Switch from Practice CS to Uku.
Keep UltraTax for returns. Move the work, the time, the bill and the client conversation into one system that runs in the browser — without add-on modules, a server to host, or a 12-month term.
- Everything in the box — workflow, client portal and e-signatures on every plan
- Nothing to host — no server, no Virtual Office CS
- Monthly billing — or ~23% off yearly, cancel anytime
4.8 from 300+ reviews · No credit card required
People in your firm who use the system. Change it with − and +.
Practice CS isn’t going away. The question is whether a desktop back office, three add-on modules and a separate portal still fit how your firm works today.
Practice CS is deep. Its users are honest about the rest.
Practice CS has no review listing of its own — its users review it as part of CS Professional Suite, rated 3.8 out of 5 on Capterra. We read those reviews and Thomson Reuters’ own pages. Every reason below is in a named source, not just our opinion.
- The age
Even loyal users say it hasn’t kept up.
Practice CS has been the back office of many US firms for a long time, and its depth in time and billing is real. The complaint isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that the product around the work — the screens, the desktop install, the hosting — belongs to another decade.
Practice is becoming a dinosaur, and badly needs to be updated.
Managing Member, accounting firm · Capterra, CS Professional Suite review, August 2018
- The cost of staying
The bill grows faster than the product.
There is no public price. Reviewers report support charged on every CS product except UltraTax, and fees that rise every year — which is what makes a renewal the moment most firms start looking.
I do not like that they raise their fees every year but do not seem to add new functionality. The fees increase by around 5% year after year.
Verified reviewer · Capterra, CS Professional Suite review
- Billing
Powerful, but heavy to run.
Practice CS bills from WIP, and it does it thoroughly. The cost is the month-end: pulling reports, checking WIP, building bills. Firms that bill against agreements rather than hours feel that weight most.
The entire process of billing took way too long. There were too many screens and reports to pull. No client communication available.
Managing Partner, financial services · Capterra, CS Professional Suite review, June 2025
- The add-ons
Running a firm takes three modules and a second product.
Project Management, Staff Management and Client Management are each an “add-on module for Practice CS”. The client portal and e-signature are NetClient CS. Remote access means Virtual Office CS or SaaS hosting. And support and SaaS carry a 12-month commitment — after a SaaS cancellation, Thomson Reuters says “your data will no longer be available to you”.
Thomson Reuters’ Practice CS product page and cancellation terms, checked October 2026
Quotes are verbatim from public reviews of CS Professional Suite on Capterra, read in full on 1 October 2026. Product facts come from Thomson Reuters’ Practice CS page and help centre, checked the same month. Go and read them yourself before you decide anything.
Three things Practice CS does better than we do.
It shares one database with UltraTax CS.
Practice CS, UltraTax CS and Accounting CS read the same clients. Uku has no UltraTax integration: if you move, client details live in both systems and returns stay in UltraTax. If that shared database is what holds your firm together, it outweighs everything else on this page.
Years of configured dashboards.
Practice CS’s “mission control” dashboards and WIP reports are built up over years, firm by firm. Uku’s billing contracts, agreements monitoring and BI Analytics cover the same ground in a different shape — but your partners will have to learn new views.
One vendor for the whole suite.
Tax, write-up, payroll, documents and practice management from one company, on one support contract. Moving to Uku means two vendors where you had one, and a little more coordination between them.
Every client gets a task plan, on every plan.
In Practice CS, projects are an add-on module. In Uku, every client gets a task plan: weekly payroll, the month-end close, quarterly filings, the annual return — each with its own cadence, owner and template, on every plan. Rebuild each Practice CS project type once and it runs for every client who buys the service.
Clients upload, answer and sign on the same task.
Practice CS firms buy NetClient CS for the portal — and often SafeSend on top. Uku’s client portal is included on every plan and free for clients: you ask for documents on the task, the client uploads and signs there, and the conversation stays with the work. Your branding, your domain.
Invoices that draft themselves from each agreement.
Practice CS builds bills from WIP after the work is done. Uku starts from each client’s agreement: a billing contract says what the fee covers, tracked time and extra work land against it, and at period end the invoices draft themselves. Invoice preparation drops from days to about 30 minutes — and agreements monitoring flags an over-serviced client before the bill, not after.
How automated billing works
“Everything is in one place instead of spread across different messages or documents. This makes communication within the team faster and reduces missed deadlines.”
Mirjam K. · verified review on G2
Practice CS vs Uku, at a glance.
Two rows go to Practice CS outright. The rest is what you pay for, and what comes in the box.
Book a free migration consultation 30 minutes, no obligation — we’ll walk your Practice CS setup with you.
Thomson Reuters doesn’t publish Practice CS prices; the per-user figure is the starting point reported in available information and client reviews, and excludes add-on modules, support and hosting. Module, hosting, portal and contract facts come from Thomson Reuters’ own pages, checked October 2026. Uku prices shown are yearly-billed display rates.
Want the detail? See our Practice CS pricing breakdown, the Practice CS review, Practice CS vs Uku, and the best Practice CS alternatives. Or see Uku’s full pricing.
What firms see after switching.
lower base cost than Practice CS
10-person firm — about $10,000 a year before add-ons, vs $4,560 on Uku Team.
weeks to go live
Export, workflow setup, billing contracts and one parallel billing cycle — at your own pace.
firms already on Uku
Including US CPA firms that have run a full tax season on it.
Leaving Practice CS, in four steps.
There’s no button that moves a Practice CS firm. There is an order that keeps every client and every number intact — and we’ll walk it with you.
Back up and export
Back up your Practice CS SQL database and save the reports you’ll want later. Export clients and their primary contacts as XML — it opens in Excel — and all contacts to Outlook. Uku imports the client sheet.
Rebuild your recurring work
Each Practice CS project type becomes an Uku workflow template — the same steps, owners and due-date rules, applied to every client who buys the service.
Set up billing
Close out open WIP in Practice CS, then give each client a billing contract — hourly, fixed or per piece — so the first period’s invoices draft themselves.
Go live
Run one billing cycle in parallel, compare it with Practice CS, then switch off. Most firms are live in two to six weeks. Keep UltraTax for returns.
Want the step-by-step? Our Practice CS migration guide covers the export fields, contacts, the database backup, WIP and receivables, and what to do before you cancel. Read the migration guide
Switching from Practice CS — your questions
Is Practice CS being discontinued?
No, and we’d rather you heard it from us. Thomson Reuters shipped a Practice CS release on 26 August 2026, and there is no end-of-life notice for Practice CS itself. What is changing around it: CS Payment/Kotapay stops on 10 November 2026, when Stripe becomes required for card and ACH payments, and FileCabinet CS gets no updates or support after 31 December 2027. If you move, move because Uku fits your firm better — not because of a deadline that isn’t there.
Can I keep UltraTax CS if I switch to Uku?
Yes. UltraTax CS is a separate product and keeps working. Uku has no UltraTax integration, so the shared client database you have today goes away: client details are kept in both systems, and returns stay in UltraTax. Firms that move do it because the work, billing and client portal matter more to them than that link.
Will I lose my data moving from Practice CS to Uku?
Not if you back up first. Practice CS exports clients and their primary contacts as XML (it opens in Excel) and all contacts to Outlook; Uku imports the client list. Time entries, WIP and invoice history don’t come across — keep them in a Practice CS database backup and saved reports. Do this before you cancel: after a SaaS cancellation, Thomson Reuters says your data will no longer be available.
How long does it take to switch from Practice CS to Uku?
Most firms are live in two to six weeks, at their own pace, while still serving clients. Plan it outside tax season and ahead of your Practice CS support renewal, and run one billing cycle in parallel before you switch off. Every account gets a free 90-minute onboarding session.
How much can a firm save switching from Practice CS to Uku?
Thomson Reuters doesn’t publish Practice CS pricing, but according to available information and client reviews it starts at around $1,000 per user annually — about $10,000 a year for a 10-person firm, before add-on modules, support and hosting. Uku Team is $38 per member a month billed yearly, $4,560 for the same firm, with workflow, the client portal and e-signatures included.
Is there an annual contract with Uku?
No. Uku bills monthly with no long-term commitment — cancel anytime. You can pay annually for about 23% off if you prefer, but it’s never required.
Have a question? Contact us — real people answer.
Top-rated by accounting firms, consistently.
Explore the rest of Uku.
Deliver the work
Serve clients
Run a profitable firm
QuickBooks 
Xero 
Gmail 
Google Drive 
Dropbox 
Zapier 
Microsoft 365
Keep UltraTax. Move the rest of the firm into one place.
"Let's create a dream, where the team is happy, clients are well served and profits are fair." — Rain Allikvee, Co-founder of Uku
