is practice management having its moment?

vc-funded aiwyn and canopy seek to stand out among over three dozen contenders.

by seth fineberg
at large

often fraught with issues and features that accountants don’t necessarily use or that don’t sync with what they need, practice management software in tax and accounting has not been the easiest nut to crack.

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some, however, have grown in this space and even regained some trust in pm. new investments in canopy and aiwyn are great examples.

canopy, predominantly embraced by tax-centric accounting firms, closed on a $70 million series c funding round. viking global investors–a global investment firm with over $51 billion in capital under management—led the round, with continued participation from existing investors ten coves capital, ankona capital, pelion venture partners, and tenaya capital.

the funding follows a $35 million round in may 2024. it will further ramp up canopy’s investment in its platform, focusing on leveraging ai to make medium and large accounting firms more efficient and profitable. the company will also evaluate opportunities to grow through acquisitions.

“at canopy, our mission is to help accountants focus on what drew them to the profession in the first place: being accountants. they want to apply their expertise to delivering real value to clients, not chasing documents, renaming pdfs, and sending invoices. we were already making these tasks easier, but with ai, we’re now automating them away entirely,” says canopy ceo davis bell.

“this frees up time and resources and generates insights that help firms better serve clients, increase profitability, and reduce team burnout. as the operating system for accounting firms, canopy is the natural starting point for the ai transformation of the industry.”

for larger firms, there’s also aiwyn, which secured $113 million at the end of last year. their unique approach is to have a payments and collections suite in a comprehensive practice management platform.

now, the pm market as we know it is considerably crowded. one may even say it is ripe for consolidation. with venture capital and private equity flowing into standout pm systems, we could see some fall by the wayside. in contrast, others find their loyal users and remain for the foreseeable future.

i will give jason staats full credit for creating the following list of pm systems, so you can see how large it is. however, it also shows that accounting firms are very particular about what they want in a pm, unlike general ledgers. one size, one platform, does not fit all, and none are perfect. this does not make them any less essential to running your practice.

as such, the list, as of this writing, is as follows and is in no particular order:

uku
cone
senta
levvy
aiwyn
qount
accelo
mango
keeper
karbon
taxtree
canopy
xennett
taxflow
acounta
firm360
tr onvio
taxdome
bqe core
client hub
xcm (cch)
practice erp
elephant cpa
zoho practice
aero workflow
tr practice cs
financial cents
practicepro 365
pascal workflow
officetools cloud
jetpack workflow
cch axcess practice
xero practice manager
officetools workspace
tps software cloud axis
iris practice management
cch ifirm practice manager
automated tax office manager

regardless of which you choose, you need to have a purpose and, hopefully, some sense of how you want your firm to function before selecting any of these.

for those interested in practice management, seeing further investment, such as canopy and aiwyn, among others on this list, is encouraging for the accounting space to know there is something that will indeed work for them.

posted on may 6, 2025