Megan S.
I've used Canopy for many years
I've used Canopy for many years. In the past, I would have recommended considering it for new practitioners looking for a software package. Now, I'd actively advise against it. Canopy has been evolving a lot in the past years, and almost always for the worse. More clicks, more steps in each process, more glitches and issues, and more expensive. Canopy relies on users to beta test their products. It's useful to trial things out and give feedback to try to make it more useful once it's fully rolled out. We've participated in beta testing for 7+ years. Recently, though, that time working through issues and providing feedback is wasted, as once they've finalized the process, they add a previously undisclosed fee to it the new feature (that would TRIPLE our total cost for the product). They also used to have great customer support - they were friendly, responsive, and human. Now, you're locked in with a chat bot to start, and it can take a frustratingly long time to get an actual answer. I also used to have a customer service rep who would walk through renewals and updates. That disappeared years ago. Now, trying to get info on yet another change to the pricing plans, structures, and fees, it's impossible to get a straight answer. It took a month to get a response. A scheduled phone call was with someone who didn't actually know enough to answer my questions. And the subsequent emails were vague, contradictory, and seemingly at least mostly written by AI (to the point where the sign off is "Best, UseAI"). Overall, the Canopy I started using felt like it was geared toward providing a software that would make my life easier. The Canopy of today is geared toward selling me more things, and squeezing every penny out of clients that they can. There are still things Canopy is very useful for, and we have so many years invested in training clients to the system and setting up detailed internal workflows that I've been hesitant to switch as things have gone downhill. But as yet another update makes things worse yet again, the sunk cost is no longer worth it. And if you are new to tax CRM software, I wouldn't start here.