Canopy Features

I love the Client Management module and the client-facing mobile app. It is very simple for our clients to use and to send us documents securely. We have had great success with client-adoption. I also like the automated client reminders.

OMG, it takes SO MANY clicks to accomplish anything. Pretty much everything you can do inside canopy could be streamlined by reducing at least one click. Working across multiple tasks, across multiple clients, that's a lot of clicks. Also, the firm-facing mobile app UI could be greatly improved and have better functionality.

We liked the ability to access the software/information from anywhere.

The software does not allow you to export a sorted contact list. A very simple option that has been neglected.

The task management feature is useful in tracking engagements and to help plan for the workload.

Monitoring the number of contacts that are active can be challenging at times. There are was to identify last activity but is missing a feature where you can mark multiple clients as inactive instead of going into each one individually. This is important since the fee is based on the amount of active contacts.

Customer support. I have questions and suggestions all the time and I love that by using the chat support I get prompt answers and endless follow-up from support staff.

Transferring clients over created several duplicates and ultimately some lost information in the transition.

When my client's upload documents to the portal, Canopy lists that activity, I click on it, and I am able to take action on it right away.

I would like to be able to adjust the timekeeper when I start it or while it is running.

Canopy's progress tracking features are generally well-liked by users since they enable teams to efficiently monitor and manage project progress. These features include real-time visibility, task-level tracking, milestone tracking, performance metrics, visualization tools, and tasks management integration.

Some consumers may be concerned about cost, especially smaller companies or teams with tighter resources. Users have expressed interest in assessing the cost structure and making sure that the features and functionalities match the value offered.

The software is easy to use for us internally as well as for our clients. Our firm has drastically benefited from the workflow, file management and client management features. We look forward to moving over our time and billing to have everything under one login.

We would love to see a more robust Home-Admin page, bulk e-sign requests from templated letters (engagement letters), roles by contact to integrate with tasks to populate assignees (e.g., Partner, Bookkeeper, Preparer, Reviewer, etc.), limit parent task completion to select users (to avoid false completed tasks), share documents with non-portal users, send invoices to non-portal users, parent-sub invoicing, time & billing improvements, allow for folder templates to be applied when tasks are applied, allow for doubling clicking on a file to default to "Edit File" instead of preview mode, allow to search spouses on mobile, allow for additional formatting in Notes section.

Thank you for this detailed feedback, Kyle! We're glad Canopy is working for your firm and streamlining your processes. We hope to address many of your specific recommendations in the near future as well! Follow along our new feature roadmap (or request a new feature yourself) by logging in here: https://feedback.getcanopy.com/

I had been looking for a simple accounting solution to help me manage my clients' invoices, and discovered this product. It is simple, easy to use, and has a ton of features. Within a few months, I was able to set up my clients' invoices in a matter of minutes, and start using it. I also turned it into a project management tool.

Canopy has proven to be a robust and reliable solution that has helped streamline our document management processes, and it works well with our accounting software. The interface is very easy to use, the adaptation time to the software is very short, and it worked smoothly.

Thank you for this amazing feedback, Deniz!

Frankly, I purchased Canopy in November of 2019 when I opened up my practice in my home office, and didn't have a full grasp of it as the pandemic hit. 3+ years later - with much of the transition in the last few months - I can't imagine my practice without Canopy. The interface is super user-friendly, there are many options providing the user with a more personalized approach.

Sometimes certain shortcuts aren't available, or the desktop software errors etc. but it's small things and so far I've managed fine; needless to say Canopy is continuously improving so (not a con) once the "Print" or "Save" option directly to Canopy was available and my contacts were set integrated with emails etc. it's been a breeze.

We're so happy to hear that Canopy has helped you launch your in-home practice! We are always striving to improve and are glad to hear we're going in the right direction. Thanks for being a Canopy user, Sandeep!

The better-than-bank security made the choice a no-brainer.

The instant access to files that a Client uploaded wasted precious seconds every time I accessed a Client's folder.

We're glad you're enjoying Canopy Joshua! Thank you for your time leaving a review and we hope to continue making your practice as secure as possible for years to come!

Ease of use make it so it does not take alot of time to set up and follow

Not always designed to assist tax resolution out side norm

Canopy's client portal is very easy to use, and I received many compliments from clients on its user-friendliness. Time tracking and invoicing was simple and straightforward. I am a solo practitioner, so I'm not sure how it works for multi-user organizations, but for my practice it did the job well.

My biggest complaint with Canopy has do do with pricing. It seems like they completely overhaul their pricing structure every six months--not just raising rates, but changing how the pricing is calculated and how features are accounted for. It just got too much to track and too expensive relative to other software providers. Also, as a law firm I ended up needing an invoicing system that could manage trust accounting to stay bar compliant.

Document storage and sharing is easy as clicking on button. clients being able to pay online and having the ability to track time and easily add it to an invoice is very important to us.

There are a lot of features that could be added to make the software much better for us and working with the support team they say that features will be added however its been over a year an none of the features we need have been added. fingers crossed.

I've transferred all my tasks that I used to have on a big spreadsheet to Canopy tasks and organizing them has been so easy. I love the ability to make custom views of the tasks so I can make sure I am working on the most important things.

The one thing I really liked about my old document management software was that I could view the files offline on my computer. It made it so easy to work with the files. I haven't seen that with Canopy. I also liked how my tax software, Proseries, could import the tax returns directly into my old document management system, but I will be able to print them into Canopy, so it won't be too much different.

The client portal system allows for high level encryption and immediate availability of necessary documents with particular emphasis on Transcript retrieval - wonderful to work with on source document retention and back checking transcripts to ensure accuracy in reports/returns.

The documents needs to be searched chronologically and does not allow separate folders for organization.

My clients enjoy the portal and state it is very user-friendly and easy to navigate. I also enjoy the transcript service as it makes pulling new transcripts very fast.

I wish the software allowed for integration with Outlook. I would like to be able to send an email through Outlook and have the email automatically posted to my client's account. I use the software for case management so this is necessary to outline steps in the case so I do a lot of copy and pasting.

I love how easy it is to setup a new client in this software. Once set up, it's one click to get IRS transcripts downloaded for my review. This saves me at least an hour each week in comparison to the software I used to use.

There's really nothing to dislike about this software. It does what it says it will do and it saves me time.

Canopy is a great tool for all-in-one tracking of client relations, tasking, workflow, and running a CPA firm. I loved being able to go straight to the client home page and having access to all of the client information. Contact information, notes, tasks, important contacts related to the client, recent files, engagements - all of the information right there! Fantastic. Then I can drill down under communications to all of the client emails and correspondence with the client. Tax organizers are accessible from there too. All the information in one location! The fact that I could request an IRS transcript through Canopy for clients was amazing.

I didn't use the online payment system since I used another system to payments. I wasn't a fan of the pricing plan but it still was comparable with other vendors. Overall there wasn't much about Canopy that I didn't like.

We're ad to see you go Chuck but so happy Canopy was the right fit for you! We hope to work with you again in the future. Good luck at your new venture. - The Canopy Team

I love that everything is all in one place. Document storage, document sharing with clients, timer, invoicing, reports, task management, procedures (we use sub-tasks to lay out the steps in a task with notes on how to do each step), transcripts etc. I have recently started to use the letter templates to respond to IRS letters and they make my life so much easier. I also really love the client request feature that automatically reminds my client that I am waiting on something.

Small things, like I can lose track of tasks if I fail to assign them to someone. This could be easily avoided by looking at the task list in its entirety, but I find it most useful on a day to day basis to look at only tasks that belong to me, or only tax returns that need to be done, or only tasks that belong to the bookkeeper etc. I have to remember to occasionally look at all the tasks and then I realize that I missed something. I also find that the software is not as keyboard friendly as I would like, I have to do a lot of clicking to accomplish things.

The two features that my firm likes the most in Canopy is the Client Portal and Tax Resolution (IRS transcript delivery service). When purchasing the software, we knew we needed a Client Portal through which clients could exchange documents with us via their smartphone, and we've really liked that feature (being able to brand it as "ours" is a nice touch). What we didn't know - until we used it -...

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I personally feel that the e-signature process is a bit clunky, but that's probably just because I don't have much experience with IRS-approved e-signatures (which require knowledge-based authentication). But at least I know that Canopy is compliant with IRS regulations concerning e-signatures!

From a customer experience perspective, this is one of the best in class products. You can customize the portal login page, and I had great success training clients well into their 70s to use the client portals. Each file can be hidden or shared with the client, and for simple documents, Canopy offers a decent in-app pdf editor that doesn't share your annotations with the client. Haven't found anything aside from Engagement I liked better for document management, and Canopy is much cheaper on that front, and includes a client portal.

Honestly, the only dislike is price. That, and I found some of the automations (like engagement letters for example) were clunkier to use than those of competitors (say, TaxDome).

Clients like the portal. It has helped improve the perception that my firm cares about their info. It also feels very organized. It is easy to set up a portal.

Yegads, what to me seems like obvious items, the organizer doesn’t roll over from prior year to current year. Your current solution is for me to set up customer accounts for each member of a family unit. This seems dumb and a waste of accounts, my and my team’s time, my money and the client perception and experience. If i as a customer was asked by my firm to re enter all prior year into, I would...

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The best feature is the client portal and mobile app. It has been a business transformation blessing from way before COVID was ever a thing. I remember way back in 2017 when the mobile app was nearly launching how it revolutionized the way my clients do business with me. This is what has kept me on Canopy in spite of the price hikes.

Canopy recently has changed their pricing model and I don’t like it because it increases the barriers to tax professional adoption. There are other titles out there who bring good feature sets and a much lower price point and has given me reason to start shopping elsewhere. What keeps me at Canopy is not wanting to invest the time in moving my clients files over to a new system, notifying my clients that I virtually moved virtual offices, and avoiding the headaches of all the client questions that would ensue.

The software is cloud based and therefore easy to access.

The company consistantly made promises that they were unable to uphold. Pushbacks on product releases that we desperately needed, and no refund for their mistakes. Not the company you want to go with when you need something dependable. They're a tax company which makes it even more absurd that they mess around with deadlines.