Accountants generally like their tax software, but fewer would recommend it

A recent study found that tax professionals like their software, but fewer would recommend their software to others, with two exceptions.

The survey, conducted by the National Association of Tax Professionals, asked respondents to rate the following software packages on a scale of one to five in terms of their overall satisfaction: ATX from Wolters Kluwer; Drake Tax from Drake Software; Lacerte Tax from Intuit; ProConnect Tax from Intuit; ProSeries Tax Professional from Intuit; TaxAct Professional from TaxAct; TaxSlayer Pro from TaxSlayer; TaxWise from Wolters Kluwer; and UltraTax from Thomson Reuters.

When it came to overall satisfaction, not a single one was rated below a 4, indicating that people generally like the software they use. TaxAct and Drake Tax scored the highest, but not by much. The difference became much more pronounced when people were asked whether they would recommend their tax software to another professional. There, these two software packages were far and away recommended more than any of the others.

This might be due to the large number of users. The survey found that Drake Software is the most commonly used, with 38% of respondents using the software. Following Drake as the most commonly used was ProSeries Tax Professional (14%), UltraTax CS (10%) and ATX (7%).

The survey also found 46% of respondents consider the reliability of software to be the most important factor when choosing a brand. TaxAct Professional Edition, according to the survey, came through as the most reliable software and most reasonably priced. 

The report tracked a wide variety of other metrics as well. Survey respondents said ProConnect Tax was the easiest to install; TaxAct Professional was seen as the easiest to learn; TaxAct Professional and ATX were approximately tied for how easy they are to work with; Lacerte Tax was the easiest to review returns within the software; and TaxAct Professional was seen as the easiest for e-filing. Drake and TaxAct Professional were also seen as the best value for their price. TaxSlayer was seen as having the best technical support and customer service.

The survey was administered to a 50% random sample of the NATP's 10,744 members. A total of 1,214 members responded to the survey, for an overall response rate of 11%.