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Ft Practice Priorities For Accountants

What Accountants Hate Most About Tax Software

Accountants aren’t shy about sharing what drives them up the wall. We break down the most common tax software issues and what modern solutions should do instead. 
Published: May 30, 2025

Accountants aren’t shy about sharing what drives them up the wall — a quick scroll through r/tax or r/accounting on Reddit makes that clear. But these aren’t just isolated gripes from a few frustrated pros. According to industry surveys, only 37% of tax firm professionals say they’re “very satisfied” with their firm’s current tech stack, leaving a majority stuck with tools that don’t support how they work.

Even when firms use powerful solutions like ProConnect, they still have to rely on a patchwork of other tools to manage client communication, document storage, and workflow tracking — many of which suffer from clunky interfaces, duplicate data entry, and missing automations. These may seem like minor annoyances, but they’re actually signs of deeper platform misalignment that can have real consequences: hours of wasted time, costly compliance errors, burnout during tax season, and high client churn rates.

Below, we break down the most common complaints and software issues that accounting professionals face, and, more importantly, what modern solutions should do instead.

Complaint #1: Outdated, clunky interfaces

ProConnect delivers the tax prep horsepower firms need, but when it comes to managing client documents, communications, and signatures, the systems in place often fall short.

A lot of software firms use still looks and functions like it hasn’t changed in decades. The design appears dated, the navigation is unintuitive, and even simple tasks can take far more clicks than they should.

Common frustrations include:

  • Having to dig through multiple menus just to find a prior year’s return
  • No global search bar to locate clients, returns, or documents quickly
  • Screens that aren’t optimized for multiple monitors or smaller laptops
  • “Next” buttons that aren’t where people expect them, or pages that refresh and erase data if the cursor hits the wrong field
  • No autosave or version control — so a crash could wipe out 30 minutes of work

In a deadline-driven environment, every second matters. Multiply those extra clicks by dozens (or hundreds) of returns, and the time lost is staggering. And beyond slowing things down, clunky interfaces also frustrate staff, increase the risk of mistakes, and create more opportunities for burnout.

Fun fact: Firms using SmartVault with ProConnect estimate they save 10 minutes per return just by eliminating repetitive steps like uploading documents, toggling between platforms, and manually notifying clients. Plus, it prevents the risk of issues like misfiled documents or lost returns.

Complaint #2: Lack of integrations

Most firms rely on a patchwork of tools: one for tax prep, another for document storage, something else for eSign, and maybe a basic CRM tacked on top of it all. The problem? None of them integrates with one another.

Accountants and admins end up copying and pasting client info across multiple systems, uploading the same documents to different platforms, and manually checking whether clients have signed, uploaded, or responded. Even small updates, like changing a client’s phone number, have to happen in multiple places.

The result of this tax software issue is a constant game of catch-up. Disconnected systems create disconnected teams. Information gets lost, deadlines are missed, and frustrated staff spend billable hours on admin work that should be automated.

Even worse? When a client submits the incorrect form or signs an outdated version, firms often don’t realize the error until late in the process, forcing last-minute scrambles, delays, and avoidable rework.

Complaint #3: Limited automations

​Even in firms that have moved to digital tools, much of the day-to-day still runs on manual muscle. Staff can spend hours copying and pasting the same follow-up email, updating trackers, and nudging clients one by one.

And once documents are signed or uploaded, there’s often no automatic handoff to the next step. Someone still has to manually push it forward, or it risks falling through the cracks. To stay on top of it all, some teams create elaborate workarounds: spreadsheets, status dashboards, and calendar alerts just to monitor where each return stands.

But all of that admin work comes at a cost. Time that could be spent on quality review or advisory services is swallowed up by logistics. Partners and managers can’t scale communications without pulling staff into the weeds. And during the busy season, that leads to delays, burnout, and missed opportunities across the board.

Complaint #4: Poor client experience

Firms using ProConnect for tax prep often have to rely on separate client portals, email tools, and eSign solutions to manage the client side of the workflow, and that’s where breakdowns happen. Many are clunky, outdated, or just plain confusing. Clients struggle to log in, fumble through upload steps, or abandon the portal entirely. Deadlines get missed because reminder emails are overlooked. eSign requests often go unanswered or require multiple follow-up rounds.

It’s not that clients don’t want to cooperate; they just don’t know how to use the tools they’ve been given. And when the client experience breaks down, it creates a ripple effect across the firm, pushing everything behind schedule as your team spends billable hours resending links, troubleshooting login issues, and walking clients through basic steps again and again that should’ve taken seconds.

Complaint #5: High costs and hidden fees

For many firms, especially solo practitioners and small teams, the sticker price of software can balloon beyond what they initially anticipated.

Some tools restrict core functionality behind premium subscription tiers, forcing firms to upgrade just to maintain everyday operations. What initially looks affordable often reveals itself to be loaded with a la carte pricing: per-seat charges, limits on document storage, and more.

For example, vendors may charge per Knowledge-Based Authentication (KBA) attempt, even if the attempt fails. For firms that need to meet IRS e-signature standards, these hidden costs add up fast, especially when clients need to redo the process. Some even charge per signature, turning basic workflows into a mounting expense.

Costs also scale unevenly. As firms grow or bring on seasonal staff, they’re hit with added seat licenses and surcharges, even if those new users are only accessing the system occasionally.

Over time, these layered costs create a creeping sense of being nickel-and-dimed, which is extra frustrating when the software itself still feels underpowered. In this environment, even smart growth decisions can start to feel like financial risks because the software can’t keep up without pushing the budget over the edge.

Complaint #6: No real-time support

During tax season, there’s no such thing as a slight delay. Whether it’s a form that won’t generate, a login that suddenly stops working, or a document that won’t upload, any of these can throw off an entire day’s schedule if support isn’t immediately available.

Unfortunately, many accountants find themselves stuck waiting. Support queues stretch for hours. Email responses arrive a day too late. And in some cases, there is no live chat or phone access; it’s just a help center article that may or may not be applicable.

Even worse, most support teams aren’t tailored to the needs of tax professionals under deadline pressure. They might not understand the urgency of a March 15 S-Corp deadline or the difference between a 1040 and a 990.

The result? Accountants end up troubleshooting their own tools — or scrambling to replace them altogether — instead of filing returns, and that’s not what anyone is getting paid to do.

Explore a better alternative: SmartVault x ProConnect

Every complaint and software issue outlined above reflects a bigger challenge: ProConnect handles the tax prep side, but many of the supporting systems around it weren’t built for how modern firms actually work. Instead of supporting staff, clients, and workflows, it slows them down.

SmartVault x ProConnect was built to fix that. This integration brings together the tools accountants rely on most, including document management, client collaboration, and tax prep, and finally makes them work together — no more disconnected systems, manual workarounds, and annoyances that your tech is working against you.

“SmartVault is a central part of my tax workflow, and just about every other client service workflow in my firm. I have been using SmartVault for almost 12 years, and it is the backbone of our tech stack, making delivering an amazing client experience super simple.”
– Dawn Brolin, CPA, CFE, CEO of Powerful Accounting, The Designated Motivator

You get:

  • A clean, intuitive interface designed for fast, focused workflows
  • Built-in automation for organizers, reminders, eSign, and secure storage
  • Seamless syncing between document management, client collaboration, and tax prep with auto-routing of tax returns
  • Transparent pricing that scales with your team
  • Responsive, real-time support when it matters most

Ready to stop fighting these tax software issues and start focusing on your work? Join the waitlist for SmartVault x ProConnect.