CollectiveReviews of collective.com

This company is way overpriced, unresponsive, and not very transparent about the ways it scams you. Go to a local payroll/tax accountant instead!!

I used them in the past for 15 months. They are the absolute worst. Want to get someone on the phone? Next available appointment is 30+ days away. Terrible customer service. The online portal has many bugs. You can connect your external accounts, but you still have to manually upload statements for all of your accounts every single month. Collective is a great idea with terrible execution in my opinion. Be careful!

Easily the worst customer service of any tech or services company I've ever experienced in my life. I thought Fyre festival had better service. They refuse to file your taxes on time even though though that's the only thing you pay them to do. Totally incompetent and totally designed to take your money and run. No wonder they are almost going out of business.

Confused as to why the ratings are so high here. I'm assuming its because most are from people who have just joined Collective and have yet to experience their service entirely. Just know that they recently updated their terms of service to include a section that waives your right to take them to court or do a class action lawsuit, and all Zoom meetings begin with a disclaimer that they only provide "guidance" and not "legal advice." As a member for the last year and a half, I can confirm that you want to stay as far away from this company as possible. Please read the Reddit threads for a more accurate description of people's experiences with this incredibly predatory company. I wouldn't be surprised if Collective is investigated soon, whether that's in the press or otherwise. They make countless mistakes that will cost you money, time, and energy -- the exact opposite reason you'd work with them in the first place. There's no one monitoring your account and they rely heavily on AI which leads to tons of mistakes. You have to beg them for responses to your emails, can't get meetings with a member of the team in a timely fashion, and no one is looking after your account. You'll spend hours of your time explaining things to them via email or on calls over and over again. Collective failed to file my business return on time, not once but twice. This was after they assured me it would be. They also made mistake on my return and then amended it (this racked up over 1k in penalties and interest), only to make another error that they are "looking into" now. I could go on but won't. Save your money and hire a CPA.

Very little support vs. what was promised when I signed up with regards to year-round tax support. It's also very difficult to get a response or meeting with anyone. My assigned contact books up 3-4 weeks out. When I send messages in the portal, I get sent links to read more information on my own about the topic or a blanketed reply that doesn't actually explain in layman's terms to someone who is not a tax expert. I was informed about a state specific tax that I am required to pay for my biz 15 days after the payment was already due!! The department they suggested I reach out to get it sorted didn't even know what I was talking about so I am getting the run around and still have not idea what to do. This does not feel as advertised at all. They do, however, keep asking me for referrals on a regular basis. If only I would get that same communication level with my actual taxes.

Their systems do not interface with a LOT of other systems, like STRIPE. Additionally, their "rules" for charting things regularly miss-fire so expenses get categorized wrong. Then there is no export from their system, so I can't even download to compare using spreadsheet functions. Their staff puts you through a round of a chasing your tail because you can only talk to random admin people, not actual accountants. And I've got massive discrepancies all over the place and it's a nightmare. Do NOT work with these folks unless you want to check absolutely every thing they do.

I regret not listening to the bad reviews and just seeing the dollar signs. My first interactions with Collective went pretty well, so I thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad. I never enjoyed book-keeping or taxes, but I had no problem doing them myself and have managed for the last 4 years. Working with Collective has greatly increased my stress around taxes and accounting for my business and I spent $3000 more on accounting services last year than I ever have. Wow!!! It took nearly a year to get onboarded, as my account was passed around from person to person. Be aware, that after the initial on-boarding you will have NO ACCESS to the people in accounting. After hours of fixing the incorrect categorizations in my bookkeeping, I reached out for help with the rest - only to find that I only have access to one rep. She was very kind and apologetic, but not at all helpful. I was satisfied when she promised me a credit on my account for a free month and that I would be contacted by someone to help with the book keeping discrepancies - neither of which happened and I was charged another month. I'm now fearful that they won't file my taxes in a timely manner all while collecting $350 from me, and perhaps might keep charging me like all the other reviews (and comments on their Instagram ads) keep saying :(

Their services sounded great for someone like me who didn’t want to take the extra effort to learn how to do payroll/taxes/scorp filing myself. However, looking at the actual cost of doing those things on my own, I realized they charge WAY more than it would cost to do on my own. Like 300/month more. I cancelled my membership after 1 day. They took weeks to respond to my request to cancel. Then, they charged me for another month after they had confirmed that they had cancelled my membership. Not happy.