David W Ristau CPA

​For 2015, Fixed Asset Manager is being deleted and its features brought directly back into the program. If you had FAM for 2014, the renewal cost is $ 179. If you didn't have FAM, then cost is $ 279. For 2015 it's called: ATX Enhanced Asset Management Functionality ATX Enhanced Asset Management Functionality

I'm renewing for 2015 and also including the new version of Fixed Asset Manager in my renewal. I also paid the $ 150 fee for unlimited payroll processing efiling that is not shown on the renewal form. I believe ATX erred in not fully disclosing the change in payroll efiling fees in all of the renewal literature I was emailed. I also believed it erred in not disclosing the $ 150 prepaid cap fee in lieu of $ 1.50 per return set efiled. And we all make misteaks [mistakes] that we wish we hadn't made. Bottom line for me is that overall cost of all the features I receive are still the best value for my business and clients.

​ @ cbslee: When you copy and paste my posts, please do me the courtesy of including the source of the post. I just signed in here and was going to post it here as well. Thank you, David Ristau CPA

Solutions I have used this year: For correction, I made a copy of the original filing and renamed as "original" and set aside for posterity. This has the original numbers without efile data. Going back to original, I corrected whatever needed to corrected and then efiled the return. ATX processed the corrected filing. For additional 1099s after efiling the first set (clients are great at "forgetting" someone and then calling after the returns were efiled). Here you create a new client file as if you had not ever sent the first filing. ATX will not allow you to add people and treat them as corrections to the first filing. So, after creating new client file and then efiling the new file, the additional 1099s are also efiled. It's April 1. I thought efiling ended on March 31. Did I miss something?

I forgot to mention that if the added wording doesn't work in the printing routine, the saved wording in the "short version" template you created is the wording of the letter before customizing so you could delete the contents of the edited Federal letter and paste in the wording from the saved "short version" original.

My first SSD was a 500GB Samsung. My next SSD will be 1 TB. In my next computer purchase there will be no spinner drives. Amazing how the SSD increased the processing capability of my laptop...

There was a post on ATX board regarding how to print a 2nd copy of the engagement letter when printing the 2013 organizer. A respondent suggested simply copying the letter in its entirety, add a page break and then paste the original engagement letter to the letter. I never did locate a page break button or command in the edit routine, so I simply hit the enter key and added lines until the letter printed on 2 pages. I share this as a possible answer for you to consider: Save the current version of your Federal letter as a customized template labeled "short version" Edit the Federal letter master form by copying and pasting all those customized letters and forms to the Federal letter as additional pages. This will force the program to print out the customized letters and forms for every client. To a smaller extent I've used this approach to enter the Privacy Policy wording I want included in my letters. It was easier to me than trying t edit the Policy paragraph verbiage in the ATX template....

Claire, FWIW I copied and pasted your emails into an email to my ATX service rep, copying his manager, and thanked him for not addressing my needs as you received ATX, with an added comment: "Yep, IMO there are still a few kinks to be worked out on customer service responses…….." I try to believe that by and large people in customer service at any company are there to help customers. And I also believe we all have good days and not so good days. And then there are the responses that just don't make any sense......

Prayers for your wife and you, Naveen. Drake is an unknown to me, so I'm adding them to my prayer for you: full refund.

I laughed and laughed at this post and I hope NECPA did too. SIL seems to me to be unhappy with her own life and finds great solace in trying to control others' lives in lieu of her own unhappiness. I love the flag up. Have you thought of telling all the other clients to put the flag down when they drop something off? That might further confuse SIL.....

David, I'm not sure what the dance is for you for 2013 and 2012 for amended returns. To test 2013 form access, I just now disconnected my computer from the internet and closed all the preliminary message boxes until I landed in Return Manager. I then opened a return and clicked "amend return" and the program generated the original return plus 1040-X and state amended form. I presume if I spent the time I'd get the same response for 2012. For 2011 and all prior years, it's been a non-issue. So, friend, my advice is disconnect your internet or network cable or turn off your wireless connection and have at it. Print the amended forms as ATX PDFs, then reconnect yourself to your network and print out the PDFs. Problem solved for you by trying this approach?

As of 01-17-2015 there's been no final response from Drake Software. AND There are 300 organizers in the mail with the Drake copyright in place front page before the regular organizer from our office out in mail today. While I can appreciate getting permission to use a blank form, I believe 5 days was long enough for Drake to send me an email yay or nay. Copyright is in place on each blank form. For me the issue is closed for 2014 organizers containing a questionnaire page being mailed. I can only hope that for 2015 CCH/ATX puts money and programmer time to write their own ACA page, OR borrow one from sister CCH company ProSystems which ATX user LML posted on the ATX community website. Link is here for ATX people reading this: https://community.atxinc.com/forums/permalink/196085/196636/ShowThread.aspx#196636 At least ProSystems gave their users an option to include/exclude and reasons about it. Why nobody at ATX programming or marketing thought to ask to borrow the CCH/ ProSystems form, or at least disclose on the community page that permission had been denied is a mystery to me. Perhaps it's a function of corporate politics, and being a one preparer office I don't have such politics. After thinking on it some more, I now believe that the reason why ATX organizer didn't include 2014 ACA question page is a lack of dollars spent on something management deemed not having enough importance to its 40,000 (claimed) customer base. And smaller company Drake found the money to do it right and put in a whole page. Forward thinking, Drake. Thank you. Kudos to Drake and better thinking next time CCH/ATX.

Sounds to me as if the employee is covered by a municipal retirement plan. Such an item exists in Illinois for certain workers and teachers. More inquiry in the situation to client and client to employer. IMO

Thank you for the info, jklcpa

To jklcpa: Latest reply from Drake software support at 8:55 PM CST 01-13-2015: "Thank you for contacting Drake Software Support. I have passed on your request to the appropriate sources and am awaiting a response. Thank you for your continued patience."

As of today, I know of no further updates to the 2014 organizer being sent to current subscribers by CCH/ATX. Up to now, I've been in dialogue with one of their troubleshooters over the mailing slip remaining in the organizer packet despite unchecking all known boxes to remove it, however, I've not heard from him since last Friday. There's also a known issue of additional blank pages being generated and installed in the organizer while printing. And, occasionally, the program generates the short version of the organizer rather than the detailed organizer even though he box to force detailed organizer is checked. So, as long as David has downloaded the latest version of the 2013 program, or used the link found on other threads for prior years to download the zipped version he should be able to print 2014 organizers from the 2013 program.

Thank you to the multiple posters on this thread and JKLCPA for pinning this thread in the forum. New law, new filing requirements, new skills.

Yep!

Please pardon my ignorance, however, I don't recall submitting fingerprints when I applied for my Illinois office EFIN. I'm considering applying for a second EFIN for my office in Hawaii. Currently all returns are technically submitted from IL office, even those I prepare while at my Hawaii office. Any suggestions or leads on guidance on two office EFIN is appreciated. I'd like to avoid the issues faced by initial poster on this thread.

I, too, have sent an email to Drake regarding their form. I addressed the email to both support and sales at Drake. As of this writing I've received a what appears to be a computer generated reply from Drake software support assigning a "ticket number" and commitment for an agent to respond as soon as possible. Here is the content of my email to Drake: "Hello Drake Support and Sales, Let me start by stating I am not a current Drake program subscriber. I use CCH/ATX and have done so for over 13 years. You don’t currently support payroll tax return preparation and that is a significant part of my practice and why I am not a Drake subscriber. This past Saturday I attended a tax seminar that included a copy of your sample page from your 2014 organizer that demonstrated the ACA questions your subscribers are asking their clients to provide to their preparer. Unfortunately for me, CCH/ATX placed only 2 sentences in the general area of their organizer and I believe it is woefully short of the requirements taxpayers need to provide to properly prepare a tax return. Attached is a PDF I made from a scan of the sample page that I received. You’ll see I have made it a page I can print and send to each of my clients for them to fill and return to me. Please note that I have kept the Drake copyright statement and page number intact on the page. I send out 300 organizers and typically receive back about 100 or so each year. I believe that up to 50% of my clients may be required to answer the ACA questions in detail as shown on your organizer page. May I have your permission to include this blank form with the organizers I am sending to my clients? Your help and cooperation is greatly appreciated. Sincerely," David W. Ristau CPA KC, yes I remember when you opened this forum and I remember joining shortly thereafter. FWIW, I tend to not spend a lot of time on official or unofficial forums, since as a 1 man shop time does seem to get short during tax season, particularly when software vendors such as CCH/ATX seem to forget what it's like to actually prepare a return and meet face to face with clients. I had thought that after the 2012 debacle CCH/ATX had learned from the mistake of selling an alpha and beta stage product as being finished. I served as one of their beta testers for 2013 and again for 2014 software. IMO, as long as the focus of tax preparation software remains on the best product to service a client, both preparers and the public benefit. When cost-cutting and cutting corners take precedence in order to improve the bottom line, preparers and the public suffer. I can't answer why CCH/ATX chose to limit the organizer questions for ACA to only 2 sentences. Nor is it really my responsibility to do so. It is, however, my responsibility to seek out solutions for my clients. In this case, Drake has a solution to a need my clients face: providing me with information to prepare a complete tax return. I'm not interested in plagiarizing Drake's form and I have not ever claimed their work as my own. Their copyright and form number remain on the page I prepared from their sample page. Drake includes their ACA organizer sample page on their own website. I believe the email I sent to Drake is a reasonable request. We shall see.... FWIW, CCH/ATX response has been to deny me access to their community board over the matter. Typical corporate response, IMO, to shoot the messenger rather than correct the issue or solve the problem. So, perhaps Jackal in Ohio was correct about CCH/ATX not caring. I'll return to post Drake's reply to me when it lands in my in-box. In the meantime, I'll be going back to monitoring this forum with minimal input. David W Ristau

Well, JKLCPA, it seems you're wrong about 2014 Drake organizer availability on the internet. When I entered "Drake software 2014 organizer" just now into Google search bar, the second item in the Google list is this link direct to Drake's website: http://support.drakesoftware.com/PDF/practice/Practice7.pdf The 6th page of the PDF is a sample of ficticious name "Neal Geadelli" Health Care Coverage Questionnaire. The sample printed page I received at the seminar had a different sample name that I deleted from my scan using PaperPort editing tools. So, it seems, to me at least, that there is a posting, on the internet, on Drake's public website, of a sample of their 2014 tax organizer readily available to anyone that has access to Google or other search engine. Is Google violating Drake's copyright by listing the PDF? I don't know the answer to that one. I'm a CPA, not a lawyer.....

to David: For years 2002 through 2006 there isn't a preference setting for automatic form update when the program opens. For years 2007 through 2009 go to Return Manager and click the "Updates" icon or , "Preferences", "Form Updates" and then be sure box labeled "All Forms" is unchecked then click "Apply" and "close". If you choose the updates icon from the toolbar, choose the box "Preferences" and then uncheck the "All Forms" box, then "apply", then "close". When you restart the program, the forms routine should not start. For years 2010 and 2011, you can follow the same steps for the forms, however, my experience is it doesn't stop the program from checking for program updates. Since 2011 is still open for amendments you may want to keep the 2011 forms update active until next year. 2012, 2013 and 2014 programs have boxes in Preferences, Updates tab to uncheck both Program updates and Form updates to keep the program from updating both program and forms. Hope this helps.

Congratulations on passing the EA exam. Welcome to the world of complete Circular 230 supervision.

I'm sure you can call Chris or Drake and ask them...

JKL and Jackal from Ohio: I don't need to defend my software choice to either of you. I thought this was a forum of ATX users and apparently I was mistaken since both of you seem to be Drake software advocates and/or subscribers. To JKL: I've seen the input screens for both Drake and ATX for the ACA forms. To me it's a toss-up and matter of preference once either is mastered by preparing a few returns in familiar software. With the organizer issue though, there's no doubt in my mind that Drake beat ATX/CCH hands down this year on providing their software subscribers with a better page for the organizer. I'm not sharing the entire Drake organizer, nor have I any intention to do so, even if I had a copy. I did, though share a page that was originally provided to me. I don't know if the Drake ACA organizer page is available on the internet as of today. However, in my past dealings with Drake I've found them to be courteous and helpful with sharing resources to preparers to better serve clients, without challenging as to what current preparation software is in place.. I've added the page to my own organizer packets I am sending to each of my clients. Bottom line is that there is much confusion in the general public regarding ACA and the reporting tax return requirements for 2014 and I believe it is best to offer as much guidance as possible. To Jackal from Ohio: Pray tell what is the place of this forum named "ATX Community" if it isn't a place for ATX/CCH users to share their experiences and suggestions of ATX software????? If I'm wasting my time, as you state as a fact of my experience with CCH/ATX, so be it. However, your judgment doesn't negate my own experience with CCH/ATX and their implementation of several of my suggestions in the past few years. So it seems that my experience is that CCH listens to my input and your experience is that CCH doesn't listen to your suggestions. Buy Drake and stop complaining? That's real constructive, isn't it Jackal? Is that your way of telling me to sit down and shut up? CCH/ATX doesn't babysit my business, nor have I asked or expected them to do so. I do have what I believe to be a reasonable expectation that the CCH/ATX organizer should contain more than 2 short sentences in the general comments section for the ACA required information needed for preparing this year and future years tax returns. I also believe that if I find that a competitor includes a better request for documents than my vendor does that I should be able to voice that comparison to my vendor and expect an answer. For me Drake wins on the 2014 ACA organizer issue, however, it falls short for me in other areas of preparation that ATX continues to serve my tax practice better. And your advice to me is to shut up? Or pay an additional $ 1,000 to buy one page that works better than what I use? Really? Thanks, but no thanks, Jackal.....