Why accounting firms need dedicated practice management
Most accounting firms grow to a point where spreadsheets, shared inboxes, and sticky notes stop working. Client documents arrive through email, text, and random file-sharing links. Deadlines live in one person's head. Staff email the same client multiple times because nobody knew a colleague already followed up. Invoices go out late because no one noticed the engagement was complete.
Practice management software exists to fix this. It centralizes client records, standardizes workflows, tracks task progress, and handles client-facing communication in one place. The question is not whether you need it — the question is which approach fits how your firm works.
TaxDome and Karbon are the two most commonly evaluated options in 2026. They represent genuinely different philosophies: TaxDome is built around the client-facing side of an accounting practice, Karbon around the internal team side. That distinction is worth understanding before you go any further.
"TaxDome and Karbon both solve practice management — but they solve different halves of the problem. The right choice depends on which half is currently breaking your firm."
Quick comparison: TaxDome vs Karbon
| Feature | TaxDome | Karbon |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ~$600/user/year (billed annually) | Team ~$59/user/mo · Business ~$89/user/mo |
| Client Portal | Strong — branded, built-in | Available, less feature-rich |
| E-signatures | Native, included | Via integrations |
| Payment Collection | Built-in | Not native |
| Email Integration | Client-facing email in portal | Shared team inbox — core feature |
| Team Collaboration | Basic task assignments | Strong — visibility, comments, mentions |
| Automations | Workflow pipelines, triggers | Work item automations, reminders |
| Time Tracking | Available | Built-in, more detailed |
| Mobile App | Yes | Yes |
| QuickBooks Online | Yes | Yes |
| Best For | Client-facing operations, tax-heavy firms | Team collaboration, larger firm workflows |
TaxDome — deep dive
TaxDome is built around the idea that most of the friction in an accounting firm's day is client-facing: chasing documents, collecting signatures, getting paid, keeping clients in the loop. It tackles this with an all-in-one platform that handles the entire client relationship, from initial onboarding through payment collection, without requiring separate tools for each step.
At roughly $600 per user per year billed annually, everything is included. There are no module fees for e-signatures, the client portal, or payment processing — those are all part of the base subscription.
Where TaxDome wins:
- The client portal is polished and purpose-built. Clients can upload documents, view messages, sign engagements, and pay invoices from a single branded interface — without needing to log into multiple services.
- Native e-signatures are included. There is no need for a separate DocuSign or HelloSign account.
- Built-in payment collection lets clients pay invoices directly through the portal. For firms that struggle with accounts receivable, this removes significant friction.
- CRM functionality is included, so you can track the client relationship — not just individual jobs — in one place.
- Invoicing is built in. Billing does not require a separate tool.
- Firm-to-client email is handled within the platform, keeping client communications on record alongside their files and jobs.
- Integrates with QuickBooks Online.
Where TaxDome has limitations:
- Internal team collaboration features are more limited. If your pain point is that staff members cannot see what their colleagues are working on, TaxDome does not solve that as cleanly as Karbon.
- The shared email inbox — where an entire team can see, assign, and respond to client emails together — is not TaxDome's strength.
- Firms with large teams doing complex project management may find Karbon's visibility tools more useful.
TaxDome pricing note: At ~$600/user/year, a 5-person firm pays approximately $3,000/year for a platform that includes client portal, e-signatures, payments, CRM, and invoicing. Achieving the same functionality with separate tools (DocuSign, a payment processor, a CRM, and project management software) typically costs more and introduces integration complexity.
Karbon — deep dive
Karbon is built around team visibility: who is working on what, what is the status of every client engagement, and how does the firm keep things from falling through the cracks internally. Its standout feature is the shared email inbox — a real team inbox where all client email is visible, assignable, and commentable, not trapped in one person's Gmail or Outlook.
Karbon is priced at approximately $59 per user per month on the Team plan and $89 per user per month on the Business plan, billed annually. At these rates, a 5-person firm pays roughly $3,540–$5,340 per year.
Where Karbon wins:
- The shared email inbox is the feature most Karbon advocates cite first. When a client emails your firm, the entire team can see it, comment on it internally, assign it to the right person, and track whether it was handled — all without forwarding emails or CCing people.
- Work management visibility is strong. You can see all active client work across the firm, filter by assignee, status, or client, and get a clear picture of capacity and bottlenecks.
- Client collaboration tools allow you to collect information from clients through the platform, though the client portal experience is not as fully-featured as TaxDome's.
- Automation capabilities allow you to trigger reminders, status updates, and task assignments based on work item conditions.
- Time tracking is built in and more granular than TaxDome's implementation, which is useful for firms that bill hourly or need accurate utilization data.
- Integrates with QuickBooks Online.
Where Karbon has limitations:
- E-signatures are not native — you need a separate tool and integration for client signatures.
- Payment collection is not built in. If you want clients to pay invoices through Karbon, you are connecting to a third-party payment processor.
- At $59–$89 per user per month, costs add up quickly for larger teams and are meaningfully higher than TaxDome's per-user cost when calculated annually.
- The all-in-one value proposition that TaxDome offers — where one subscription covers most client-facing needs — does not apply to Karbon in the same way.
"Karbon's shared inbox is genuinely useful for accounting teams where multiple staff members correspond with the same clients. If that is not your problem, you are paying for a feature you won't use."
How we choose at Aplos AI — when we use each
When working with accounting firm clients, we look at two primary factors before recommending a platform: where the friction actually lives in their current operation, and the size and structure of their team.
We recommend TaxDome when: The firm's biggest complaints are client-facing — clients not sending documents, collecting signatures being a manual hassle, getting paid taking too long, and client communication being scattered across personal email accounts. TaxDome's all-in-one model solves these problems cleanly at a competitive annual price, especially for tax-focused firms and solo practitioners to small teams.
We recommend Karbon when: The firm's biggest complaints are internal — staff not knowing what each other is working on, client emails getting missed because they're in one person's inbox, or managers struggling to get visibility into team capacity and project status. Karbon's shared inbox and work management tools are meaningfully better for this use case.
We flag the trade-off when: A firm needs both strong client-facing tools and strong internal collaboration. There is no single platform that clearly wins on both dimensions. In this case, we look at which gap is more painful and what the firm is willing to solve through custom integrations or supplementary tools.
The decision framework
Answer these questions honestly before you commit to either platform:
- Where does work most often get stuck? If the bottleneck is clients — getting documents, signatures, and payments — TaxDome's portal-first approach addresses this directly. If the bottleneck is internal — staff confusion, email silos, unclear ownership — Karbon's shared inbox is the right tool.
- How many people are on your team? Solo practitioners and small teams (1–5) tend to get more value from TaxDome's all-in-one model. Larger teams with more complex communication patterns tend to benefit more from Karbon's collaboration features.
- Do you already pay for DocuSign, a separate invoicing tool, or a payment processor? If yes, TaxDome likely eliminates those costs and reduces complexity. If you do not currently have these pain points, Karbon's pricing may be more straightforward to justify.
- How much does e-signature friction cost you? If collecting signatures from clients is a recurring bottleneck during tax season, TaxDome's native e-signature capability is a meaningful operational advantage.
- What does your billing model look like? Firms that bill primarily on fixed-fee engagements and need clean invoicing will appreciate TaxDome's built-in billing. Firms that bill hourly or need detailed time tracking for reporting will find Karbon's time tracking more useful.
What about the automation gap?
Both TaxDome and Karbon have workflow automation built in. TaxDome lets you build pipeline automations that trigger tasks and reminders as jobs move through stages. Karbon lets you automate work item creation, status-based notifications, and recurring task sequences.
These built-in tools are useful for the most common workflows. But neither platform eliminates all manual work — especially when that work involves connecting your practice management system to tools outside it.
The gaps we see most often: automatically routing new leads from your website into your practice management system, sending onboarding sequences that span email, SMS, and your client portal, building reporting dashboards that pull from both your PM system and your accounting software, and keeping client data in sync between TaxDome or Karbon and external CRMs or referral partner systems.
That is where Aplos AI comes in. We build custom automations for accounting firms that sit on top of whichever platform you are already using — TaxDome or Karbon — and handle the workflows those platforms cannot automate on their own. We do not require you to switch tools. We extend the one you have chosen.
Still manually chasing clients for documents, signatures, or payments? We map your current workflow in a free audit and identify exactly which steps can be automated — on top of TaxDome, Karbon, or whatever you are currently running.
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