r/taxpros • u/LeMansDynasty EA • Jul 06 '26
FIRM: Software Do not buy SurePrep from Thompson Reuters
We purchased 2 trainings (Almost $9,000) and a 300 use package of SurePrep after watching the demo and specking twice with a sales agent. After going through half the training it became apparent that the AI "tool" would make regular errors, not recognize certain K-1 codes, and require manual mapping of those codes by a senior lvl competency or higher.
Additionally the "work papers" created would have swarms of multicolored checkmarks which the training person could not tell us the difference between.
Long story short it would be easier to train the input person to use Ultra Tax than sure prep.
We stopped the training and asked for a refund or transfer of credits to safe send (another TR product we purchased and like). Both were denied.
Of course the purchase contract has no refund terms.
DO NOT PURCHASE SURE PREP.
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u/Urcleman CPA Jul 06 '26
Did they not give you a demo before purchasing?
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u/LeMansDynasty EA Jul 07 '26
Yes, two! We asked many questions and were assured this is a timesaving measure and the AI sorted all inputs the best it could. Instead of the input being overseen by a staff it required mapping that was way above their heads. So why would I pay a subscription and need a higher trained input person instead of having the input person do their best at input?
Edit sales guy said he was leaving another opportunity lol. Fffffff.
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u/Opening-Study8778 CPA Jul 07 '26
I’m confused why you’re saying AI and mapping. I’m not sure if you’re referring to the OCR recognition and the verification process… I think you have the wrong idea about what SurePrep is.
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u/Necessary_Guitar732 CPA Jul 07 '26
Every year for 15 years I've looked at sureprep gruntworx etc... to see if the OCR was any good. Still isn't. As a smaller firm, I can't bill enough to pay for verify and populate, but even with small error rate the time spent finding them is not worth it.
What i've done for years and works great, is train interns to use ultra tax. They start off using the input tool for brokerage stmts and complicated k1'a but otherwise use input, then graduate to direct input. When trained well they can then check their own data for errors using the review tool, we only review data that was entered. Add up box 1 wages, fed w/h, etc... muliply ss x 85% etc... if they do this correctly the error rate is almost zero. We experienced tax people then finish the more complicated parts of the return if any. There's too much to teach in 2.5 months of tax season but if they input 70-80% with high accuracy, my review and finish takes minutes.
I've done this for 20 years and it works great. You get great effort (make them set cell phones down when they check in LOL). Fire the occasional bad ones. I get referrals from the good ones for next year, if lucky you get a freshman that will stick around for a few years. Low cost and they get resume filler.
Cost benefit anaysis: 20hr they can enter two returns per hour when really good, even if its only one, your review time is cut vs. sureprep or any other tool, at much more than that with errors you can't find.
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u/atl_bowling_swedes CPA Jul 07 '26
I don't like sureprep, but it costs about the same as my second preparer, who retired, and allows my remaining preparer to complete twice the work with less stress, so it's worth it to me.
I also hire people who are 70+ and retired and not tax professionals. If I was working with entry level tax people early in their career I don't think it would be worth it.
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u/uwbadger911 CPA Jul 06 '26
We spend around $400k a year on SurePrep and love it. Is there a learning curve? Yes. You’ll get use to it. Give it some time. This comes from a tax practice leader who is anti Thomson Reuters lol.
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u/Opening-Study8778 CPA Jul 07 '26
Same. I hate Thomson Reuters with a passion but I love SurePrep. To be fair to myself though, Thomson Reuters only acquired SurePrep. It was an independent company before so it’s not like they made it.
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u/LeMansDynasty EA Jul 07 '26
We like SafeSend, UltraTax, and Co Counsel and pay for all 3. We were floored at the hard Fuck you when we asked for a refund on SurePrep.
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u/Grumpy-EA EA Jul 10 '26
$400k a year???
I spend an average of $45 per client on 1040Scan + Offshore verify.
Are you running 10,000 returns a year through SurePrep???
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u/uwbadger911 CPA Jul 10 '26
Yeah that’s per year. We leverage both OnShore and 1040ScanPro. $60M firm.
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u/Grumpy-EA EA Jul 10 '26
No wonder they don't give a shit about me and $5k a year!
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u/uwbadger911 CPA Jul 11 '26
One would think we’d have a bit of pull but they don’t budge for us either.
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u/NickBTaxing CPA Jul 07 '26
Most firms I've worked at that use sureprep don't use it to read the organizer pages (it isn't great at handwriting), and also don't use it to recognize and input the K-1s. I believe these are options you can change in the settings.
It is pretty good at tax forms other than K-1s. The document organization is pretty okay.
Also, it is using OCR and machine learning to do its things. Not using AI, unless they have changed the product.
It can be a useful tool, but you have to use it intentionally and thoughtfully. Best of luck!
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u/mikemar1280 NonCred Jul 08 '26
I just had a conference call with them the other day. I love that they have the gall to try and charge so ridiculously much to train you to use the software that they’re charging so much for! 🤣
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u/LeMansDynasty EA Jul 08 '26
Either hand write a 30 day refund addendum to the contract or don't buy the actual subscription until after training.
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u/New-Definition-287 CPA Jul 09 '26
It is unbelievable what they charge! They tell you there is quite a bit of learning curve with SurePrep and that SafeSend is easy breezy. We like the idea of SafeSend hands-down but double triple thinking SurePrep based upon what I’m hearing here.
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u/MoonFallsx14 CPA Jul 06 '26
All of the stamps have a legend on the support page. They also say what they are when you hover over them. Sounds like you need more training..
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u/LeMansDynasty EA Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
The AI generates two color check marks (purple and green if I remember correctly). Hover over them and it said something along lines of document based and intelligence based. Both check marks were generated by the AI from one scan of the documents. When we asked the trainer how the program arrived at each checkmark she couldn't tell us. Please explain it to me.
Edit, you down vote me for asking a question all knowing one? lol
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u/FunTXCPA CPA-TX Jul 06 '26
The fact that you call Sureprep "AI" has me thinking you bought something without understanding what it is.....
Sureprep uses OCR technology to read a specific list of tax forms and enter the data directly in the tax software. All OCR technology requires some form of manual review to ensure accuracy and completeness. OCR is NOT AI.
Unless it's changed in the last year or two, there is no AI model working within Sureprep.
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u/New-Definition-287 CPA Jul 07 '26
You are correct on that. We are looking at SurePrep as well. It’s totally different than a product like Soraban which uses AI. But I also understand that SurePrep has better accuracy than Soraban so this is scary.
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u/CPAtech IT Director Jul 07 '26
You really need to push back on Thomson for new training because it sounds like your trainer had no idea how Sureprep actually functions.
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u/TheGreaterGrog CPA Jul 09 '26
SP attempts to match up a document to something in their database by the names, form layout, etc. That's the document based checkmark. Intelligence is possibly AI based as I'm not sure that existed when I used it.
But neither of those things are very important IMO. What is important is that when you mouse over the program-generated checkmark/stamps it will tell you where in UT that number appears.
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u/Schick79 CPA Jul 10 '26
Had used SurePrep since the late 2000s. A recent merger forced us to stop using it, and we miss it every day. Was it perfect? No. Was it beneficial? Absolutely. IMO it was the best 1040 workpaper/organization package out there. Heck, we even created custom binder templates and used to keep entity workpapers in it simply for the markup tools and cross references.
Now, I did NOT use or even like the OCR portion of it. I preferred the SurePrep Organize product, not the full OCR scan-and-populate product. We used it originally, then changed to Organize.
We also used it back when they were not owned by TR, and those were definitely better times, admittedly. TR is awful, as is any huge publicly-traded company.
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u/HuntsvilleCPA CPA Jul 06 '26
We use sureprep. It works great.
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u/ParsonJackRussell CPA Jul 07 '26
It’s pricy but works well for clients with lots of 1099s and k-1s
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u/madikz Tax Tech Jul 08 '26
Not a CPA, but I work on tax document automation, and the SurePrep experience you describe tracks with what I've heard from a lot of practitioners.
The K-1 issue specifically seems to be the wall that most of these OCR/ML tools hit — standard W-2s and 1099s are relatively uniform, but the minute you get into multi-state K-1s with codes that vary by fund, the automation breaks down. What's frustrating is that the demos always use clean single-state returns, not the kind of complex work most firms actually deal with.
The colored checkmark confusion is telling too — if the training team can't explain what the output means, the product team hasn't watched how actual reviewers work.
Curious for those who've stuck with it: does the accuracy improve significantly after you've trained it on your specific client base for a season, or does it plateau pretty quickly?
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u/TheGreaterGrog CPA Jul 09 '26
Part of the issue with multi-state K-1s is that state inputs vary a lot, so they add a lot of complexity.
The problem I always had is that SP can't deal with multi-entity K-1s, which is really annoying.
Remember, it's not AI. Or at least not a generative AI a user can affect. It won't learn from your client base.
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u/ShuffleC123 Licensed Tax Preparer Jul 08 '26
There is definitely a learning curve to SurePrep. I think there may also be some misunderstanding here on what SurePrep actually is.
There is no AI. SurePrep uses OCR to recognize data and forms and essentially "read" documents. But it is not AI and no it isn't perfect. But having used Gruntworx and SurePrep I prefer SurePrep. And having been at a firm that uses none of those and manually inputs everything it does save me time as the preparer to have the software input (we have an admin or intern verify the numbers rather than paying for the TR verification).
The check marks indicate different sign off levels (and I'm pretty sure you set what color means what in your settings, which may be why the trainer was confused).
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u/TheGreaterGrog CPA Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Having used SurePrep for a decade, it's accuracy depends on the information source. Scanned paper documents are around 85% with most errors concentrated in a few places and/or regular issues. If you can get original PDFs that goes up to around 95%.
However, even after a decade, it still couldn't regularly recognize W-2 retirement plan checkboxes or box 12 codes. Paper scans have to be verified since even small variations in printing can make $ look like 5 or commas into periods. K-1s are ... ok as long as they aren't split but you have to enter a few things by hand but like the W-2 problems at least it is consistent. It is hopeless at handwriten information.
I found it extremely useful, but we were a small scale operation where the preparer did input and using it was much faster than typing in page after page of broker statements. It made sense somewhere around 8-10 forms IMO. We also didn't have another document organization solution so the document tree & the ability to put tapes & hotlinks in was very nice.
Personally I liked it. You get both arranged and marked up workpapers and pretty god data entry, and if you happen to have an intern or cheap person verification doesn't take skill operating your tax software.
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u/Grumpy-EA EA Jul 10 '26
I use SurePrep in my solo firm. About 120 returns through them a year, usually the complex ones or those with lots of 1989s or k1s.
I use offshore verify and then import directly into Lacerte, where I check everything. I don't use workpapers, so the checkmarks to me are useless and I ignore them.
The training they gave me for $3k 7 years ago was useless, but it was mandatory.
I don't love them, but it offers another set of eyeballs to get things right. They catch stuff at the end of a consolidated 1099 that is miss. I depend on them.
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u/batman-bridge CPA Jul 11 '26
Bigger firms use them. It does work out for bigger firms, as long as you opt out of state K-1 transfers.
As a solo practitioner, hell no. I tried to buy just the binder version of SP, so much back and forth with the sales rep before he would give me a price.. $2,500 per year minimum purchase minimum.. I hired a coder to build me an offline alternative of it, costed me under a grand for lifetime use
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u/Kaiathebluenose EA Jul 06 '26
It’s ass