is set by hand, and nobody updates it after the return is e-filed, so the board shows a return in review months after it was accepted. Fix it by making filed a stage the preparer sets from the e-file acknowledgment, and check the board each week against the e-file log.
Form 8879 and the e-file mandate
The IRS e-file signature authorization FAQ states that the ERO must keep Form 8879 for 3 years from the due date of the return or 3 years from the IRS return receipt date, whichever is later. A tool that stores the signed form should keep a tamper-proof copy and reproduce a legible hard copy on request.
Ask three questions. Where does the signed form sit, and who can delete it? Can you pull a reproducible copy for a client or an examiner in one step? Does the record keep the signing date and the IRS receipt date, so the three-year clock can be calculated? A tool that stores the form as a loose attachment fails the first question.
The IRS e-file mandate FAQ states that a specified tax return preparer who reasonably expects to file 11 or more covered returns in a calendar year must e-file. The count is aggregated across the firm, and if the total reaches 11, every member must e-file, including a member who files fewer. Decision rule: count covered returns for the calendar year before you buy, and if the count is near 11, require e-file acknowledgments and the signature record in the tool, not only organizers.
State filing support
Federal e-file rules do not settle the state question. Each state sets its own e-file requirements, and a tool's state support usually means the state return is tracked in the same record as the federal one. Check each state your clients file in against the state revenue site.
Decision rule: if any state with more than five of your clients is missing from the tool, the state stage stays manual, and the tool fails. Test with three returns: a single-state resident, a nonresident with income from one other state, and a partnership with a state withholding or composite question. For each, check whether the state return appears on the status board, whether its due date is set, and whether the e-file record covers it.
Time billing and work in progress
If you bill flat fees per return, time entry is for capacity and margin, not invoicing. If you bill hourly, time entries need to tie to the return's stage, so the work in progress report shows what was done and what remains unbilled.
Worked example: a preparer spends 6.5 hours on a Form 1065 return across organizer review, preparation and partner review. On a flat fee, those hours go into the margin report. On an hourly engagement, the same 6.5 hours should appear on the invoice with the stage named, so the client can see what the hours covered.
Portal and integration checks
Check the client portal the way a client will use it: on a phone, with a first-time login, and with an upload the size your clients send. Send clients one instruction, for example "Upload your 2026 documents through the link in this email." Then ask whether the client sees return status or only the request list.
For integrations, ask which tax software the tool reads from and what moves: status only, documents only, or both. One 2026 vendor roundup says some tools connect to tax software through Zapier for basic status. Treat that as a claim to test on your own return, not as a feature you can count on.
Essentials at 5 staff
At five staff you need an organizer that rolls forward, a document portal, a return status board that the whole team uses, and an e-signature record for any e-filed return.
Decision rule: at five staff, buy only the organizer, portal, board and signature record, and revisit the choice when the team reaches 10. Failure mode at this size: the owner is the only person who updates status, so the board goes stale when they are out of the office. Name one staff member to update stages each day during the season.
Essentials at 20 staff
At 20 staff, roles start to matter. Set preparer, reviewer and admin roles so that a preparer cannot mark a return filed without a reviewer's sign-off, and so that staff see only the clients assigned to them. Add a review queue that lists every return waiting on a reviewer, with the days it has waited.
Run one return from intake to delivery with two preparers and one reviewer before you commit.
Essentials at 50 staff
At 50 staff the questions move to administration. Ask for single sign-on with your identity provider, a list of API and webhook events, a full data export you can test, and the vendor's security documentation.
Test a full export of one client before you sign, including documents, organizers and the e-file record. A tool that cannot export the signed Form 8879 with its audit data leaves you stuck on the three-year retention clock.
Security duties under the FTC Safeguards Rule
The FTC Safeguards Rule page states that the information security program must be written. It also says the company must designate a Qualified Individual to run the program and create a written incident response plan. Ask the vendor how its controls support those duties.
Your own duty to notify the FTC applies to a notification event involving the unencrypted information of at least 500 consumers, and notice is due no later than 30 days after discovery, according to the same page. Get the vendor's incident notice timing in writing.
Total cost of ownership
Total cost is the seat price, times the seats, times 12 months for a yearly term, plus everything the quote leaves out. Add setup and data migration, add-on modules for the portal, e-signature or storage, integration fees, the staff hours spent building templates and moving clients, and the months you pay for two systems while you migrate.
Worked example, counts only: a 20-person firm buying 20 seats pays for 240 seat-months a year. If migration takes an administrator 40 hours and the firm runs the old tool in parallel for 3 months, the first-year cost includes those 40 hours and three months of both subscriptions. Compare two vendors on this total, not on the monthly rate on each pricing page.
Vendor roundups from 2026 name TaxDome, Canopy, Karbon, Financial Cents, SafeSend and Practice Ignition, and their per-user prices disagree. Get a written quote that states the seat count, the term, the modules included and what a seat added in March costs.