Thomson Reuters moves the Microsoft 365 bill onto Virtual Office CS firms

Thomson Reuters has stopped running email for these customers. Each firm now holds its own Microsoft 365 license, and a partner or a paid contractor now handles the tenant, the mail routing and the Exchange Online settings ^[2][3]. The CPA Practice Advisor article that lays this out does not give a license price, a count of affected firms, or any change to Virtual Office CS fees after the service ended. So the net cost per firm is unknown, and the evidence does not show firms leaving because of it.

One option is to buy the licenses, give the tenant work to someone, and stay on Virtual Office CS, paying Thomson Reuters for hosting and Microsoft for mail. A second is to leave. That suits a firm that wants software the platform does not carry, such as QuickBooks on the same server as UltraTax, a setup the article says managed hosts can offer ^[9]. Virtual Office CS runs the CS Professional Suite and Office depending on licensing, and the article says firms that prefer other accounting or tax software may find it the wrong fit ^[5]. The third is a managed host that takes on the Microsoft 365 work along with the tax software, which the article says some providers can support in one environment ^[4].

The article also cites demand for AI. Adoption among accountants rose from 9% in 2024 to 41% in 2025, according to Wolters Kluwer's 2025 Future Ready Accountant report, roughly a 4.6-fold rise in a year ^[11][1]. It adds that 59% of accountants said AI saves 30 hours of labor a week ^[12]. Its argument is that integrating AI tools requires a flexible, high-performance platform ^[14].

I think the second group, firms that already wanted software outside the suite, is where the moves will come from, and the email change is only the prompt. The retirement adds an admin job for every Office user on the platform. It does not change what the platform allows. Customization covers the default scanner, antivirus and firewall preferences ^[7]. The security framework built on Thomson Reuters Authenticator, multifactor authentication and 256-bit encryption is predefined ^[6]. A firm that runs only CS software and Office can take on a Microsoft license and a tenant setup and stay where it is. Firms that run short of capacity in tax season get something concrete for moving: according to the article, managed hosts let them scale CPU, memory and storage as demand changes ^[8].

The case against that view is cost. The article says most hosts sell backup, managed security and premium assistance as add-ons picked to fit a budget ^[13]. A full managed setup can therefore cost more than Thomson Reuters hosting plus a Microsoft license. The view is wrong if host quotes for a CS-only firm, with Microsoft 365 administration included, come in below that combination, or if firms that run nothing but CS software start leaving in numbers.