IRS transcripts are "full of codes that are essentially incomprehensible," says Canopy CEO Kurt Avarell. He notes that transcripts are usually several pages long and for practitioners to determine what clients owe, they must perform the math and "figure out what the person owes and what penalties were assessed."

Previously, there were three ways of obtaining transcripts—calling the IRS and asking for a fax, mail which is delivered in 10 days, or professionals could log into the practitioner transcript web site. In all cases, the result produces the same report that requires tedious work, Avarell says.

Canopy connects directly to the IRS computer systems. "We will import the transcript directly into the software, parse the document, pull all the codes and do all the math," he says. The automation will save 10 to 15 minutes per tax year. If a practitioner has to deal with four or five years of data "you could be saving an hour of time," Avarell says.

The service is priced at $105 per month per user. That includes a required $35 per user per month for practice management which features both client and task management, including deadline tracking, managing clients and exchanging files. The Transcripts module is $70 per user per month and automatically populates IRS forms and can compare different outcomes. A billing and invoicing module is priced at $15 per user per month.