Ufile and Quicktax comparison — if you live in Canada and you’re trying to make sense of your taxes, this old post from my marketing consultancy blog may be of help.
Tax time and switching costs
As February approaches, prepare for the onslaught of T4s, T5s, and tax software ads. You don’t need to submit your Canadian taxes until April 30th (or later for small businesses), but makers of tax software will be out in full force. A quick glance at the market reveals that switching costs shape the field.
Quicktax recently sent me some direct mail, offering special bonuses to prompt me to buy their product. However, since I don’t need Corel PhotoPaint or an encyclopedia, these bonuses do little to sway me. Still, I happily forked over $60 for Quicktax for Small Business. I’ve used Quicktax for years and have little incentive to stray.
Like many Quicktax users, I perceive that trying a new tax package would involve switching costs. I’m already familiar with previous versions of Quicktax. I can quickly and easily navigate through the software. I know it’s fairly easy to use and that I can turn to online and telephone customer support. Quicktax is a known quantity.
In comparison, I know very little about Taxwiz or UFile, let alone another Canadian tax packages. These packages are cheaper than Quicktax and may be just as easy to use. But I don’t know and don’t have the time to find out. I’m not even sure that these packages offer small business forms. Even if I usually worked with the $40 consumer version of Quicktax, I would still be willing to pay extra for Quicktax. For me, it’s worth $15 to avoid the risk of switching costs.
As a marketer, I’d be interested in finding out how Quicktax, TaxWiz, and UFile came up with their pricing. Intuit owns both Quicktax and Taxwiz — did the company map out switching costs or just experiment with pricing? Have Intuit and the makers of UFile found a way to value their software, in comparison with professional tax services and people who use pen and paper? It’s unlikely that either firm uses a cost-plus scenario to determine pricing. Having been in the market for a few years, these firms face descending curves for development costs.
Tax software is just one example of a product with switching costs. Buyers face switching costs every time they consider changing banks, grocery stores, hairdressers, or online bookstores. Smart companies find ways to build in switching costs without alienating buyers.
Update: a reader wrote in with this criticism of Ufile’s online customer support.
Related Posts
- Invoicing and accounting software
- Tax software (at Amazon.com)
"Ufile-Quicktax comparison" from Become a Consultant at ConsultantJournal.com.
My problem with Ufile was that it showed $261 owing for provincial tax and when I went to the form 428 to see where this number was coming from, the form had zero provincial tax payable. My refund was reduced by this amount. I re-entered all the information twice and it kept doing the same thing. I tried to get some support by e-mailing twice and waited 2 days before finally purchasing Quicktax. I entered the same information in Quicktax and got the correct refund amount.
Quicktax purchased Taxwiz. They are the same company. Intuit.
All the software programs offer the exact same end result. A Canadian income tax return.
I am amazed how many people pay for the most expensive thing thinking it is better. Myself, I know the first one on the list does the exact same job as the last.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NETFILE
People are suckers and those selling this junk know it.
You don’t have to spend $40 for tax software. I switched to UFile last year for a bunch of reasons. There is an inport tool that’s in the software. I really found it easy. I am glad I switched too since my friend who decided to buy QuickTax again this year says she thinks they may have outsourced their support to another country.
BTW, Intuit is American company and owns TaxWiz too. I don’t like that.
Ufile does a wonderful job.
I agree that Quicktax have bell and whistle that most don’t need for filing tax return, the primary reason for the purchase.
I have used Quicktax for years. Their ridiculous pricing this year drove me to purchase uFile. It is not a slick as Quicktax, but for the price is pretty good. It took me about 1 1/2 hours to enter both my and my spouses data. That is also learning how the software works, which I thought was acceptable.
You guys are wasting your money buying QuickTax. You are just throwing money at a US owned company. I personally like keeping my money and my personal information wihin Canada. I’ve used AceTax (www.fredsoft.ca/acetax) for a long time and they are just amazing. They are NETFILE certified and are as good if not better that those big guys. It only cost $6.99 for returning customers, it can’t get better than that.
AceTax is what I use too. It just keeps is soooooooo simple. http://www.fredsoft.ca/acetax
I tried Quicktax once (two years ago). I was surprised it allowed me to enter a taxable amount in two places and get taxed on it twice! Quicktax is a product for the US market fixed up to minimmally serve the Canadian market. I switched to UFile last year and cannot rave enough about its user friendliness and thoroughness. Also, UFile is less expensive and Canadian.
I’m using Quicktax again this year. That’s because (as far as I know) Ufile doesn’t have a small business edition.
I AM REALLY FRUSTRATED WITH UFILE ONLINE VERSION! They have a software bug (I have worked around computers for 30 years so I should be somewhat credible).
I’ve used Ufile Online for many years with no problems but this year they are driving me crazy. My problem is the property tax credit….it is transferring twice to the On 479 tax form (but only shows being entered once in interview section). Ufile responded today……….one week since I emailed them (they should be responding faster than this). Someone is lazy and isn’t looking at the actual tax forms! I have told them that the information in the interview section appears to be correct, from what I can see, but it’s the actual tax form On 479 that has the error. But I get a silly response back:
“You[sic] property tax credits reported only once on Schedule On 479. You will find it in Tax return section of (my husband’s name)â€.
I’ve now sent them a clipboard copy of the particular page – On 479. I’ve paid for their service but I fear I will end up using some other software so I can finally Netfile our tax returns. (Good chance the people responding on help line probably earn barely over minimum wage, have very little computer knowledge, and don’t really care?)
I have also had a problem with support from UFile. I’ve used the software for years and have really liked it but last year I discovered an error which allows tuition transfers to a parent even if the child has used over the $5,000 maximum. They have yet to respond to any queries.
Very frustrated TaxWiz was swallowed by quicktax. quick tax didn’t offer the licenses I needed to do my families taxes without purchasing multiple copies.
I switched to taxTron which gave me 5 licenses over 30k (15 under) for less than the low budget quicktax.
I also needed to do both Ontario and Quebec taxes.
The platinum quicktax would have been a minimum purchase due to capital gains.
Its does the job but leaves me with a few security concerns as the sin number is on the file names and bound to the license. I think this kind of stuff should be encrypted personally.
The taxtron forms were not as flexible about viewing the actual forms tax and using the data entry simultaneously.
If they knock the bumpiness and security issues out it will be a quite decent option to replace Tax Wiz.
Thanks
Me
Very satisfied customer.
Using the online version, and it’s fast, accurate and a great value!
I made a booboo on the RRSP section (added some $$ to the 2009 Undeducted Contributions by mistake) and couldn’t figure out why CRA kept rejecting it.
It was tough getting support for this issue but once I figured it out was happy with the final product.
Rob
I used Ufile for many years. It’s easy to use and cheaper. but i don’t ufile has incorporation tax version. Also, I heard my friend say that Ufile and quicktax culculate property tax not same. I don’t know why
It is actually taken me a short amount of time to read all the comments, but I actually loved the article. I’m certain it will be very helpful to me. It’s always a good surprise when a post is both useful and entertaining! Thank you 🙂