Overview
Kopsa Otte is a full-service accounting firm in York, Nebraska. The firm has 25 people year-round and grows to about 30 with interns during busy season. From its central Nebraska base, it serves clients across the United States. Kopsa Otte provides tax, accounting, payroll, and sales tax services, with a growing emphasis on advisory work.
Amber Bowen is one of the firm’s three partners. She handles firm management, serves clients, and runs operations tasks like payroll. When Thomson Reuters announced it was sunsetting FileCabinet CS, Amber and her partners decided to replace more than their document management system. They moved off Practice CS too, chose Firm360 over Canopy and Karbon, and are consolidating six tools into one platform.
Challenge
Kopsa Otte ran its practice on Thomson Reuters software, surrounded by point solutions that filled the gaps. Practice CS handled time, billing, and project workflows. FileCabinet CS stored documents. UltraTax CS, Fixed Assets CS, and Workpapers CS covered tax preparation.
Around that core, the firm added more tools. SafeSend Returns delivered completed tax returns. TaxCaddy handled client questionnaires and uploads. Ignition managed proposals. Compass filled in reporting, because Practice CS didn’t give the partners the view they needed.
“We were all over the board with a lot of different technology solutions, and it was just a lot of moving things around.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
Every tool held its own copy of client data, and keeping it accurate everywhere took constant effort. A document uploaded by a client in one system had to be moved by hand to another for retention. Proposals were the heaviest lift. Building them in Ignition, checking pricing, collecting signatures, and filing the signed copies in document management could take the administrative team months.
The firm struggled with:
- Keeping client data correct across disconnected systems
- Manually moving documents between intake, delivery, and storage
- Recording payments in one place and re-entering them in another
- A separate reporting tool to see what Practice CS couldn’t show
- A practice management system most of the team found hard to use
“There are a couple of people in our office who are good at PracticeCS. Most people are not. They cannot find what they need in it.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
FileCabinet CS was never going to be the long-term answer. It offered limited search, and it wouldn’t keep pace with the firm’s growth or the industry’s move toward AI and connected systems. When Thomson Reuters announced the sunset, the firm had a clear reason to look elsewhere.
Solution
Kopsa Otte could have replaced FileCabinet CS with SharePoint or another document storage tool and kept Practice CS. The partners chose to replace both.
“We could have done SharePoint, we could have done some other pieced-together solution for document management. But changing our practice management is what has allowed us to grow.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte.
The firm evaluated Canopy and Karbon alongside Firm360. Canopy felt too large and too rigid, and the team sensed during the demo that their feedback wouldn’t shape the product. Karbon didn’t offer the native document management storage the firm wanted next to its practice management.
Firm360 won on fit and on the people behind it. Amber describes the platform as more user-focused, and she credits the Firm360 onboarding team for making the transition work. They stayed hands-on at every step, helped explain changes to staff, and shared tips that eased adoption.
“They honestly are the best team that I’ve ever worked with. The decision to move to Firm360 was the best choice we could have made, primarily because of the onboarding team.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
The firm used the switch to rethink its processes. While building workflows in Firm360, the partners looked for efficiencies their old tools had made impossible. Today, billing and payments run in Firm360. The client portal went live right away, replacing TaxCaddy and SafeSend Returns. Proposals are moving from Ignition to Firm360 this year. For reporting, the firm is exploring Firm360’s AI connections to retire Compass.
“We took this transition as an opportunity to really evaluate all of our processes and find those efficiencies that we didn’t have because of the software we were in.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
Results
Kopsa Otte is on track to retire six tools: Practice CS, FileCabinet CS, TaxCaddy, SafeSend Returns, Ignition, and Compass. UltraTax CS, Fixed Assets CS, and Workpapers CS remain the firm’s tax preparation tools. Everything else about how the firm runs now lives in one place.
Amber hasn’t finished the math on software savings, but she expects the firm to come out ahead. The bigger return, in her view, is the time her team gets back.
“Software costs are important, and they’re always increasing. But the time that we can save our people, to make sure they’re spending time with their families and not stuck here doing administrative work, is way more important to me than just the dollars on the software.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
Proposals. The months of work behind each proposal cycle are coming off the administrative team’s plate. Once a client signs a proposal in Firm360, it lands in the right place automatically, with no manual filing step. Amber calls the change life-changing for her admin staff.
Billing and payments. The firm’s biller now handles billing in Firm360, and payments are recorded there too. The old routine of receiving a payment in one system and recording it in another is gone.
“There is no more ‘I got a payment over here, now I need to record it over here.’ That is something we had been dealing with for a long time. That piece of it has saved a lot of time.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
Capacity visibility. Kopsa Otte has added clients since the switch. Amber can now gauge team capacity more clearly than she could with Practice CS, which helps the partners decide when to take on new clients and when the firm is full.
Staff adoption. A returning intern who left before the transition came back to a firm running on Firm360. She was up and running within her first few days and told Amber the new system was much easier to learn. Across the firm, staff are settling in, and the most common praise is that people can finally see what they need, when they need it.
“Firm360 is the all-in-one picture, it’s intuitive. You can go to your projects, you can filter, you can sort. It’s just so much more user-friendly than Practice CS.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
Client experience. Clients adopted the portal quickly. They now have one place to upload documents, send a message, and download what the firm shares with them.
“We have a lot of happy clients. They finally have a one-stop shop where they can upload stuff, send us a message, and download what we have shared with them. That has been amazing for our client.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
Looking back, Amber says the switch moved the firm forward faster than it would have moved on its own.
“I think about how we did things a year ago and it’s like a different world. I’m worried that if we didn’t have to do it, we wouldn’t have moved, and we would still be where we were a year ago, which would have been behind. I feel like we’re moving with the industry, and we need to be.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
Results at a Glance
- 6 tools consolidated into Firm360, including Practice CS, FileCabinet CS, TaxCaddy, SafeSend Returns, Ignition, and Compass
- Billing and payments in one system, with no more re-entering payments between tools
- Months of proposal admin work removed, with signed proposals filed automatically
- Client portal live from day one, giving clients one place to upload, message, and download
- A returning team member up and running within days on the new platform
- Clearer view of team capacity as the firm continues to add clients
“Changing a practice management software is a huge commitment. However, there is a lot of upside. And when you’re doing it with Firm360, the team is going to listen to you. They’re going to be with you every step of the way.” Amber Bowen, Partner, Kopsa Otte
If the challenges in this case study sound familiar and you’re ready to simplify operations like Kopsa Otte, book a demo with Firm360 and make the switch.
Expert Bio: Amber Bowen is one of three partners at Kopsa Otte, a 25-person accounting firm in York, Nebraska, that serves businesses across the United States. Alongside client work, she leads firm management and operations, including running payroll. She helped guide the firm’s move from Practice CS and FileCabinet CS to an all-in-one practice management platform, giving her a practical view of what it takes to change systems at a growing firm.
