CollectiveReviews of collective.com

Collective.com sold me a dream: seamless onboarding, expert tax support, and a dedicated team that would handle the back office so I could focus on running my business. The onboarding was smooth, and their reps seemed responsive, at first. That was the last time anything worked as promised. From there, it became a slow-motion trainwreck. It started with basic transaction misclassifications, recurring ones, at that. Even after flagging them directly, the same errors happened month after month. You can’t fix them yourself; everything requires submitting a ticket and waiting days for someone to do what should take 10 seconds. That “dedicated service” they promised? It turned into copy-paste replies, delayed responses, and a flat refusal to hop on a call, even though that was a core selling point during onboarding. Then came tax season. I told them in March that I’d be dissolving my entity and needed to file early. I gave them three months' notice, outlined exactly what to expect, and followed up monthly asking for a draft. They reassured me they were on it. By late June, nothing had been done. Not even a draft. And then they casually told me: "We don’t do midyear filings." To make matters worse, when I disputed charges for the months they were supposed to be preparing my taxes (but clearly weren’t), they responded to the credit card dispute within hours, faster than they’ve ever responded to any support request. That says everything. They're fast when it comes to protecting their money. When it comes to providing the service you paid for? Good luck. So now I’m out $1,500 for non-service, plus another $1,000 to pay a real accountant to clean up their mess, and who knows how many hours of stress trying to figure it all out. Collective.com is the worst kind of tech-enabled service: easy to sign up for, doesn’t actually work, and nearly impossible to exit. Do yourself a favor and hire a real accountant. Don’t fall for the shiny UI and lofty promises. This is not a business solution, it’s a liability.

I signed up with Collective in April 2024, and it was by far the worst decision I’ve made for my business. Despite repeated follow-ups and providing all necessary documentation, they have still not started my business tax filings. This delay has put me at serious financial risk, potentially costing my business thousands of dollars in penalties. Their bookkeeping was just as bad — they miscategorized business expenses even after I clearly communicated corrections multiple times. The communication system is a nightmare: disjointed, unhelpful, and completely inefficient. I spoke with multiple team members since March, including Zyra A., who assured me things were in progress — but nothing moved forward. Adding insult to injury, they continue to charge me monthly fees while failing to deliver even the most basic services. I deeply regret trusting Collective with my finances. I’m requesting a full refund for this year, and I urge other business owners to think twice before signing up. This service has caused me enormous stress and financial harm — it’s the worst bookkeeping experience I’ve ever had.

This company is a terrible experience. From corporate e-mails that make no sense and sound like it's an AI Bot to non-stop issues. I wasted 6 months with them and they never managed to get any bookkeeping done. Highly recommend going with a smaller, quality company that cares. - Update, this company responded right away saying they would follow up but never followed up. I sent multiple e-mails and never received a response. After two weeks without response. I pursued fraud with my credit card and then e-mailed them to inform them. At that point I received an immediate follow up but they still didn't offer to complete the two months of book keeping I was suppose to receive or issue a refund. This company is truly appalling and I hope nobody falls victim to their lies and promises.

I've been a member for about 9 months. The onboarding / incorporation process was smooth, but pretty much everything after that became frustrating and slow. Responses to help requests or questions are advertised as having a 24 hour response period, but I have literally never gotten a response in under 48 hours. The average is closer to 4 days. Additionally, the accounting software they use (built in house) does not expose enough features to allow you to fix issues yourself. Instead, you have to submit a help request and wait 4 days to fix a mis-categorized transaction. I finally got fed up and decided to switch to another accounting firm. Turns out, there is no way to cancel your subscription yourself. You have to submit a help request and wait for someone to help you. I've been waiting almost a week now with no response and have been billed an extra month in that time. All in all, I would not recommend using their service at all. There are tons of accounting firms out there that will cost less, have faster response times, and will allow you to have more control over your books. I've now switched to quickbooks and have a small accounting shop keeping the books and I save 75% compared to Collective.

Several errors made in my tax profile and filing that cost me a lot of money. I’ve learned my lesson: hire an accountant and don’t try to cut corners with collective. Edit: There is a form response about "escalation," assuring me someone would reach out about my experience. Nobody has reached out; this is just false reassurance.

I've used Collective.com for three months for S Corp formation, bookkeeping, and payroll. While their Accountable Plan reimbursement process is user-friendly, the bookkeeping has been a mess. I've dealt with missing transactions, miscategorized transfers, and income that couldn’t be properly attributed to clients. I've spent hours fixing errors myself, which has cost me valuable time and productivity. Support is slow and difficult to reach — there's no direct phone number, and issues often go unresolved. All of this leads to my biggest fear- not being able to trust their calculations for paying my estimated taxes. Despite uploading my proof of Q1 estimates tax payments 3 times, the dashboard still doesn't reflect any Federal taxes being paid. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend Collective. Their service has created more problems than it solved. At $349/month, this has been an expensive mistake. Edit on 6/14/25: I was looking at my dashboard again today. In April and May, they have misclassified over $20,000 of transfers between accounts as "income". They did the same thing in January, February and March. I let them know at the time of the errors what was wrong and it ultimately was recorded correctly. It's disappointing to see that they are making the same mistakes again. I have requested my account with them be canceled.

I really want to like the platform but unfortunately they are so disorganized and the platform/system is ridden with bugs. Their bookkeeping is extremely slow and inaccurate (the bookkeeping team is still unable to categorize simple transactions from over a month ago). As a user, I am unable to categorize transactions and am at the mercy of the slow bookkeepers who get it wrong. Linking payments from clients to invoices is extremely clunky and bug-ridden, and I'm having to send DMs to customer service for them to debug the system in order for me to even have the option to link transactions. The dedicated account manager is spread too thin such that any questions (which are only submittable by messaging) are answered in days, and trying to schedule a live conversation (which the system allows for only 15minutes) is at least a week out. Additionally, the system-generated notification for a document request cannot be turned off, even when the request was resolved. So, now I'm having to look at an outdated notification everytime I log on, and I'm also sent email nudges every few days. The premise of the service is fantastic, but as a client, I am utterly disappointed and frustrated by how unsuable the whole service and system is. In the meantime, I'm paying more than $300/month on this service that requires so much improvement. I do not recommend Collective to others and advise to look at other services/platforms instead.

Over promised and under delivered. Very difficult to connect with a live human. They waited 3 months to do my books. Kept passing the buck. Do not recommend.