SmartVault

Awesome to add to my tech stack

Kommentare: My compliance department introduced SmartVault instead of google drive or another service. I couldn't be happier! And, the integration with docusign is awesome.
My clients find it easy to work with .

Vorteile:

It's an easy way to securely hold all of my clients documents. I LOVE that it works well with docusign. My clients find it easy to use.

Nachteile:

If you cannot get in touch with customer service (everyone is busy!) they have FAQ's that I easily found what I was looking for!

Excellent portal for Intuit tax users

Kommentare: I haven't used other portals, but researched several and think that Smartvault is likely the best standalone portal for Lacerte/ProSeries users. Overall a great experience and can't imagine life before Smartvault.

Vorteile:

We started using Smartvault for our small firm four years ago. It has been great at helping us move to a more paperless environment. The best feature is the tight integration with Lacerte (it also integrates with ProSeries). If you print returns from Lacerte you can choose Smartvault and the returns go straight to the correct folders so you can save a copy and the clients have a copy. There's also good integration with scanners. The connected desktop app is great to use. The client facing portal was previously clunky but much improved this year. The software is quite easy to use and relatively affordable. When we've had issues support is helpful at resolving.

Nachteile:

I wish there was a way to make a request from a client for a specific document like more modern practice software has. Wish accounting folder templates were included in the "tax plan" at the same price...doesn't seem like that feature should cost extra. This year we decided to add workflow management and I looked at competitors like TaxDome/Canopy which offer a lot in one but in the end have added Karbon through IPM. I must say however that TaxDome seems to offer a ton at a much better value than Smartvault. Would love to see Smartvault get to that point and would gladly pay more to include other features. E-signatures are just ok, we got a trial to use some free this year but without KBA. The price for the e-signatures especially with KBA is too high and we're going to use Intuit's e-signature product going forward.

Only document storage and not the best one

Kommentare: The software is only document storage and not the best one. It is supposed to integrate with Intuit tax software (Prosystems, etc.), but if you use something different (I am on CCH), you are out of luck. Customer service is horrible and not worth the time you spend contacting them. Please read my Cons section for more impressions.

Vorteile:

They promise many good features, but only a few of them actually work.

Nachteile:

I was originally on the tax-pro subscription for $360/year for several years. They canceled the tax-pro plans and charged my credit card $112 just for the month of November. It is almost four times the price and not something I would pay for this software. The change of plan was not communicated clearly, the specific date of change was not communicated at all, and now customer service tells me that refunds are outside of their policy even though I cancelled SmartVault immediately. There are more cons than pros to this software. My customers were receiving upload notifications after a three-week delay, which created a lot of confusion. The software was not intuitive to the customers. Individual files had to be made accessible to them even when uploaded to an already accessible folder, which was a complete waste of time and another source of frustration. Sometime last year, SmartVault had a hiccup and resorted our filing system, e.g., files from 2017 folders were randomly moved to different folders, etc. DocuSign integration worked in about 30% of the time; in most cases, I would get a file error and go directly to the DocuSign website, which defeats the purpose of this integration. I had contacted customer service for each of these issues and received no help. They now require a minimum two licenses regardless of whether you are a single-member firm.

Easy and effective document management system

Vorteile:

I use this software on a daily basis since all our documents are stored on it. Thus, I am constantly "checking out" and "checking in XL and PDFs. Once I am done working on something I just save it, close it, and ot automatically is updated and checked back in to the software storage.

Nachteile:

The one thing that would be nice to have (which I was able to do with our prior software filing system) is to be able to "check out" a document in a "view only" manner. Technically, of someone else has already checked out a document and you subsequently check out the same one, this is what happens to your version, but if you want to do this with an unchecked out file, you cannot. This would be helpful for cases that you know you do not want to have any changes made to a file but still want to view it. It would allow a peace of mind knowing that you are not going to accidently change anything.

SmartVault used everyday

Kommentare: I have been using SmartVault for over 5 years, when I first started with SmartVault it was because Intuit decided to no longer offer Document Management System and they partnered with SmartVault, you could say I grew up with SmartVault, over the years they have added additional features to enhance and not only allow me to be paperless but now automated too.

Vorteile:

Love the integration with my tax software, ProSeries and also DocUSign which I depend on immensely. With the Pandemic and having to social distance this ability allowed me to continue to work and stay in business.

Nachteile:

difficult to understand how to set functions up and utilize the more advanced features