CCH iFirm Reviews

The streamline workflow within the tax module is fantastic, from one screen you are able to download and input the pre-fill report from the ATO, complete the return and lodge or mark for signing.

a little disjointed in the 'Jobs' listings to monitor workflow of every job in or for billing.

Access to support was so much better than what was being experienced at Access.

Absence of expected functionalities - EG: linking accounting package to tax return

The ability to log on from anywhere and have my scheduling, billing and tax preparation integrated.

We have had nothing but issues with this software since we began using it in October 2022. Not only is the software slow but it is also full of issues such as schedules and parts of schedules not pulling through to review tabs making them useless. I am a tech savvy, 36 year old with with experience on various tax software suites and have never had such a negative experience trying to switch over to new software. We had to abandon the software before tax season as everyone was worried it would significantly increase our time on every file.Overall the software feels half-baked and yet when I pointed out many of these issues I was told that IFirm is perfect and no one has ever had an issue and there is absolutely no way that they will refund or cancel the subscription early even though my firm was 1 month into our subscription.The system is very slow and I would lose 1.5 seconds every time I switched to a new schedule despite having 1 gigabit internet and no one else from my office on the software during November. This along with other issues meant that it doubled the time spent on preparing T1's and T2's vs our previous software. Even after preparing dozens of T2's in the software we still found it to be slow, cumbersome and unreliable.I believe the refusal to issue refunds is because there are so many other firms wanting a refund that they cannot afford to refund money and hope the client comes back once the software is improved (if ever). Do not make the same mistake!

CCH iFirm provides document management for clients and some workflow management.

It is cumbersome to use properly. The workflow management of job tracking limits the job status description. The administrator can't even delete job types once created or make the inactive. There are only 3 basic color codes used for job status so each job status will fall into one of the colors. If a job status is put into the Green like a status of "completed", but not filed, then it no longer shows on the dashboard. The dashboard is limited on what it displays, running reports to give pertinent information is also limited.
One of the largest pitfalls of the iFirm, is the actual customer information and syncing with ATX. When you open ATX, if there is a difference between what is showing on the return and what is shown in iFirm a pop-up appears saying there is a difference, but it doesn't even say what the difference is. It could be an address, a birthdate, a dependent, etc. So it useless to have the pop-up. You have to verify the information in both programs since the pop-up doesn't disclose the difference. Basically waste of time, which the program is supposed to make it easier so you don't have to update both softwares. There is also no apartment location in iFirm but there is in ATX so that confuses it further. If you put Apartment in iFirm it must be on an address line and if you actually sync with ATX then it puts the apartment on an address line and on the apartment line so you have Apt listed on tax return twice.