Evaluating Tax Software Cloud Vendors

For firms relying on desktop-bound applications like Thomson Reuters CS Professional Suite, Intuit Lacerte, or ProSeries, migrating to the cloud presents a specific architectural challenge. You cannot simply put these applications in a web browser without specialized infrastructure.

The market generally presents three paths for hosting legacy tax software. Firm leadership must understand the trade-offs of each.

Path 1: Shared Hosting Providers (e.g., Rightworks)

Providers like Rightworks (formerly Right Networks) are the default choice for many small to mid-sized firms. They specialize in hosting QuickBooks Desktop and Lacerte/ProSeries in a shared Remote Desktop Services (RDS) environment.

• The Advantage: Turnkey. Predictable per-user pricing. They handle the application updates (mostly).
• The Technical Reality: You are in a multi-tenant environment. Performance (latency) can degrade significantly during peak tax season when thousands of other accountants are hitting the same infrastructure blocks. Integration with local hardware (scanners, multiple monitors) is often brittle.

Path 2: Dedicated Accounting Cloud Providers (e.g., Cetrom)

Firms that outgrow shared hosting often move to dedicated providers that build private clouds specifically for CPA firms.

• The Advantage: Better performance and dedicated resources. Stronger security postures tailored to accounting workflows.
• The Technical Reality: Expensive. Furthermore, you are entering a "vendor lock-in" scenario. If their service degrades, migrating terabytes of client data out of their proprietary data centers to a new provider is a painful, costly extraction process.

Path 3: Private Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD)

Our preferred architecture for firms over 15 employees is building a private Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) directly in Microsoft Azure.

• The Advantage: Absolute control. The infrastructure scales dynamically (we can spin up 10 extra servers in March and turn them off in May, only paying for what is used). The environment integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365 (Teams, SharePoint) because it sits on the same backbone. The data never leaves your firm's Microsoft tenant.
• The Technical Reality: Requires significant engineering expertise to build and manage. An MSP lacking cloud architects will fail to deploy this correctly, leading to massive Azure consumption bills. (This is where a Fractional CTO is critical for oversight).

The Extraction Clause

Regardless of the path chosen, the most important technical aspect of a cloud vendor contract is the extraction clause. Before signing, demand technical documentation on exactly how your data (both SQL databases and raw files) will be returned to you if you terminate the agreement, in what format, and within what timeframe. If they cannot answer this clearly, do not hand them your ledger.

Common Mistakes in Cloud Migration

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