HeardReviews of joinheard.com

I switched from my CPA who placed me last on his list to Heard, where it's a do-it-yourself process for everything from establishing your corporation to payroll to accounting and tax decisions, none of which I understand and all of which are addressed by dozens of different people via email, articles, video tutorials, and annoying AI chatbots. You get so little help it's mind boggling.

I have never paid more taxes than I paid with Heard. Their bookkeepers did not listen to my feedback, and would change my transaction categories back even after I edited them to what they were. I did a lot of math when I started using this platform to see if it would be worth the cost, and I'm very disappointed to say this was a massive waste of money. I would highly dissuade anyone from using this platform.

I have been consistently using Heard since I started private practice in 2019 (part time) . Last year (2023) I began my journey in private practice fulltime. I entrusted Heard to complete my taxes, and I use their estimated tax to submit my quarterly taxes. Needless to say I am regretting my decision. The tax preparer put the incorrect EIN on my documents which has me owing the IRS. In addition an amendment had to be filed which takes 16 weeks to complete. I am in the process of submitting my quarterly taxes and need assistance. Heard does not provide any direct customer service number, and the message indicated that someone will get back to me within 24 hours. Quarterly taxes are due TODAY. I do not feel supported in this process. Its really unfortunate that I am having this experience, and I am in the process of searching else where. Also, I haven't received any apology, no reconciliation of situation, and this has been totally inconvenient. I would like to speak with a representative from Heard. I would like to speak to a real person to get this matter resolved. In addition, I have the tax preparers return in which the incorrect EIN was filed. Tax preparation thru Heard is a service that is offered with the payment that is received monthly from me. I am not sure why I would be charged for the tax preparer putting the incorrect EIN number on the document sent to the IRS. This is why the IRS had me contact Heard to file an amendment due to the error.

I've been a Heard customer for a little over two tax seasons and I am honestly considering another option. While my books seem accurate and the interface is mostly intuitive, I have been disappointed in the lack of personalized feedback. This is especially a bummer since there was a more personal touch when I first joined. It wasn't much, but I felt better touching base with a lead accountant quarterly and it helped me set reasonable goals for my business. One thing I have been disappointed with for over a year is that annual taxes are not done by Heard accountants, but are farmed out to 3rd party firms. I would feel more comfortable knowing that my records are secure in one place and used by one organization. It's another way that the service feels depersonalized. Lately, most of the interactions I have had via the Conversations feature have been a canned response saying, "I'm passing this along to the [payroll, tax, bookkeeping] team momentarily. You should hear back from them soon." Often it takes several days to get a response and sometimes the response is another deferral. I have two examples of this from the past two weeks: 1. Most recently, I pointed out that my quarterly tax estimates were saying they would be ready within 90 minutes, but this message had been posted for a number of days. Again, no answer yet because it was deferred to another team. It is now about a week before I have to pay the IRS and my state and I still don't have a clue what I am supposed to pay for Q1 estimates or my individual annual taxes. I filed an extension, but I know from past experiences that you still have to make payments on tax day. 2. I asked about checking in with the "reasonable salary" amount for my S-Corp as I figured out that the salaried amount would equate to less than the minimum wage in my area and that didn't seem very reasonable to me. After being deferred to the payroll team, I was told that I could raise it substantially. When I asked if I could afford the amount in terms of my cash flow, Heard referred me to the payroll provider to discuss the reason for the amount suggested. Why doesn't my bookkeeper and accountant know how much I can afford? I think that is a minimum expectation for this type of service! Like other reviewers, I felt coerced into setting up an S-Corp last year. I am uncertain if this has really provided any tax savings (see above where I do not know what I owe yet). However, I am certain that I have had more financial headaches on a personal and business level since I opted to do so. In closing, I had written this as a 3 star review, but upon looking at my complaints, I feel my experience is definitely below average. Besides that, Heard is more expensive than my last accountant and bookkeeper.

I worked with Heard starting the fall of 2022. Initially I felt like it was a good platform as I was only 3 months into my full time practice when the tax year ended. After a full year in private practice come to realize that I need more support than Heard offers. Recently, I had concerns about my Q4 estimates and asked to have a video or phone call with someone to discuss. However, I was only offered email support. I felt that I needed more. One reason I signed on with Heard was the quarterly check-ins with the tax accountant assigned to my account. That service ended (without explanation) after Q2 this year. Given my anxiety about taxes I would schedule my quarterly check-ins in advance by 3-6 months. The appointments were canceled without explanation twice. Finally I emailed Heard and was informed they were taking a "team approach" and would only have quarterly check-ins as needed. These check-ins were one of the main reasons that I signed up to use Heard. I found this change surprising and disappointing. Unfortunately I later learned that I provided the wrong information for my Q3 spouse withholdings which created a domino effect on my estimates. Though I owed nothing in Q3, I now know that was because of my own oversight. I feel that if I'd had someone working closely with me that mistake would've been caught or (possibly)never had happened. I now have a very big estimated tax bill for this past year which was anxiety provoking and scary. As a private practice professional completing my first year in full time practice, this is was one of my biggest fears entering into full time solo practice. However, I've been in touch with new accountants and have found someone that I trust will work closely to help me lower my tax bill and help me manage my business finances. Having a more detailed and personal conversation about my business and taxes eased my fears and I realized that Heard, unfortunately, is not meeting my needs. I was pretty disappointed since they claim to be knowledgeable about private practices AND provide "human support". I'm comfortable with online/video services, but when I was seeking to speak with someone I only received template email responses until my issues were shared with "higher level tax experts". I appreciated the platform, but I need someone who will really partner with me and collaborate on my business needs and growth. TLDR: Realized I need a more personal collaboration with a tax accountant especially after receiving an unexpected (somewhat jarring) tax estimate. -Pros- -The platform is user friendly and clear -The reminder emails for monthly bank statements are helpful -Bookkeeping is very professional and responsive -Cons- -No personal interactions outside of email -You are expected to know the information needed for tax estimates -No video check-ins with accountants, quarterly or otherwise -If you mess up, no one looks over your numbers to assist/correct -A Third Party is contracted to do taxes (for me this is a con because we aren't partnering to discuss how to file all the information that will help me/my business)

I recently decided that I no longer want to pay $200 a month for Heard's services--it's not worth it. I was not happy with their tax department and informed them that I would not be utilizing their services for my 2023 tax preparation. This decision was based on generic responses I received to an overly inflated quarterly tax estimate. I also decided that I needed to cancel my Heard subscription because paying $200 a month for bookkeeping services alone for a practice of less than 15 clients makes zero sense. I have sent multiple communications to Heard regarding my request to cancel my subscription and no one is getting back to me. Beware, Heard's platform doesn't allow you to remove your form of payment so they are basically creating a condition where you have to call your bank to stop the subscription which would mean cancelling a debit card associated with the Heard platform. That's just bad business! 1/17/2024: This is in response to Heard's reply. It's unfortunate that you are stating that you stand by your estimate when you ended up reducing it after I pushed back on the estimate. The bottom line is that your services are not very personalized and are really expensive for someone that has a very small practice. This is information that therapists should be aware of. In terms of the lack of communication to my request to cancel my subscription, it's funny that someone replied to my review faster than my request to cancel my subscription. The same information about the process to cancel could have been relayed to me directly but it wasn't which is what caused me to be anxious about the process. In fact, to date no one from Heard has explained the offboarding process to me. Your reply is the first I'm hearing about those steps. Not good!

Hello, I had a Heard phone consultation with Sabrina on Tuesday November 1, 2023, at 11:30 am. She described the Heard platform and what they could provide as it relates to taxes, accounting etc. for therapist. She also informed me the $275. set-up fee would be waived if I signed up by Friday 11/3/2023. An email was supposed to be provided by her after the call where I could sign up. I never received the email. I called and left her a vmg, still no answer. Today I decided to look at some Heard reviews. The reviews that were positive looked liked Bot responses and not real people. The negative reviews sounded more like real experiences. I'm so happy I never received the email from Sabrina, I'm certain I would've signed up. There seem to be many problems with taxes not being completed in a timely fashion, extensions and horrendous fees associated with that.

I really wanted to love Heard. I loved the message and spirit behind the company’s mission. As a psychologist in private practice, I wanted to focus less on books and more on my direct clinical work. Unfortunately, after my experience during tax season I cancelled my service with Heard. I suspect Heard may have fallen victim to the phenomenon of great marketing that resulted in uncontrolled growth and the quality of service suffered. But I want to try an offer a fair assessment of what happened in hopes it helps the company moving forward and therapists seeking accounting services. Pros: My experience with their bookkeeping service was fine. The platform was easy to navigate and use. When preparing my tax return, the system for inputting relevant information was easier to use than most accounting services I’d worked with in the past. Another pro was my experience with Nadine, in customer support, who managed my concerns with efficiency and kindness without defensiveness. She deserves a raise. Cons: Everything fell apart once tax season hit. I completed all necessary documentation and paperwork before the deadline Heard imposed to ensure timely filing. While I was understanding that it’s a busy season, it would take up to a week to get a response from anyone regarding questions. The CPA completing my return appeared to not be a permanent employee of Heard but a random contractor with a side business. I think that may explain why they were difficult to communicate with and deferred almost all questions to Heard, whom I struggled to get answers from. When I finally got my return the CPA emailed it to me at 3am on a Saturday, making me wonder how overworked their team was. During tax season my bookkeeper seemed perpetually confused and overwhelmed. In one case, she said she couldn’t locate documents that I had uploaded into the portal where she instructed me to. Any time she answered questions I had, her replies didn’t make sense and had contradictory information. I gave up after a few tries. A few days before the tax deadline, I received an email from Heard saying an extension was going to be filed on my behalf for taxes. I was disappointed, but understand this happens a lot and wasn’t too bothered. But once Heard filed the extension but they came back and said it was inexplicably denied by the IRS. Despite my numerous attempts, Heard was never able to provide me a clear answer as to why my extension request was denied. I suspect it was because something was submitted incorrectly (this is what a non-Heard CPA advised me), but they never were able to offer an explanation, so I had to eat an additional fee to the IRS without ever understanding why. After my return was processed I owed a lot more in taxes than I anticipated and received a penalty for underpayment. But even then, the estimated amount Heard said I’d owe to the IRS was $1,000 over the bill I actually received from the IRS, so I have no idea why their estimates were so far off. It leaves me concerned something was done incorrectly, to the point where I’m considering hiring another CPA to troubleshoot this with me to ensure nothing serious went awry. This could have been due to an error on my end, but I was so exhausted by the difficulty getting in touch with the team I gave up trying to understand what went wrong and just ate the penalties myself. I ended up significantly overpaying my state taxes, despite using Heard’s quarterly estimates, so I’m not sure why their estimates were so off there too. I spoke with four personal colleagues who had similar problems as I did with Heard this tax season. But I also had one colleague who had absolutely no issues, so I’m wondering if your mileage may vary depending on who is assigned to your case. But that’s a gamble I didn’t want to make moving forward. Their use of random contractors instead of permanent staff made me concerned about the privacy of my financial information, the quality of service I was getting, and the accuracy of the advice I was receiving. I’d prefer to know that the individuals who have access to my social security number, the SSNs of my spouse and children, and our financial information have been thoroughly vetted (and maybe they are, but my experience didn’t inspire confidence). That and the discrepancies in the numbers left me feeling incredibly unsettled and nervous something could land me in trouble in the future with the IRS. I have cancelled my service and was able to hire a local reputable CPA to do my bookkeeping and taxes for comparable pricing to Heard. I feel good about supporting another small business that is in my community and would recommend that to any colleague until Heard can improve these issues.