Having all my firms client info in one place. Being able to track projects through the office.

I like having everything tied together, having all a single client's info in one place, being able to link related clients, have all notes in one place, etc.

There are some bugs, it's also a very hefty program so it sometimes runs slow on our aging server. Also it's pretty complex to learn and some features are counterintuitive.

Overall, I've had a satisfactory experience with the product. Gets the job done.

- Office 365 integration is quite helpful - "Due date" reminders are life-savers - The to-do section helps in personal management of tasks

- Synchronizing with Quickbooks is only supported for the desktop platform, and not the web platform, which is kind of a pain right now - Integrations with other bookkeeping tools isn't great, like excel for example, which makes collaboration outside your immediate team quite difficult. Please help look into this.

OfficeTools Workspace is almost a hit if they could get the back end programing right. The slowness of the product, features breaking all the time, and the poor response time of support make this a hard pass. Sales also sold us on several features that was confirmed by tier 1 support only to find out after signing the contract that those features are not possible. After working with support for over 1 year to fix issues, we asked to be let out of contract only to be told we need to submit a formal complaint and they get 30 days to fix the issue. Unless you like wasting time with support, look elsewhere.

Love that this product marries time tracking, project management, document management, and billing in one software.

Desktop program is built on an old 32 bit sql server which makes the program really slow if you have more than 2 people using it at the same time. The integrated APX payment feature is a plus if it would work. They decided to do maintenance on the product during the last two weeks of tax season, we couldn't run payments for a day. Payment system is also hiding payments, so we cannot tell which clients have paid. Support has been working on this for two months with no end in sight.

keeping everything straight. with so many clients and "projects" its imperative to know where everything stands. who has it, whats being done, whats missing, etc. having the documents in the system attached to everything (be it a meeting, a call a project) is a huge positive.

Everything you need to know about any client, contact, etc. is all in one place. whether it be an email, a phone message, document, meeting notes, client files, projects, time and billing. we can research anything and find anything on them. one stop shopping.

Much easier for billing purposes, tracking projects and allowed us to reduce the number of software products used in a day.

Quick and easy entering new contacts. Many ways to classify and group contacts. I'm also a big fan of the "bill to contact" feature. It's easy to focus on the clients you need to contact.

Only one email can be utilized per contact. Not easily managed when contact name has to change and they often do in cases of marriage, divorce, death of one of a couple or sale of company etc.

Great office hub.

70-80% of the features provided are very easy to use and very intuitive. The navigation getting from task to documents to calendar etc is super easy. You feel like a power user almost right away. Documents and the portal system are easy to use and very intuitive. Same with ToDo's, Calls, and schedules. Instant success. Billing is easy at it's basic level but as you get into options and features it can take some time. A fair trade off for the feature set. Time tracking is available for evey screen in the software so that's great.

They have an amazing base product. They need to stop shooting them selves in the foot on updates, new feature roll out and customer relations. Examples are: 1. Pacific time support hours only. If your on the east coast and you have a problem in the morning, you get to deal with it until 11am. That's a problem. 2. No user community. Facebook and linked in are not user communities. They need to have a place for users to gather, ask and answer questions, and post information about services and updates so users can be informed. 3. Being proactive when there is a system wide issues. Like every software company, things happen from time to time. I have no problem with that. But when it does there should be an e-mail alert to all users and it should be posted in the user community. I should not have to check face book on the off chance something is posted. 4. Loosen control of system variables. The report function, which is very good, hits strong limits when you can only access certain variables from the system depending on the report type. There is no reason to limit access to variables. Multiple reps from inside the company agree with this and have for years, yet no change. 5. Online helps and training. Office tools has some excellent online videos and resources for using their software. But they tend to not be updated regularly and are hit and miss on what they cover and what they don't. There is little consistency in online help. 6. Out of room!!!

The software has most of the workflow functions centralized. Time & Billing, Client Database, a watered down document management, and calendar.

We have used it for 4 years now. The basic functions work well, unless they push an update and it breaks something. (2018.059) Lots of functions in the software are of zero use to us - Integration with Lacerte (We use Proseries) Integration with QB for billing/collections (We are cash basis in QB) Canon Scanners (We use large multifunction Ricohs) Portal (No better than our website portal) Cost - Abacus took over, gave us no communication, and a month before busy season help us hostage and doubled our cost. Here we are a year later and have doubled our cost again. ZERO improvement in the software since they took over and increased cost. The latest update Abacus pushed out literally broke the software. Printing reports and collecting payments now take extra steps. Doubling the cost twice with zero improvement to the product is how you lose business. We are actively looking for a replacement. Even if it costs the same as Office Tools, having communication, customer service, and trust is worth more. They completely fumbled this merger.

I think the interactivity of this program makes it a winner and puts it at the forefront of innovating in its industry.

All client information is available to each member of the team, and viewing the progress of the tasks being completed is very easy. In a virtual environment it has become more important to be able to monitor one another on a team without “micromanaging” and constantly having status meetings, so this is fabulous.

Sometimes the video tutorials are a bit confusing, so I prefer speaking to someone through the phone support. Reading the articles isn’t as self explanatory as it is made out to be, but this can be different based on who is using this software.

Excellent -- we rely on it to keep our systems working. It offers a lot of functionality including communication among the office and ease of retrieving prior information.

We appreciate the ability to have one software that provides so much utility -- Contact info, Notes, Documents, Projects, Calls, etc

There is a learning curve on how to use the software fully. And the reports are a bit difficult to decipher.

The product has a lot of features that made the implementation in the first year wonderful. The support staff was great and easy to access. Ease of use, reporting, billing features

40% + cost increase for the new year. The Lacerte software integration did not work very well. There are issues that could not be resolved with the multi-firm features of the product

Trying to get answers to specific questions is futile. There is no attempt to identify a problem. They are dismissive if they have never seen it before . As you show them, on your screen, what the problem is and ask for a solution you get - "you need the newest update, that will get rid of the problem" or "it is your fault" or my personal favourite - "that doesn't happen" as they watch it happening on the screen.

Love the time feature. It is easy to record the time you spend on a file. You can have multiple timers going to track clients that you have stopped working on while you answer the phone, or wait for info from them. Our billings went up 20 % immediately because we were keeping track of our time better. The project management is great as long as everyone is vigilant about tracking their files. It is a constant challenge to get employees to record the movement of a project but constant vigilance and discussion gets the point across to new staff quickly.

There is no follow up on queries, compliments or complaints. They only call if they want to sell you more. It could be a great product if the customer service was there. Someone that will look at the problems and discuss possible solutions or a work around. But that doesn't happen so thank you Capterra for giving us alternatives to look into.

I have been using Office Tools for years and it has helped tremendously with keeping all of my company's client data and projects in order. The reports are somewhat customizable and easy to read. The Projects tab enables us to have a good audit trail of all work by using the Work List, Project Definitions and Project Assignments.

Since Office Tools has been taken over by Abacus the price of the program has gone up significantly while the features have barely been updated (the updates it did get aren't that great) and the customer service has gone down significantly. In the past I would call customer support and be helped on the spot or given an appointment no later than the next day. Now I call in and am told they will put in a case and I'll get a call back shortly, which really means in hours or the next day or the day after. I recently put in customer service requests on 2 separate issues and was repeatedly told that I'd get a call back or that my case was escalated. One issue was never resolved and I put in the case in January. The other is going on 2 weeks now with no results. Its ridiculous that Abacus expects us to pay higher prices and sign contracts, but not give us the customer service we need. I've even reached out to the sales manager and am given the same answers.

When Office Tools works well, it's great. Everything is in one place, including storage for documents. It includes billing, and time and project tracking. It's easy for staff to use, and there are multiple ways of completing tasks so employees can use the way that works best for them.

Our biggest frustration has been with the reporting. While you can technically export reports to Excel, they're in a Crystal reports format with multiple lines and merged cells. The system often doesn't provide the reports we want, which is frustrating because the information is in there. Sometimes we can get what we need between 2 different reports, but the Crystal format makes it impossible to merge them. Sorting reports in multiple ways should also be a breeze, and it is . . . after we remove all the formatting. Since the acquisition of Office Tools by Abacus, tech support quality has declined significantly. We haven't seen many upgrades to the program, and it's hard to get help on the few occasions we need it.

Ease of reports for billing, client records, staff utilization, accounts receivable which make our office run smoother and more efficiently.

The numerous reports and ways in which to cater a report to our specific needs. For example, I can create a WIP which shows work by date, or work by employeee, or work by code. These options have all been useful for different needs. The contact lists are also versatile which helps with birthdays, phone lists, contact type lists. Form letters is useful and we have created several this past year catered to contact type.

There have been issues with the document signature feature; months went by with giant red lettering appearing on the documents, so we could not use that feature; when the feature was fixed with a new upgrade, we were not informed of the upgrade. The email link from Outlook is not reliable and keeps stopping on two of our computers. This feature would save time and keep records straight with our clients, however, we cannot keep it connected.

 I'm a long time Office Tools user who was MAD when I got my renewal quote. The quote included 2 more users than our small firm has, and I misunderstood it to mean that you only offered the program with a minimum of 5 users.  The initial quote represented a 162% increase over the prior year and I was informed that the Office Tools user agreement, we would lose access to our data once the subscription expired. I immediately went shopping for alternatives.  Long story short, he was willing to work with me despite my very vocal displeasure. He was very professional and took the time to answer all my questions thoroughly, as result he helped you retain a long time customer. FYI, I'm very happy to learn that under Abacus's user agreement, we'll retain read-only access after the expiration of our subscription.

I do not feel there are any cons worth mentioning at this time, or things I like the least about the software

Client info concentrated in one area. Easy classification of documents/emails for later retrieval. Accountant info can be specific to Project.

Projects allow us to ensure that Corporate info, Bookkeeping info and Personal Tax info gets properly sorted. Our use of Outlook Sync also ensures that our Office365 Inbox and Sent folders are captured to client's communication. Many shared documents are quickly categorized allowing for a quick, specific search of information.

Invoicing module currently only links to Quickbooks desktop for bookkeeping and we've been using Quickbooks Online for past 4 years. Support Team doesn't always comprehend our "real-life" situations and how we need to operate - thus leaving us not able to use OfficeTools to its full potential.

Since AbacusNext took over, things have gone down, but the Lacerte issue is not their fault.

Ease of use is the plus, but they have re-engineered their layout with the latest update.

Integration with Lacerte and Quickbooks isn't what it used to be. Lacerte 2018 security issues have made the integration cumbersome (in all fairness it's not OTPs fault) because the sync is not a push of the button that it used to be. QB sync is also not working which is completely frustrating. Support is horrible. You call and stay on hold only to be told 10 min later to submit a ticket online. You submit a ticket online and NEVER get a call. I've gone through this three times! I can't recommend this product at this time.