Podcast – Getting to Know TaxDome at Accountex

Check out our co-founder Ilya Radzinsky’s interview with Jose Zavala on the IDP Podcast.

“Man, that is awesome. I’m not gonna lie to you…I’m gonna check you guys as soon as we leave here…. this was amazing, I did not expect this from you guys… I heard practice management software..but to hear what you guys are building it’s tremendous” – Jose

We are excited to post Ilya Radzinsky’s conversation with Jose Zavala at Accountex earlier this year.

In this podcast, Ilya and Jose discuss our vision for a streamlined and integrated practice management solution.

Jose is a managing member of ZTX Tax Advisors and was introduced to us by the Latino Tax Professional Association.

Short on time? Check out our summary of this interview.

2:58 – How this centralized system works.

Ilya explains that TaxDome serves as a state of the art project management system that differentiates between one-off tasks and repeatable tasks or series of tasks. Beyond that, however, TaxDome introduces the concept of Pipelines or Funnels. These are known business processes (e.g., tax, audit, and bookkeeping) each requiring a certain set of steps. Each firm knows their own processes and can therefore create Pipelines that are unique to their needs. This makes it easy to move the client along the process and to see what step you are in, what information you are waiting on, from whom, and so on. TaxDome provides the tools not only for setting up the process, it also makes it easy to automate repeatable tasks and actions and to assign them to the right team member. All the things you do on backend can be pre-programmed and automated and built into your system using TaxDome.

4:35 – A modern update that saves tremendous amounts of time.

Interviewer points out that, historically and even now, many firms manage all of this in Excel, which is daunting. It requires constant manual updates, daily meetings to coordinate among the different staff members, and inevitably lets things would slip through the cracks. Having a cloud-based system that tracks all of this automatically prevents all of these traditional and frustrating pitfalls. No less importantly, it saves an extraordinary amount of time, especially for menial task that, if performed by the CPA, would have incurred the client enormous expenses. TaxDome eliminates all of these disadvantages.

5:52 – Communication among team members is optimized.

The more clients and team members, the more a clean and functional set of processes becomes necessary. TaxDome keeps your inbox clear, but still aware of every email sent by everyone on your team and beyond. It does this by syncing your existing emails to the system–that way you can check on what’s going on with any given client or topic and see all emails sent by everyone that are relevant to it, while keeping your inbox clear.

Instead of housing information in the CRM, it is housed in the Project Mgmt System. There’s also a client portal built into the system. All of these are integrated with each other, creating a single, comprehensive system where everyone is always in the loop. There is no need to send information from one system or one part of the system to another. All taxable events are recorded without falling through the cracks or having to be searched for later, or in the event of the absence of a relevant team member. This allows one to manage their business in a much more streamlined fashion.

10:06 – Inbox+, a news feed of the activity in your company.

This easily archivable facebook-like new feed, contains everything that you might want to know or find out about the activity in your company. Moreover, it allows you to create actionable tasks from within this feed. Should you see something relevant, you can send it directly to your client, requesting information about it, for example. Or you might wish to send it to your staff, asking them to take action. Whatever the case, Inbox+ allows you unprecedented flexibility and responsiveness.

12:22 – The TaxDome philosophy: software should be easy to use

The creators of TaxDome believe that if you have to pay a company to train you to use their software, this is a fundamental flaw. Training is paramount, but it should be available on an ad-hoc basis, not forced upon the client as a condition for using your software. The tool you provide should be easy enough to use on its own and only then should should provide the necessary support when the client wants it.

Most accounting software, Ilya points out, is clunky from an interface perspective. Having been created in the early 2000s, it often contains a great deal of functionality that’s buried and ultimately unusable by the client. TaxDome’s goal was to be the iphone when compared to these “flip phone” client portals. A client portal is only as good as the number of clients who actually use it, which is why, according to Ilya, TaxDome has created one that is clean and genuinely usable, with a low learning curve and no barriers to entry. Everyone is savvy enough these days to use technology, as evidenced by email, Facebook, and Netflix. The key is how valuable the technology is and how easy it is to use.

17:35 – Comprehensive integration

TaxDome is currently integrated with QuickBooks, but does not plan on stopping there. They also already have a full-fledged invoicing system integrated into their software that lets clients pay their bills and view the history of their payments in one place. They do not even have to remember any passwords, they have the choice of opening the app with face recognition or fingerprint recognition. The invoicing system allows them to lock documents to bills and pay right from their phone by clicking on a file. When the payment pop-up comes up, they can simply pay their bill without entering a credit card number as it is already in the system. All bills in the TaxDome system automatically sync into your QuickBooks account. Soon, Ilya explains, the company will be integrating with Xero as well as Zapier so that the more tech savvy can set up their own integration with various software. Stripe can currently be linked on the backend and, soon, ACH linking will permit firms’ clients to pay directly with their bank account without having to use a credit card at all.

19:45 – Fully white labelled

TaxDome’s surprisingly comprehensive system–which also includes website templates for clients to use–is also clean in another way. It does not announce itself on the client’s websites: everything is routed directly to the client’s site, retaining the client’s image and logo.

21:20 – A relevant background

TaxDome has waited two years to begin actively marketing its plug-and-play solution, even as it intends to stay true to its philosophy of continually updating its software. The creators’ background, however, goes back to their decade of work as in-house IT professionals for an accounting firm.