lindakay

Taxed, I know it's late for organizers for most clients, but I do have some people who still want them, and these are clients who don't come till late in the season because they have lots of stuff to gather. I guess it was you that said earlier that the organizer provided by TaxExact was a bad one, but I just wanted to see it, then found that I couldn't even produce one just to take a look at it. That screen also has other kinds of reports that aren't accessible as well, but none of this seems very important anymore, because I can't wait around much longer to see progress on this software. I'm going to see how the promised updates for today work, then I'll be making a major (and most likely expensive) decision, I suppose. Waiting any longer would probably be way more expensive. I saw a client yesterday and it was very humbling having to tell her that I had to delete her from last year and re-enter all her info, that I couldn't do a state return and that I couldn't even print out her copies of the federal. I'm trying to keep everybody else at bay just a little longer till I'm ready, but she really wanted to come in to find out if she was getting a refund or not. I did her state return last night by hand just so I could let her know that info, and I guess I'm spoiled by software, because it took awhile! I suppose it's good practice to get back to the basics like that sometimes.

Still cannot figure out how to produce a tax organizer. Somebody here told me to go to reports and click on organizer, but there is no choice of clients in the menu to choose from, so it says zero results. How do I generate an organizer? Also still wondering if there are going to be states available soon. Can we also get the watermarks out of the forms so we can at least do some basic returns and print them out for our clients? I can't wait till January 30th to schedule everyone who wants their return filed asap, and I can't give them copies of their tax returns if it has "DO NOT FILE TILL JANUARY 30TH, 2013" in huge letters across every single page. I mean, we all know we can't file till the 30th, so we don't really need it written on every page of the tax return.

Proformaed returns don't pull prices out of default price list. Proformaed returns show only taxpayer's first name and SSN, no last name, no address. For MFJ returns, only spouse's first name and taxpayer's SSN, no last name, no address.

Cannot generate orgainzers or any other reports. System won't let me enter clients' names.

Being a registered tax preparer in California, I was glad the IRS started requiring nationwide registration of qualified preparers. I had to pass a competency exam in the beginning for California registration, and have had to maintain 20 hours of education every year, and I'm happy to do it because I believe it's important for people preparing returns to actually know the laws. I actually have 2 clients that I inherited from a gentleman who passed away a few years ago who was preparing taxes for them every year and charging huge amounts of money to do their bookkeeping and tax returns (one of his clients paid him over $7,000 in the year before he died!). He was just doing their returns on TurboTax and mailing them in, and he didn't even sign them, but put "self-prepared" on the bottom of the 1040. Not only that, he made a lot of errors on the returns which made me realize he really didn't know the laws. So all that said, I truly believe some kind of regulation is necessary so the public doesn't get duped by preparers who don't really know what they're doing.

Don't know what LBL fields are in Form 8867 questionnaire. Prices not flowing to invoice for most forms on proformaed and new returns alike. Invoice does not have header with company or preparer name. Is that even planned in the future? Typos in Client Information Sheet, such as: "Is your spouse itemized deductions?" "Occupation of death only if in Last year or this year:" No line for "Surviving Spouse:" the questions "Blind?" and "Disabled?" share a "No" box

Sounds like we may all get our money back on this eventually, but right now I'm more concerned about losing an entire tax season's worth of income.

I think the real issue here is whether or not we were getting a WORKABLE program. I remember somebody telling me that what we pay TRX for is a membership, not a specific software. So, okay, if the program changes, I can deal with it, but IF I CAN'T FILE TAX RETURNS, THAT I CANNOT DEAL WITH, AND THAT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE!!!

I'm giving up as well. This is ridiculous!! I have downloaded demos of several other software programs to check them out, and every one of them has a learning curve, and I'm getting nervous about the time I will need to choose the right one. I don't have any time left!! I did have a nice blessing yesterday, though. I got a call from a woman who hadn't done her taxes since 2007 and was calling because her wages were being garnished to pay her state taxes. So I met with her and did her 2008 and 2009 tax returns (and yes, she paid me for it), and next week I will do 2010 and 2011. So even though I can't do 2012 taxes with this bogus program, at least I can still make a few bucks doing prior year returns. Right now I'm leaning toward Drake, but I'm also looking at TaxAct. It's way cheaper, and seems rather user friendly, but I don't know much about it and haven't seen any posts about it on this forum or other forums. Does anybody know anything about it?

I can't figure out now to print one, but I will take your word for it. This software is a joke, just not a funny one.

Are organizers just not happening or what? I was told on the phone a couple of weeks ago that they are in the works, but if so, I don't know how to create them.

Actually, Liberty Tax offices are all franchises, as far as I know, and the individual owners are free to set the fees as they choose, and then apply any additional discounts once it's all totalled up. They do have default fees, though, which for the most part are through the roof. If a franchise owner left them as is, he/she would probably not see those clients next year. I used TaxWorks through TRX for the last 3 years and I was able to override entries. What I didn't like about the worksheets is that many of them wouldn't show what calculations were happening in the background to arrive at the final figure. I would spend a good deal of time on some returns trying to figure out how they arrived at a certain number because I didn't want to override anything unless I was 100% I was right. Sometimes I would realize that I had just entered a number in the wrong place, which was why the program got a final figure that didn't seem right. So, yes, I agree that the TaxWorks worksheets are confusing, and maybe I think that way because I'm old, too -- lol. Hopefully, TRX will deliver by the deadline and those of us who stuck with it will be glad . . .

Roberts -- What software did you switch to? Are you happy with it? Taxed -- The Drake program I used was a web-based program through a company called World Wide Webtax. I thought I was getting Intellitax, but they did a switcheroo at the last minute, much like what TRX did this year. The program took 30 seconds to generate the return for viewing every time you made a change of any kind. You couldn't "peek" at just one form without waiting the 30 seconds to do so. I know 30 seconds doesn't seem like a lot of time, but it is when there is a client breathing down your neck, espeically when it's an impatient one. The program also didn't calculate some figures properly, and even though I brought these things to their attention many times, they never did make the necessary changes. One of the figures it didn't calculate properly was the taxable amount of a state refund for clients who itemized the prior year and took the state tax deduction. They told me just to call it all taxable, like it didn't matter, but it surely mattered to my clients. The program didn't allow for overrides either, so it took some manipulation on my part to get the program to compute the proper amount of tax liability.

Where are these posts of TaxWorks users that you are talking about?

Oh, my goodness, didn't know about Red Gear's issues. My first year in business (5 years ago) I had a bad experience with Drake and that's how I ended up with TRX. I also used TaxWise one year when I worked for Liberty Tax and I found it rather cumbersome. Yikes!! I'm starting to think there's no good alternative.

Good point. There are much bigger issues than invoicing. Doug probably believes that the software will be ready, but nobody really knows for sure and if it isn't ready, we are all in deep doodoo.

Hi, just wondering if anybody on this forum was using the TaxWorks program through TRX and decided to bail out of the new TaxExact and purchase TaxWorks directly from Red Gear. I'm seriously considering doing that, mostly in light of the facts that time is running out and so much of the TaxExact program is not working right. It's an unexpected expense, but it may be what I have to do if I'm going to have a workable tax business by January 30th when IRS starts accepting returns. If I'm not able to file returns by then, I will lose a lot of clients. So, if anyone has purchased TaxWorks from Red Gear, please let me know how it's going. Thanks! Linda

Well, in my proformaed returns, charges other than for the 1040 itself come through in the peek version of the invoice and also in the total, but for some reason I can't get the charge for my 1040 (or 1040A or 1040EZ) to show up anywhere. On a new return, though, it does show charge for 1040. I'm getting close to bailing out, actually, in light of the fact that this is just one of possibly an infinite number of issues that need resolving.

Not sure what you mean by this. If it's what I think you're saying, I tried it several times on several returns and the price of the 1040 does not show up on the invoice. I got it to work for new returns, just not for proformaed ones. Then I got the same result as you when I tried to print the invoice. That is something they definitely need to fix. I might just set up invoicing in Quickbooks and forget doing it through the program, but then I might just leave this whole nightmare behind and purchase TaxWorks from Redgear this year and in the years to come.

Is anybody having trouble with the preparer fees from the price list on the default invoice actually showing up on the client's invoice? I've tried everything I can think of, including what TRX support is telling me to do, but nothing is working. The last drastic measure was to delete all my clients and then re-proforma them after re-entering the fees on the price list. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Linda