CPA Firm Brooklyn FI Tax on TaxDome: ‘It’s Written in the Language Of the Tax World’

Welcome to #TestimonialThursday! This week’s interview is with Ethan Beberness from Brooklyn FI Tax, a full service accounting, tax preparation, and business consulting firm featuring CPAs & financial planners.

Why did you choose TaxDome?

One of the biggest draws was the easy user interface; we’ve had a ton of clients comment how easy it is. It looks so much nicer than other portals we’ve used in the past. Having clients actually use a portal that they like is really helpful for our brand.

Have you used other practice-management systems before?

I come from a journalism background. I’ve used Asana, and I’m very familiar with WordPress. TaxDome seems far more specifically tailored to accounting practices; it’s written in the language of the tax world, which I think is helpful. I don’t know if you can bill in Asana, but I like that you can in TaxDome—and connect to QuickBooks.

We no longer use Intuit Link.

What’s been the feedback from your clients?

I’ve gotten very positive feedback for TaxDome. Our firm is mostly remote with clients so having a great tax client portal is critical.

Are you using pipelines or any of the task-management tools?

Definitely. We’re using pipelines and the associated automated actions. Having the ability to template & automate emails saves us a lot of time. We also automate organizers being sent to clients.

We have a 1040 organizer, a couple of business organizers, and a separate extension organizer.

The pipelines are really great for having a visual of where each client is in the tax process and for showing us what we need to work on.

Without that feature, it could be a whole morning of phone calls. Now, we completely avoid that. — Ethan Beberness, on using TaxDome reminders feature.

Has it been a big learning curve?

No, not at all. This is my first job working in Tax, and I’ve found it easy to find what we need.

We’ve had a few minor bugs, but they all get worked out in time.

Does your team work remotely or from an office?

We have six people—and a dog, Charlie! We’re all in the office. We’re mostly remote with the clients, but we have people come in once in a while.

Are you billing through TaxDome?

Yep! We aren’t locking documents to bills, but we have not had issues with accounts receivable this year.

The automatic reminders on bills is having a great impact: We don’t have to follow up ourselves; it gets done for us. Without that feature, it could be a whole morning of phone calls. Now, we completely avoid that.

We really like how all of the correspondence with a client is located within their profile. We don’t have to search for emails and can easily see an audit trail of who sent what without having to dig for it.

We always consider making improvements to TaxDome and like to let you know about our updates and expected roll-out dates. Are there features that you feel are missing? Or features you wish we would add?

• It’d be great if the pipeline header was sticky [Already released!].
• We’d love to be able to add GIFs to emails.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Let’s meet up for a drink once tax season is over!