Randy Johnston and Brian Tankersley, CPA, discuss the most popular products in this year’s 2025 CPA Practice Advisor Readers Choice Awards. Watch the video, listen to the audio, or read the transcript. You can also read the full Readers Choice Awards article here.
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Transcript (Note: There may be typos due to automated transcription errors.)
SPEAKERS: Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA, Randy Johnston.
Randy Johnston 00:10
Welcome to the accounting Technology Lab. I’m host Randy Johnston with my co host Brian Tankersley, and we are pleased to talk to you about the Reader’s Choice Awards that have been done annually by the CPA practice advisor for 21 years. Editor Isaac O’Bannon has run this survey, and he states in his article, it’s not a scientific survey, but more of a measure of in the enthusiasm of products advocates, and we, frankly think it’s a reflection of firm size and products currently in use. The main thing we’d like you to learn is that it’s worth going back to look at the article that Isaac has written. But we thought in podcast form, we could cover a lot of products in a hurry. So Brian, I think if I can get you started with the first category here, I think we’ll step through these categories fairly quickly. But the first one up is federal and state income tax prep.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 01:03
Eric Andy and as you know, as you’ve said, often accountants switch tax software about as often as they switch major world religions. So it’s not surprised that Drake software won again this year with 58% next word was into it, la cert Pro Series or Pro Connect at 15% tax act prepares addition at 5.25% wolterscore, cch access, cch Pro System, FX tax at 4.8% and then Thompson solutions at 4.8%
Randy Johnston 01:35
so in the big picture of things, the tax software has not changed much over the past year. Now, income tax planning actually has changed a little bit. You and I looked at the BNA tax planner of this year, which the AI modifications were quite stunning. But on income tax planning, direct tax planner came in at 58% and the Intuit le cert tax planner, or tax advisor for Pro Connect at about 15% now we know Intuit doesn’t intend to support that in the long haul, so that’ll be dropping off in the future. Now, Jackie Meyer, where tax plan IQ has picked up to 5% the planner CS platform from Thomson, Reuters is at 5% and Pro System planning is about 5% now, other advanced tools, like corvy didn’t show up in the final list, although they are on the in
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 02:26
this survey. And notice that BNA didn’t show up either,
Randy Johnston 02:29
yeah, and it did in the extended results, which folks is why we really want you to take a look at the article itself. But I think next up might be specialty systems and tax prep tools.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 02:43
So and in this in this category, we had grunt works at 28% again, a scan, organize and Populate tool, QuickBooks, self employed at 21% cch, access and Pro System, FX from wolfskluwer. I’m not sure which ones are referred to there, but 7.7% Avalara 1099, and Debbie nine at 7.3% and safe send at 5.9%
Randy Johnston 03:06
Yeah. So now there were other extended products here too, the sure prep product and others canopy for example. So there’s a lot of specialty systems and tax prep tools that are also named. But that does bring us then to tax accounting research. And here an interesting blend of materials, the tax book tax materials at 48% and quick finder tax handbooks at 10% then intuits always had a really nice offer with their tax research 6% Thompson Reuters checkpoint at 6% and tax speaker at 6% so the other competitors, the CCH and teleconnect, answer connect and so forth, Bloomberg and others are in the extended list. So that brings us to tax document automation. Yeah.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 04:01
So for number one there, we ended up with tax dome at 39% followed by grunt works populate Intuit tax import for Pro Connect and pro series at 12% Walter school or cch I firm or Pro System ethics scan at 5% and Thompson Reuters source document processing and work paper CS at 3.6%
Randy Johnston 04:23
so when we looked at some of the extended products, the shear, perhaps the robo forms, 1040, and whatnot, I think this reflected probably the level of sophistication of products being used, and that rolled us over then to Sales and Use Tax. Now here, there are so many players. Avalara came in at 19 and CFS tax at 14% sure tax at 12.3% one source from Thomson, Reuters at 8% and he filed sales tax at 8% but other products were nipping the heels. Tax jar at 8.1 and vertex at three and a half. And so those at 1.6 there’s other very sophisticated systems that did not make it even named. But the others category here was quite large, at 15% so we’re going to watch this evolve with cirtax and others. And that brings us to sales tax exemption certificate management, yeah,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 05:23
and so with their Thompson rotors, one source came out on top there at 32 and a half percent, followed by Avalara certic cert capture at 21% vertex exemption certificate manager at 15% Sovos at 13.6 and then a very large others at 17.8 and I don’t think there was much of anything else. I don’t think there are any others listed in that. So this was a fairly thin category. As far as competitors,
Randy Johnston 05:48
it was fairly 10 thin. And that gets us to write up. Now, of course, write up is less popular today with interactive accounting, but a QuickBooks Account In addition, came in winter here at 47% Draco County at 23 and a half, I think justified. There zero at 6% Thomson Reuters accounting CS is still popular at 4% and sage Intacct or sage one at 3.3 the Accounting Power product was only at 1.7% which we thought might be love the accounting suite product, which is now called Custom books, was also at 1% in this particular category and about 11% in the other category. So for audit engagement tools, oh, my, what? A lot of change going on here. Yeah. So
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 06:34
with that one audit file is in here at 49% Thompson Reuters work paper, CS, advanced flow or checkpoint, smart audit suite, 8.6% the CCH list, seven and a half percent. Sure link, 5% in case we’re idea, 4% one thing I would say here is that the audience for this pub, the number, the percentage that do audits, is relatively small, so you know. And again, the firms are typically a little smaller, too. So it’s a, you know, this is one where I don’t know that I have anything, anything any great insight to say other than this is not something that, that everybody in this, in this survey would would do, yeah,
Randy Johnston 07:19
in fact, I would have favored more PCR, but on point, PCR only came in at 1.3 just like the DAS from cpa.com came in at 1.2 but interestingly enough, teammate analytics came in at 1.2 which was a much higher end product. Yeah, yeah, go figure. So they were kind of all over the map. Now I had the good pleasure of interviewing a brilliant team of business valuation specialists this past week, and we did talk about how so many people use Excel sheets here, but the products in this category, Sage works valuation solution came in at 29 nine. The value says source pro out of Colorado at 20% value adder at 17% money soft valuation pro at 17% and all the others at 15 five. There are a number of valuation products, and different products fit different certifications better.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 08:16
And that brings us to then they fit different problems better, different
Randy Johnston 08:20
problems better, absolutely right? Brian, so that brings us to fixed asset management, and there
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 08:25
we have the Intuit Pro Series, la cert, Pro Connect, fixed asset manager at 25% Thompson’s fixed asset CS at 21% cch, fixed asset manager, or pro systematic fixed assets, 13.6% Drake at 6.6% and 5.8% for proware asset keeper.
Randy Johnston 08:45
And so one of the interesting things I thought here Brian was that the sage fixed assets just dropped at 5.7 so a 10th of a point off the list, but traverse was still in there and and Wasp was still in there, for example. But when everything’s said and done, it’s it’s pretty clear that with the Intuit fixed asset and Thompson fixed assets, those those two are going to dominate the market. One concern we have is no fixed asset product being delivered as a SAS tool right now. The only one we’re aware of that’s common is BNA, so this will be a soft underbelly of the profession for quite a little while.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 09:27
Yeah, the other thing there that surprised me was to see Drake hit 6.6 here, and yet 58% on the income tax prep. So that’s a kind of an interesting combination.
Randy Johnston 09:38
Yeah, very odd anomaly, isn’t it? So? Payroll solutions,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 09:43
yeah, payroll solutions. We have QuickBooks, payroll at 22% Drake accounting at 17 and a half percent. ADP, it’s 13.7 gusto at 12% with all those relationships they have with different at different cloud companies and paychecks at four point. 6%
Randy Johnston 10:00
so most of the rest of the players here on payroll were all at 3% or less payroll relief, the my pay families, the sage 50s and sure payrolls and on pays and patriots, you know, all had relatively small listings. But the key thing of note here is there were over 20 additional vendors in the other category. So that’s really telling me that there is no super dominant payroll provider out there. Even though these numbers, you know, have some 20% to them, there’s lots of opportunity in payroll. So that brings us over to the 1099, w2 compliance. And again. Oh, my, so many competitors here.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 10:45
So Drake accounting came in at 22% he filed for biz at 9.8% CFS, tax solutions at 7% track 1099, at six and a half percent and tax 1099, at 4.2% I’m a big fan of these. I really like the fact, I like the ability to just input these things, and then to have to have the, you know, the mail fairy just take them away and and put them into somebody’s mailbox.
Randy Johnston 11:13
Yeah. And as turns out, I’ve used three of the products that were in the top five winners again for my pace. I just vary. But you know, the next products below tax 1099, were all kind of 3.3% type players, so there’s another five or six there. So when you look at the article that Isaac prepared, you’re going to find there’s almost 20 products in that category further. The other category had another 15. So I don’t know is that mean there’s close to 50. That’s probably,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 11:48
you know, I think it’s just gives us a new definition for what fragmented really means.
Randy Johnston 11:53
So, yeah. So that brings us to Time and Billing.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 11:57
Yeah. So with Time and Billing, techstone came in at 36% evidently, they got a lot of fans in the reader base. QuickBooks time at 16% carbon at 9.2% bill at 5% and sage time slips at 2.9 I don’t know that I’ve seen Time and Billing and bill, but Right? I’m glad they have it.
Randy Johnston 12:18
Not sure how that happened, but TPS software came in at 2.6 and canopy at 2.3 so again, quite a number of players in this particular space, and that rolls us over to practice management with which had similar results. With tax dome at 48 carbon at 11, the CCH family at 6.6 tied with Thomson Reuters at 6.6 and Office tools, who’s been around for a bit, at 4.3 Now, it turns out that, you know, canopies base must have just been kind of flying under the radar here, because they were At 3.9 and financial sense was at 2.4 and mango was still holding its own in here at 1% but that then leads us over to another part of this, the online invoicing and bill payment solutions. Now here, the list was pretty lengthy again,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 13:15
so again, tax dome at 29% Intuit payments at 20% carbon at 7% bill at 6.5% and CPA charge at 6.3% but again, you’ve got a ton of other folks in there. PayPal, zero, invoiced, Office tools, Drake bill and pay square Zoho books, Fresh Books, and then the other is 10% there at the end. Yeah. So that brings us very fragmented, very
Randy Johnston 13:46
fragmented. So that brings us to client portals. And here talk about fragmentation, the number Brian that I’ve quoted to our listeners in the past, 89 portals I’m tracking right now, and I’m just sure I’m going to find another one. You know, it’s like every time I turn around, oops, there’s another one. But here we have Drake software portals at 33% that makes sense with the platform on the tax prep earlier, tax dome at 29 carbon at 5.6 Dropbox at three seven. That makes sense strategy wise. And verify at 3.1 but here legacy players like share file are at 2.9 and canopies here as well. But then you’ve got NET Client CS and all the CCH ones and the smart vaults and so forth. So just remember 89 tells you we got fragmentation, and that brings us over to document management storage. Now here, you know, my numbers are probably a little smaller than represented by the respondents in the survey. So Brian, how did this one come out?
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 14:53
So Drake Document Manager at 39% a tax domain, 28% carbon at five and a half. CF, pro series in the search or Pro Connect document management at 4% a TR file cabinet, CS and go file room at 3%
Randy Johnston 15:09
Yeah. And so just below them was cch access document at 2.9 and smart ball down below that. So you know, when we look at these players, we’re going to see a lot more replacements, because many of these are, you know, getting some age. I think the one that got the most upgrade didn’t make it to the top five list here, which was smart bolt during this past year. And sure link also has some pretty radical updates that are happening to it. But I probably would have put sure vault over in the portal, unless you’re in the document management document storage area.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 15:48
Okay, so next one is other document management tools, and this is really looking more at the at the image enhancement and so forth, but it’s got Fujitsu at 29% HP at 23% canon at 11% Cofax at 6.2 and Abby at 6% just kind of these. These are most of these are kind of bundled with the scanner as you buy them. You know, most of these are not things that you would necessarily buy on a standalone basis in most cases. So people know what they know, and they may not know anything different.
Randy Johnston 16:20
And speaking of, know what? You know, remember that Fujitsu is now owned by Rico so that’s really probably a better name. There. Further other tools, like cpaper lists, now owned by Thomson. Reuters and nuance were also in the list. But think of these as utilities. And really, I think the key learning here is you’ve got a combination of food, Rico, HP and cannon battling it out for the scanner, near and dear to the heart.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 16:52
Yeah. So the next thing we have then are comprehensive firm workflow systems and tax dome comes in at 59% followed by carbon at 11 and a half percent. Thompson, Reuters firm, flow or practice. CS, project management, or six and a half percent. Cch, access, work stream and or I firm, or 5.9% financial sense at 2% okay, and there are some others in there, but, you know, I xcm showed up in there, Pascal workflow autonomy, which is, you know, that’s, that’s one that fits at the really super high end. So it’s an interesting combination,
Randy Johnston 17:30
yeah. And, you know, Brian, you and I had visited account CEO in December, and I have noted a few wins for that vendor as of late, so we’ll see how that all plays out. But then the other workflow tools is a combination of variety of things.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 17:51
Yeah. So we got, we got tax dome at 36% grunt works at 12, carbon at eight, Intuit tax advisor for a certain Pro Connect tax at 4.8% and then Bill at 4.3
Randy Johnston 18:05
so from there it went to, you know, various cch systems and Thompson Reuters systems and Office tools and share file and raw on and on and on again, a pretty lengthy list of maybe about 20 players in that space. So that led us to the website builders and services. Now here the list was actually not bad in terms of its length, about a dozen, but there are way more than the dozen that were named and the others did not classify. Isaac did not report all of the extra website builders. So here we have tax dome at 18% Drake software site dart at 18% get net set at 15% CPA Site Solutions at 10% which, by the way, used to be a very large provider, and cch site builder at 5% and that’s about where they had been. I was pleased to see some of the other web building softwares, but we do caution you to be thoughtful about your website presence, because even the sites that my nmgi team have built can use updating on a regular basis.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 19:18
Yeah. Okay. Next one is favorite, CPA provider. CPA Pa was number one at 19% Drake at 16% CPA Academy at 9% AICPA at 8% and state CPA societies at five and a half percent. Kind of disappointed that k2 is not in there, but since we sell most of our stuff wholesale to the state CPA societies, I guess we have to take the W on that
Randy Johnston 19:40
fifth one there, Randy, yeah, that’s probably pretty close to where it’s at. And I am pleased that our listeners are participating in CPA practice, advisor of CPA, and frankly, probably in AICPA town halls as well. To pick up CPA, because that indicated elsewhere. But in terms of the medium, live online classes, has now peaked out, or is now over 50% that’s what I was really trying to say, 52.8 self study with test at 25 in person, seminars and webinars at 20 and all others is only 2.4 so relatively small number there. And then it came to the conferences, yeah.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 20:26
So as CPA engage came in there at 18.8% IRS tax forms at 14% it QuickBooks connect at seven and a half percent. Na EA, national conference at 3% and then digital CPA at 2.9 and a lot of great opportunities in that segment. It’s just a matter of figuring out what you’re trying to accomplish and then figuring out where you want to go
Randy Johnston 20:48
based on that. Yeah, and you know, some of the ones that didn’t make it to the top five, the scaling new heights event with Joe Woodard Gail’s CPA practice advisor ensuring success, which you know you and I spoke at last December, the CCH User Conference and the Synergy Conference, which we’ve recorded podcasts on, and you’ve had, we both had the pleasure of attending those through the years. But wow, 38% of other events, and I suspect a good number of those might be state level events,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 21:19
yeah, yeah. And again, the other hard part about this here is that, you know, there are different tracks here. Sometimes folks are want to do the IRS shows. Sometimes they want to do, you know, if they’re, if they’re CPA, they may want to do the AICPA stuff, because they’ve got to do some peer review stuff, maybe that that they can get there. On the other hand, you know, if you’re an EA and you’re doing this primarily for tax, then you almost, you almost have to go to those events, because it’s got to be very tax focused to qualify as IRS CPE. So, you know, again, it’s pretty fragmented, as we would expect. Now, an area that’s not fragmented is desktop, Small Business Accounting with QuickBooks, desktop at 78% you know, it’s the The Walking Dead, one Randy. It’s, it’s 800 pound gorilla, yeah, it’s the eight the The Walking Dead, 800 pound gorilla. That’s not dead yet, but is, is, you know, again, it’s, they’re trying to kill. It pretty hard. PC software accounting at 4% Drake at 2% a systems visual bookkeeper at 1.7% and then check mark, software multi ledger at 1.7%
Randy Johnston 22:31
Yeah, and many of the other players. There were kind of small players, but it is clear the transition is happening into SAS and online business accounting. And not a surprise here also, the 800 pound gorilla was QuickBooks Online was zero coming in at 66% was zero coming in at 7.9 Thompson Reuters products at 3.2 intact at 2.8 and wave at 2.5% up and comers included Zoho books and Fresh Books, and there were some other, you know, good products in that particular category. Now I know Brian, you got to write one of the things that you’ve been wanting to write for years as a CPA course for our k2 group this year, and that was expense and travel management. Yes, so and so, as it turns out, the expense and travel management expense, if I came in at 22% the runners up there was Zoho expense at 9.7 Dex had 7.5 concur, expense, 6.5 tally at six, two, and then many others from there. But I knew that was one that was really near and dear to your heart. But that then brings us over to the retail accounting. Point of Sale, six,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 23:53
Give me. Give me one second, because I somehow missed that one. I think I pulled that one out but looking at this though retail accounting and point of sale, the again, square ends up at 37% into a QuickBooks. Pos, 35% NetSuite on site. POS, 3.1% then accupas and radio radiant systems, counterpoint. The interesting part about this, to me is that when Intuit shed the QuickBooks point of sale product and stopped supporting it, you know, so that’s 24% that’s not supported anymore. The interesting part was, they tried to send everybody over to Shopify, which didn’t show up on the list. So yeah, that
Randy Johnston 24:39
is a superb observation, because the Shopify transitions, some went well, some didn’t. But for it not to appear on the list at all is surprising.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 24:50
I have a surprise. Yeah, yeah. So ASP and hosting providers write works which actually own CPA practice advisor ended up at 29.7% CITP. End up at 14% ace cloud at about 14% Thompson Reuters, virtual office at 11% and then private cloud, and cloud nine, real time by carrot, which is again, the again, the group out of San Diego at 4% okay, yeah. Now outsource tech services, right? Works at 34% C trauma 15% ace cloud at 14.6 and MGI showing up at 5% and then call box at 4.7
Randy Johnston 25:31
anyway. So it is interesting to see the technology providers you know, showing up where they do. And likewise, maybe the technology we covered earlier, the HP, brother cannon, Fujitsu slash Rico Epson, is probably more definitive of the actual hardware used for scanning.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 25:54
And I would say, from a printer perspective, I’ve been very happy with my brother printers for many years, and they, they’ve served me very well. You know, again, the Fujitsu scanners now have been replaced by Rico, like we mentioned earlier. But, you know, again, it’s interesting that that’s there,
Randy Johnston 26:10
yeah? So I think then you are probably best served to talk about the next one, the favorite form of physical exercise during tax season.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 26:21
Yeah, and number one is what you’d expect it to be. Who has time to exercise during busy season. You know, the the accountant equivalent of Get the heck off of my lawn at 41% a weight lifting at 8.5% picking up those heavy those heavy binders and client client records, those big, heavy tax returns you had to print out for them, walking at 8% jogging and running away from situations at 7% yoga at 6.9% and wrapping up with jumping to conclusions at 6.4%
Randy Johnston 26:56
and now I think Brian, if we’d have taken all six of those and put them in the office, I think walking between offices, jogging and running between offices and doing a little yoga while in the office.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 27:06
Yeah, I’m surprised, you know. And for some people, I’m surprised we didn’t end up with aerobic swearing showing up, you know, so Well,
Randy Johnston 27:15
Brian, you know, whenever I see the Reader’s Choice Awards from either Isaac at CPA practice, advisor, or other sources. You know, for me, it’s always an opportunity to learn about new products. And there are some new products on the list that we will be covering in future accounting technology labs. So any particular parting thoughts for you today, Brian,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 27:38
you know, I, I’m with you on that in that, I think it’s, I think it’s interesting to see what people choose in here, because, again, there aren’t that many folks that know the whole market. And so the thing I would say about that is that that helps you understand what people are actually using everywhere, and what they’re excited about, honestly. You know, again, this is almost like a popular, well, it is popularity contest, almost. So, you know, as we’re as we’re looking at it here, this again, this kind of helps us. You know that are you know, you and I, the way I think about it here is that this is the equivalent of the ratings, and you and I are the equivalent of the critics. You know, when it comes to drama and and plays and things like that. I know your daughter works on your daughter and son in law work on Broadway. And so as I look at this, you know, I think the critics have a role, and I think the the people’s choice has a role, you know, again and and I think at the end of the day, you know, pick what you like, live your life, be happy, and hopefully it gives you some insights here. So
Randy Johnston 28:40
you want me to break out the song with popular to be popular, in case we appreciate you listening in to Brian and I today, hopefully you at least got a little bit of insights of who won what in the Reader’s Choice this year. We’ll talk to you again soon in another accounting Technology Lab. Good day today.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 29:07 Thank you for sharing your time with us. We’ll be back next Saturday with a new episode of the technology lab from CPA practice advisor. Have a great week.
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Tags: Accounting, Firm Management, Technology
Dale June 1 2025 at 5:50 pm
Podcasts suck. Can you do a straight narrative. Nothing but the facts.